NEW DELHI: The Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) in its report— India’s Tiger Reserves: Tribals Get Out, Tourists Welcome— has stated that at least, 5,50,000 Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwellers are to be displaced by India’s much-vaunted Project Tiger.
The report was released on Monday on the occasion of the International Tiger Day.
These include 2, 54,794 persons from 50 tiger reserves notified in 2017 and at least 290,000 persons from 6 (six) tiger reserves notified after 2021.
Highlighting the case of the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve in Assam, the report stated that Assam’s Forest Department in a report of 2014 claimed that hundreds of alleged poachers were shot dead in encounters over the years but not a single forest staffer had been killed in an encounter between 1985 and June 2014, thereby raising suspicions about the encounters.
The report also highlighted the indictment by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for non-compliance with the Forest Rights Act regarding the non-displacement of the STs and other forest dwellers without consent and uncontrolled commercial, eco-tourism and linear project activities in the Tiger Reserves after displacing tribals.
“While 2, 54,794 persons were identified for relocation from 50 Tiger Reserves from 1973 to 2021, over 2,90,000 persons are slated to be displaced from six tiger reserves created from 2021. It means that whopping 967% increase in displacement per Tiger Reserve after 2021,” said Suhas Chakma, Asia Campaign Manager on Indigenous Peoples Affected by Protected Areas and Other Conservation Measures, University of Arizona and co-author of the report.
Over 2,90,0000 persons that are expected to be displaced are about 4,000 people from the Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu (2021); 4,400 persons from the Ramgarh Vishdhari Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan (2022); 45,000 persons from the Ranipur Tiger Reserve, Uttar Pradesh (2022); 72,772 persons from the Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary under Durgavati Tiger reserve, Madhya Pradesh (2023); 4,000 persons from the Dholpur-Karauli Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan (2023), and 160,000 persons from the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan (2023).
“The notification of an area as a Tiger Reserve has become the means for displacement. No tigers were found in five Tiger Reserves namely Sahyadri Tiger Reserve (Maharashtra), Satkosia Tiger Reserve (Odisha), Kamlang Tiger Reserve (Arunachal Pradesh), Kawal Tiger Reserve (Telangana) and Dampa Tiger Reserve (Mizoram). But a total of 5,670 tribal families were displaced from these five TRs,” Chakma said.
The report highlighted forced evictions through massive human rights violations.
“The State government and authorities stop all sorts of development programs in order to force the victims to accept what is euphemistically called voluntary relocation. The victims also face gross civil and political human rights violations including extra-judicial killings, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, threats and intimidation for opposing or resisting evictions in or near the tiger reserve,” the report stated.
The report also highlighted the non-compliance with the free, prior and informed consent and rehabilitation of the affected persons from the tiger reserves found by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) after audit in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Kerala, and Maharashtra.
The process of turning the Tiger Reserves into a tourism industry is all set to intensify and India enacted the Forest Conservation Amendment Act, 2023 to exempt “establishment of zoo and safaris and eco-tourism facilities” from the Forest Conservation Act.
The report further stated that in Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve (Karnataka) where the Soliga tribals have been allowed to co-exist with the tigers, the number of tigers almost doubled from 35 to 68 between 2010 and 2014.
