Who owns the forests: In Odisha’s Nabarangpur district, a row over a 9-acre patch of forest ended in two deaths

The tribals of three hamlets, including Baunsabeda, that are part of Telagaon revenue village in Umerkote, were agitated over Das allegedly encroaching on and ploughing a nine-acre patch of barren forest land that was to be converted into a reserve forest. Though Das and his brother owned 25 acres in Baunsabeda, he eyed the nine-acre patch and that annoyed the Bhatra tribals, the majority community in the hamlet. Things came to a head on the morning of July 16 when Das and his men allegedly uprooted several saplings of acacia and eucalyptus, which the tribals had planted a day earlier to turn the nine-acre government land into a reserve forest. The tribals called a meeting and sent Phagunu and Gurubaru to summon Das. But when the two reached Das’s home, he allegedly stabbed them, following which tribals burned down his house and lynched him.

Nabarangpur SP Sudhansu Mishra said so far six people, including Debisingh Majhi, the Umerkote block representative of BJD MP Balabhadra Majhi, have been arrested over the twin murders. “We are soon going to arrest more people,” he said.

The Baunsabeda incident had been brewing for a while. A year ago, Das took a tractor to plough the land and a clash with the tribals was averted only when local officials intervened and seized the vehicle. Earlier this month, the local revenue inspector and tehsildar visited the area and instructed both sides to neither plant any saplings nor plough the land.

As an uneasy calm hangs over Baunsabeda hamlet, officials in the district fear they will have to handle more such cases. Though the last such violence was in November 2001, when a tribal uprising against alleged Bangladeshi settlers in Raighar block led to the death of five tribals in police firing, in recent years, tension has been building up over forest land in blocks such as Umerkote, Raighar and Jharigaon.

The disputed 9-acre plot. Phagunu Bhatra’s burial site is seen. (Source: Express photo by Debabrata Mohanty)

Many of these disputes can be traced to the Forest Right Act, which came into effect in 2006. The Act gave tribals the right to claim forest land up to 4 hectares as common land or homesteads, which they could either cultivate or use for forest produce. Nabarangpur has so far settled around 38,000 claims of tribals under the Act, with each tribal getting an average of 1,750 sq ft of forest land converted to homestead land. With the forest land in Nabarangpur mostly flat, more and more tribals are opting to cultivate it — and that’s the source of many of these clashes.

“The fight over who gets to hold forestland is becoming a major headache. In most of the villages in these blocks, the fight is between those who want to plough and those who want to collect timber and other forest produce from the land,” admitted district collector Rashmita Panda.

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In last few years, at least 18 cases have been registered in police stations of the district, with Raighar block alone accounting for eight cases. “The tribals’ way of life is intrinsically linked to forests. It’s natural that they would assert their rights,” said Manorama Majhi, a tribal expert of Nabarangpur.

Mahuli, a village in Umerkote block, and three nearby hamlets — Nuaguda, Nagardongri and Dharuaguda — are locked in a dispute over forests rights over a 100-acre patch of revenue forest. The 100-acre patch has a luxuriant growth of trees such as sal. “The issue was who gets to collect timber and firewood,” said Paraja tribal Soma Jani.

As the conflict threatened to blow up, in April, forest, revenue and police officials brought together people of the three hamlets and Mahuli village to work out a solution. A solution was brokered, but not before some anxious moments. “When the meeting began, I thought I would not get out of the area alive. People were not ready to listen,” said Umerkote tehsildar Tarani Sen.

Police officers in Umerkote say such clashes over forest land take up most of their time though they are not equipped to handle it. “The forest and revenue departments have all the land records, but people come to us. We get unnecessarily drawn into the battle,” said Umerkote police station inspector B K Senapati.

“Nabarangpur has no major or minor industries and agriculture remains the only livelihood option. So reserve forests and protected forests of the district are being encroached upon now,” said Nabarangpur Divisional Forest Officer Swayam Mallick. According to land records, 7 per cent of reserve and protected forest area is under encroachment. Officials said between 2012 and 2015, the district saw a reduction of 17 sq km of forest area due to encroachment. Twenty three per cent of the district’s geographical area is under forest cover, but that is shrinking.

FRA activists say though Odisha claims to be have distributed more forest rights titles than any other state, much of the distribution has been done without “ground verification”. “Besides, though there are several non-tribals who have lived on forest land for generations and who can, therefore, stake a claim to the land under the Act. But many of them can’t get the land transferred in their names because they have to prove that they have lived there for 75 years. These non-tribals, called Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, have no documentary evidence and are kept out of their land. This leads to serious conflicts between communities,” said Gopinath Majhi, convenor of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, an NGO working on Forest Rights Act.