Why the Jenu Kuruba Reclamation of Nagarahole Raises Basic Questions

The monsoon rain hammered the black tarpaulin cover the place 40 Jenu Kuruba, a Significantly Weak Tribal Group who’re traditionally honey gatherers (jenu means honey in Kannada), huddled towards the coolness of their newly shaped hamlet within the foothills of the Western Ghats. When Frontline visited them in late Might, it was precisely 24 days after the group had arrange camp simply contained in the boundary of Nagarahole Nationwide Park, a 643 sq. km. tiger reserve that spans Mysuru and Kodagu districts of Karnataka.

This yr, the rains had arrived early, turning the forest right into a medley of greens. Beneath the cover, smoke from a smouldering fireplace curled into the damp air, lulling kids into drowsiness as they sprawled on their moms’ laps or traced the rainwater’s path downhill to a pond that lay in the best way to the dense forest past.

As his fellow tribespeople dozed, Shivu Jenukuruba Appu sat upright, his ponytail framing an intense face. The 29-year-old extracted paperwork from triple-wrapped plastic baggage, scrutinising every web page within the fading mild earlier than passing them to me with explanations. The hamlet—two canopies and a few scattered huts—is perhaps simply weeks previous, however perusing the paper path and listening to the oral accounts of the individuals made it clear that they believed that the ties binding them to this patch of forest land that that they had “reclaimed” have been historic.

Their tackle, in accordance with Shivu’s paperwork, reads as Karadi Kallu Attur Kolli Haadi (Karadi Kallu interprets to Bear Rock), situated in Okay. Baadaga panchayat (village council space) of Ponnampet taluk (administrative subdivision) in Kodagu district. The haadi or hamlet is situated a couple of kilometres from the forest check-post of Nagarahole, the place the street weaves its method to the city of Kutta. To succeed in the hamlet, guests should shuffle throughout a slim plank that bridges a deep Elephant Proof Trench, meant to stop elephants from leaving the reserve.

Additionally Learn | Centre denies receiving objections from tribal communities on Nice Nicobar Mission

It was on Might 5, after providing prayers to their supreme deity, Baraguru Raashe Jaadala Devaru, and receiving ancestral indicators, that 150 Jenu Kuruba entered the forest. As they erected bamboo stakes to carry up their tarpaulin sheets, Karnataka Forest Division (KFD) officers descended on them. “The operation continued until Might 6, when the Tahsildar (income official), the police, and KFD guards tried to forcefully evict us, destroying two shelters. Journalists and attorneys have been barred from the hamlet that day,” Shivu stated.

Based on Shivu, years of delay in granting entry underneath the Scheduled Tribes and Different Conventional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006—a laws that recognises tribal land claims—had compelled the neighborhood to occupy the land they declare as theirs. On Might 12, the matter was escalated to the native MLA (Member of Legislative Meeting), A.S. Ponnanna, and after a gathering attended by the Jenu Kuruba and district officers, a fragile détente emerged, and regardless of KFD eviction notices, the Jenu Kuruba stay encamped.

Thimma J.Okay., president of the Nagarahole Adivasi Jemma Paale Hakku Sthaapana Samithi (Group for the Land Rights of Adivasis in Nagarahole), and an elder among the many 1,000-odd households nonetheless residing inside the nationwide park, recollects a second within the Nineteen Seventies when the Wildlife Safety Act (WPA) had simply been handed.  “There was a Vary Forest Officer known as Okay. M. Chinnappa in Nagarahole in these days who violently ejected us from our haadis contained in the forests. Elephants have been introduced in to batter down our huts. With that, we misplaced the hyperlinks to our land (jemma) and have been orphaned. Once I recall that merciless interval, tears come to my eyes.”

This harsh portrait of Chinnappa is in stark distinction to his legendary standing inside Karnataka’s conservation neighborhood. The forest official, who died final yr, is widely known for shielding Nagarahole’s various fauna because it transitioned from sanctuary to nationwide park to tiger reserve. And in his contrasting standing lies the crux of the difficulty.

Historical past of evictions

The evictions that started within the Nineteen Seventies continued for 20 years. Shivu’s household was compelled from Karadi Kallu in 1985-86. Sushila, an aged Jenu Kuruba, stated she was born within the hamlet and was evicted a long time in the past. No different housing or rehabilitation adopted their displacement, a reality confirmed by the 2014 Karnataka Excessive Court docket committee report headed by Professor Muzaffar Assadi, which discovered that settlement makes an attempt started solely in 1999, leaving a ”majority of tribes… out within the lurch or wilderness”. The Assadi report documented 3,418 households displaced from the nationwide park. In addition to Jenu Kuruba, different tribal teams—Betta Kuruba, Yerava, Paniya, and Soliga (often known as Iruligar)—have been additionally ousted.

Shivu’s household discovered work on the espresso plantations alongside Nagarahole’s boundary with Kodagu district. Shivu and his associates grew up in line homes, lodging blocks constructed for property labourers. The Jenu Kuruba described this work as “exploitative”, some even utilizing the phrase “bonded labour”.

In 1997, when Shivu was an toddler, Nagarahole’s tribal teams efficiently agitated towards a five-star resort deliberate by the Taj Inns group within the coronary heart of the park.

The following yr, the federal government launched rehabilitation packages, providing as much as Rs 1 lakh per household that selected to exit the forest. The inducement rose to Rs 10 lakh in 2007-08, then to Rs 15 lakh in 2021. However a lot of the displacements preceded these packages, leaving traditionally displaced households like Shivu’s with none advantages.

As a toddler, Shivu would go to Karadi Kallu’s vacant website on pageant days, praying within the open holy house that adjoined their present hamlet. When the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was handed, consciousness of the claims of tribal communities to ancestral forest lands trickled right down to the Jenu Kuruba.

In 2010, the Karadi Kallu group filed its first FRA software—44 particular person purposes plus neighborhood forest rights claims. Particular person rights grant as much as 4 acres per household for habitation or cultivation; neighborhood rights enable Minor Forest Produce assortment, akin to gathering honey, herbs, and different forest produce for livelihood. FRA sections additionally circumvent the Wildlife Safety Act, permitting services like faculties and electrical energy inside protected forest land.

Due to low consciousness ranges, no copies of their first software survive. Shivu recalled {that a} 2013 joint survey for land identification was stymied by the Forest Division. A number of departments—Forest, Tribal Welfare, Income, and Panchayat Raj (native governance)—should collectively facilitate FRA purposes, making a multi-departmental morass.

It was in 2016 that Shivu grasped the FRA’s significance: “The FRA offers us rights which tackle the historic injustices carried out to forest tribals, and I started to suppose why I ought to labour for others when I’ve this Constitutional assure.” The group reapplied. “A survey was carried out on the time, however no intimation was given to us, so when the officers got here, there was nobody right here,” Shivu stated.

A Forest Rights Committee was constituted in Karadi Kallu in 2021, and the gram sabha (village meeting) proceedings reiterated the calls for for particular person and neighborhood forest rights. In January 2022, a Sub-Divisional Degree Committee (SDLC) assembly re-verified and rejected their purposes, stating that they lacked proof of historic ties, regardless of “witness statements from neighborhood elders, village markers, details about cemetery and temple websites, and the Assadi report”, stated Shivu. The Assadi report was essential as a result of it really helpful “efficient implementation” of the FRA as a result of “growth deficit” among the many displaced tribal individuals.

Protesting for rights

In 2023, the group protested for 13 days on the Nagarahole Vary Forest Workplace and went on a padayatra. This meant being absent from their espresso property jobs, and it led to their dismissal. The neighborhood at the moment lived within the neighbouring Naanachi Gadde hamlet.

An October 2024 joint survey to reverify their purposes—52 complete, together with eight new ones—proved unsuccessful. “What number of days can we reside in another person’s hamlet? We waited for 2 years, hoping that we’d be granted entry to our land and when this didn’t occur, we reclaimed Karadi Kallu on Might 5 this yr after intimating the DLC [District Level Committee] and SDLC officers,” Shivu declared.

The Karnataka Forest Division challenges their narrative. A Might 17 “factual standing report” by the Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) has deemed the occupation “unlawful,” making two key factors: that the claims have been “beforehand rejected in 2011 by DLC and once more in 2022 by SDLC,” and that “Attur Kolli Tribal Hamlet doesn’t exist on the bottom; it has been created solely on data for illegitimately claiming forest rights.”

The report contradicts the Jenu Kuruba narrative on a number of factors: Karadi Kallu lies “inside a personal espresso property,” not forest space; no data exist “of habitation, cultivation, and eviction of any tribal individuals from Attur Kolli forest space,” as supported by satellite tv for pc imagery between 1985 and 2025 and decades-old authorities data; and the Supreme Court docket ordered Karnataka to take care of establishment relating to vital tiger reserve areas till July 23, 2025, within the B. Okay. Singh writ petition filed by a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests.

Subhash Okay. Malkhede, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden—Karnataka’s high forest official—advised Frontline: “The principles of the FRA are clear; the state of affairs on the day [December 13] in 2005 when the Act got here into impact could be carried out. Have been they [the Jenu Kuruba of Karadi Kallu] cultivating land? There are not any data to show this. That is an unlawful occupation and never appropriate. Forest-dwelling tribal persons are harmless individuals, and somebody is instigating them.” Police complaints have been filed on Might 7 towards 5 individuals “for instigating the tribal individuals and disrupting peace”.

Past the bureaucratic trivia surrounding Karadi Kallu’s unresolved standing lies a elementary query: Is there an inherent contradiction between forest-dwelling tribal peoples’ rights and conservation points? Who owns the forest? The reply is advanced.

The Jenu Kuruba discuss of an historic symbiosis between themselves and the forest, their existence deriving which means from the profound connections with their haadis, which they are saying are as previous because the hills. Every tree and locale inside the jemma (conventional territory) carries sacred connotations. One stated: “We all know every tree on which bees assemble hives. We all know the motion of elephants and tigers. A number of days in the past, a lone makhna [tuskless male elephant] got here to Karadi Kallu. He stood in entrance of our deity, raised his trunk, after which sauntered away. No hurt got here to any of us though man-animal battle rages on the periphery of Nagarahole. We are able to lead a correct life right here; we really feel misplaced outdoors the forest.”

The FRA sanctifies this relationship, though activists level to Karnataka’s shoddy implementation of the Act. Ministry of Tribal Affairs knowledge exhibits solely 5 per cent of particular person forest rights purposes granted in Karnataka as of April 1, which is 14,981 of two,88,549 purposes. Activists additionally present worldwide analysis with arguments contending that “deforestation charges are considerably decrease the place indigenous communities had safe land rights”. Organisations akin to Group Networks In opposition to Protected Areas and Survival Worldwide have supported the Karadi Kallu Jenu Kurubas’ wrestle.

Sreekant S., Director of Growth By way of Training (DEED), a Hunsur-based NGO working amongst Nagarahole tribal individuals since 1980, is an assertive advocate of this place. He calls for that the forested space on the Karnataka-Kerala-Tamil Nadu trijunction be declared a Fifth Scheduled Space underneath Constitutional Articles 244(1) and 371 to guard tribal pursuits. Fifth Schedule Areas obtain particular constitutional safety for tribal self-governance.

“What’s now often known as the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was as soon as upon a time identified by the tribal individuals as Kaatu Naadu [forest country] and all of the land belonged to the tribals. There isn’t any Fifth Schedule Space in southern India, and there are 1,500 tribal villages unfold throughout 9 districts, so why can’t this space be declared a Scheduled Space in order that we will have self-governance via the PESA [Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act]? However we face opposition from all of the lobbies at work right here: the forest division, the wildlife conservationists, the property homeowners, giant farmers, and the tourism trade. The forest division in India is barely 160 years previous, whereas the tribal individuals have lived within the forests for 1000’s of years. They know tips on how to reside by utilising the assets of the forests with out destroying them.”

Pitted towards this romantic sentiment is a legion of conservationists and wildlife scientists who argue that forest conservation requires pristine circumstances with minimal human interference to stop habitat fragmentation. Okay. Ullas Karanth, a wildlife science doyen, who has usually visited Nagarahole since 1967 and performed intensive fieldwork within the tiger reserve there, stated: “The FRA is an unwise Act as a result of it contradicts the WPA. Tribals and wildlife conservation can’t work in the identical place on the identical time. The overall space particularly reserved for wildlife is barely 3 per cent of India’s land. Even this was protected due to the WPA; in any other case, all of the animals would have disappeared.”

Based on Karanth, within the Nineteen Nineties, he and Chinnappa met many Nagarahole tribal individuals and suggested the Karnataka authorities to relocate all these wanting to maneuver. Since then, round 800 households have voluntarily relocated simply outdoors Nagarahole utilizing authorities incentive packages.

Additionally Learn | When inexperienced turns grasping

Karanth added: “Many households moved out, however a bit of them wished no intervention and stated that they might shield the forest. That may be a naïve, unrealistic thought. Are they [the tribal people of Nagarahole] residing in the midst of the Amazon forest or on Sentinel Island? Can they reside within the forest with out schooling or electrical energy and with out extracting assets from the forest? Are they okay being attacked by elephants and tigers? Even the Jenu Kurubas promote their honey outdoors.” 

Karanth dismissed the concept individuals can reside in a frozen state of time inside forests. “Even tribal individuals who reside contained in the forest aspire for a greater life, education, and facilities. If all that is constructed, it might result in the destruction of even this 3 per cent of forest land.”

The two extensively divergent viewpoints reveal that the rights of forest-dwellers as envisaged by the FRA and the issues of wildlife conservationists about wildlife and habitat are nonetheless removed from settled. 

Again in Karadi Kallu, the distinction exhibits up vividly on two panels displayed outdoors the hamlet: a brand new Forest Division board tersely designates the Jenu Kuruba as “trespassers”, whereas a more moderen board boldly proclaims, “Our forests, our lands, our rule”.