Villagers alleged that the Forest Department continues to pressurise them to leave even after securing community forest rights, but they now stand united under their Gram Sabhas.

Mungeli, Chhattisgarh: Every morning, Prabhu Singh Baiga (55) walks the narrow embankment between his paddy field and the forest edge in Ataria village, inside Chhattisgarh’s Achanakmar Tiger Reserve.

This forest, he told 101Reporters, is like a parent. “It feeds us, heals us, and teaches us to live.”

Unlike most farmers who worry about the coming harvest, Prabhu Singh fears something else entirely — being displaced without warning. 

For years, the Forest Department has pressed families like his to leave the reserve in the name of conservation. But the Baigas of Ataria and 12 other villages have resisted.

Five of these 13 villages secured community forest rights in 2022, and three others have completed their application process, local activists said.

They have organised through their Gram Sabhas, asserting that under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), it is they and not the forest officials who are legally empowered to protect and manage the forests. 

Enacted in 2006, the FRA recognises the traditional rights of forest-dwelling communities to inhabit, manage and protect forest lands. 

A key provision under the law — community forest resource rights — empowers Gram Sabhas to govern forests within their customary boundaries and prevent displacement without their consent. In effect, it shifts forest governance from officials to local assemblies.

Their collective voice grew stronger this August, when representatives from all 19 Gram Sabhas gathered in Bamhani, a forest-fringed village at the heart of the reserve.

The meeting followed a rare acknowledgement from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. In a letter dated June 24, the Ministry directed the Forest Department and district administration to support, not obstruct, the Gram Sabhas’ community forest management work. 

Ataria is one of the 19 villages that remain inside the reserve since it was notified in 2009. On March 6 that year, when Achanakmar was declared a tiger reserve, six villages — Kumba, Sambardhasan, Bankal, Jalda, Bahour, and Bokrakachar — were uprooted overnight. The Forest Department claimed they had given “consent”, but residents say it was a forced relocation without notice. A total of 249 families were displaced.

Prabhu Singh, a member of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group Baiga community, explained his fear. 

“Displacement will bring us immense hardship,” he said. “Our forefathers lived and died here; how can we leave this place? No Baiga can imagine life without the forest.”

“But the Forest Department wants to throw us out as if the forest belongs to them. In truth, it is ours. We love it, and its animals, far more than they do. Earlier, we lived deep inside and practised bewar (shifting cultivation). Then they pushed us to the edge, and now they want to drive us away altogether. Can the government just throw us anywhere? Don’t we have any rights?”

At the August meeting, members of the Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti, a collective representing all 19 villages, discussed these very questions. They spoke of how their Community Forest Resource Management Committees (CFRMCs), formed under the Gram Sabhas, are legally responsible for conserving forests, maintaining biodiversity, managing forest produce, and preventing poaching and illegal logging.

By law, the Forest Department is required to support these community-led efforts. But villagers say the department continues to withhold cooperation and instead builds pressure for relocation.

Speaking the language of law

For the residents of Achanakmar, the resistance against the Forest Department has been a long education in rights and governance.

Dilharan Tekam, (28), a member of the Gram Sabha in Bamhni and part of the Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti, said, “In 2009, when the Forest Department forcibly removed six villages that year, people didn’t know about the power of the Gram Sabha…that they cannot be evicted without its consent.”

“When Achanakmar was declared a tiger reserve, the Forest Department banned entry into the forests and began harassing our community in different ways,” he said. “That’s when the Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti was formed. We also began to understand the strength of the Gram Sabha and studied the Forest Rights Act. They thought Baigas only knew the language of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, but now we speak to the administration in the language of law. We have started demanding our constitutional rights.”

For Tekam and others, displacement means not just losing land, but an entire way of life. “If we are displaced, we will lose our Baiga culture and our legacy of coexistence with the forest. Our festivals and rituals are all tied to it; the forest is our god. How can we worship if we are sent away?”

Today, Gram Sabhas in these villages meet at least once a month to plan their strategy against eviction. “The Forest Department keeps conspiring against us by alleging irregularities in our forest management committees or accusing us of violating forest laws,” Tekam alleged. Most of these exchanges take place with the local Director of the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve, the Divisional Forest Officer and the District Collector, he said.

“In 2022, when we applied for community forest rights, the department branded us as Naxal supporters to weaken our demand,” he added. “That’s why all 19 villages are working together carefully and democratically, following laws and procedures.”

Despite five villages — Katami, Bamhani, Mahanmai, Babutola, and Manjoorha — having already secured community forest rights, all 19 continue to face eviction pressure, he claimed. 

On August 20, the Deputy Director’s office of Achanakmar Tiger Reserve issued a letter announcing the formation of a committee to implement relocation.

The department claims that villagers of Chirhatta, Birarpani and Tilaidabra have “agreed” to be relocated, a claim fiercely disputed on the ground. “The so-called consent was taken by misleading illiterate and elderly villagers,” said Ashwani Baiga (26) from Chaparwa village.

According to several Gram Sabha members, the Forest Department never held proper meetings in these villages. Instead, it collected signatures from a few villagers by deception. “These three Gram Sabhas have already applied for community forest rights, so it’s clear that the department obtained signatures without convening a proper meeting,” one member said.

In the first phase, 170 families from these three villages are slated for relocation. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has approved the proposal, and the department claims Gram Sabha consent. But the Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti calls the claim “false and fabricated”. “How can a Gram Sabha that is demanding community forest rights agree to relocation?” the Samiti asked. It now plans to move to court to assert these rights.

Ambiguity in the Right to Return

Environmental lawyer Dr Madhav Lele said the 2006 Forest Rights Act recognises the rights of forest-dwelling communities and mandates their consent before any relocation. “But the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, and its 2006 amendment that created critical tiger habitats, are often used to override these rights,” he explained.

In several tiger reserves, including Achanakmar, core and buffer zones were declared without first settling community claims. “The state must recognise community forest rights before any relocation can even be discussed lawfully,” Lele said.

This legal ambiguity has left Achanakmar’s residents in limbo. For many Baiga families, “voluntary” relocation feels meaningless when the threat of eviction looms constantly.

“Officials tell us that staying here is illegal,” said Sundari Bai (32) from Tilaidabra. “But where will we go? The forest is our home. Our ancestors lived and died here. We can’t just leave because someone in the city decided it’s better for the tigers.”

The absence of clear guidelines for implementing Section 3(1)(m) of the Forest Rights Act — which guarantees the right to return — continues to frustrate displaced communities across India.

In Karnataka’s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, for instance, 52 families of the Jenu Kuruba tribe, displaced over four decades ago, are still fighting to return to their ancestral land. “When we were evicted 40 years ago, our people faced terrible conditions,” said JC Shivu, a member of the tribe. “Many were forced into bonded labour on tea estates and were never paid for their work. Living conditions in the camps were miserable, and we were even denied land for our elders’ last rites.”

The Jenu Kuruba community began organising formally in 2010, invoking the same provision of the Forest Rights Act. “We now hold our Gram Sabha meetings at the same spot where our village once stood inside the reserve,” Shivu said. But without operational guidelines from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, their return remains stalled.

Experts say conflicting conservation laws have steadily weakened the intent of the Forest Rights Act. “Displacement in the name of conservation continues despite the FRA,” said a tribal rights activist in Madhya Pradesh. “Communities that once lived sustainably within forests are now treated as encroachers.”

In many states, relocation packages have failed to provide secure livelihoods. Families are often allotted rocky, infertile plots and inadequate compensation. Chain Singh Baiga and others, for instance, received five acres of barren land and Rs 50,000 each. “For us, returning home would mean regaining dignity and control over our lives,” he said.

Until the government defines how the right to return can be implemented, thousands of displaced families across India will remain where they are, far from the forests that once sustained them, yearning for a home that exists only in memory.

Cover image - A forest outpost inside the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve; Locals complain that the Forest Department bans their entry into the forests and harasses the community in various ways (Photo - Satish Malviya, 101Reporters)