AFTER the Supreme Court’s decision to snatch away all disputed forest lands from adivasis, the Central Government has escalated its campaign to evict adivasis from forests across India.
The government is preparing to bring a new Forest Act by which adivasis can not only be deprived of any kind of land, but the government will also have the legal right to openly shoot adivasis dead. In other words, mass killing of adivasis so far being done by the government under the excuse that they are ‘Maoists’ will now be given a legal and judicial legitimacy.
Given this situation, the adivasis of Taluka Dharampur in Valsad District, Gujarat (a region with a large adivasi population) came out on the streets against the anti-adivasi policies of the Modi and Rupani governments.
A large number of adivasi women, men, youth, and elders under the banner of the CPIML submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister of Gujarat through the SDO Dharampur, strongly demanding the implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006 in its entirety. This is the same government which has made the so-called Kashmiri Pandit rehabilitation issue a major national issue for so many years; and now this same government is about to evict adivasis who are more than a hundred times in number from their ancestral lands, and is hatching this draconian and murderous plan to crush any adivasi who protests. The memorandum demands that all adivasis who have been traditionally living on and cultivating the forest lands of Gujarat’s eastern belt should be given full rights to their lands.
If the government does not revoke the fencing, demarcation lines, pillars, nurseries, and forcible plantations done in fields by the Forest Department, the adivasi population will be forced to recapture the lands that have been snatched away from them, and the repercussions will rest solely on the shoulders of the Modi-Rupani governments.
The rally was led by CPIML Gujarat in-charge Ranjan Ganguly, State Office Secretary Amit Patanwadia, District Secretary Laxman Wadia, Kaprada Taluka Secretary Kamlesh Gurav, Dharampur Taluka Secretary Anand Bhai Barat, CPIML leader from Maharashtra Prakash More, adivasi women leaders Jayantiben Dabharia, Banitaben Baghat, Sumanben Baghat and others.
