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18 September 2024

Displacing Tribals For Tigers – OpEd

Amarendra Kishore

The Adivasis of the Kaimur Hills in Bihar are engulfed in turmoil, their fears mounting as they face the threat of displacement under the pretext of establishing a tiger reserve. Their protest is a desperate cry against what they see as an impending eviction from their ancestral lands.

These Adivasis, deeply connected to their natural resources, view violence as futile in achieving their democratic rights. With 108 tribal villages living in constant anxiety over potential displacement, many are resorting to a boycott of the upcoming Assembly elections to voice their dissent against the proposed tiger reserve in the Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary. These villagers, whose ties to the forest date back to centuries ago, fear the displacement of around one lakh indigenous people from their home and hearth, highlighting their urgent struggle for survival and identity. Villagers and forest rights activists are demanding a complete rollback of the proposed tiger reserve– the forest dwellers in the area refer to the proposed tiger reserve as an “attempt to seize their forest land.”

The doubts and fears are not unfounded—the Adivasis in Kaimur hills are speaking out. They have already lost a huge portion of land in the Durgawati and Haraiya dams. When these two dams were constructed, the forest department was given around 5,000 hectares in this forest. It severely impacted their dwellings. They repeatedly sense that under the guise of development, there is a deliberate and calculated effort to displace them from their ancestral lands. It has become a subject of mockery to talk about the presence of tigers in this part of the Kaimur hills. Here, spotting a fox, jackal, or mongoose is considered a significant event.

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