Protecting tribal land

Protection of land belonging to the various indigenous tribal communities of Assam has been a very big issue in the past one hundred years or more. Every passing year land belonging to the tribal people is believed to be only shrinking. This is happening because unscrupulous elements have been literally hoodwinking the tribal people and getting their precious land transferred. This these elements have been doing by way of taking advantage of several loopholes in the legal and administrative system, apart from allegedly resorting to unethical practices and influencing a section of the bureaucracy. It is common knowledge that government land, including land covered under reserved forests, national parks, PGRs, VGRs and rivers that constitute the natural course of rivers in the tribal-majority districts have been illegally occupied by various elements across Assam, the most important among them being the suspected illegal migrants of erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh origin. Assam has as many as 312 reserved forests, which cover – on government maps – a total areas of 13,54,467.62 hectares. But then, going by the State Government’s own admission, 3,73,876.95 hectares have been under illegal occupation, while 3,971 hectares are encroached upon in five national parks that have a total area of 1,97,826 hectares. Likewise, 10,037.50 hectares of land belonging to the 18 wildlife sanctuaries covering a total of 1,87,008.1 hectares on the map are also under encroachment. Though the government has not yet come out with figures about how much space or land the rivers of Assam require to flow naturally without any hindrance during the monsoon months, it can be easily understood that there has been massive encroachment on rivers too. The previous Congress government had, instead of removing illegal human settlements from the rivers, had only gone one step extra to provide the encroachers with legal land ownership documents. There are no two opinions on the fact that one hundred per cent of these people occupying sars and sand-bars in the middle of the Brahmaputra and other rivers are illegal migrants. The BJP-AGP-BPF alliance that had come to power in 2016 with the promise of protecting the jaati-maati-bheti of the indigenous people of Assam had shown a lot of enthusiasm in its first year in office. It had indeed cleared over 2,596.22 hectares of forest land from encroachment apart from some land belonging to the Xatra institutions too. But then when it comes to protecting land belonging to the indigenous tribal communities, this government has done practically nothing so far. Yet, chief minister Sonowal, within a couple of months of taking charge in 2016 had clearly stated that taking advantage of their poverty and illiteracy, tribal people have been reduced in their own homeland and illegal migrants have encroached on their lands. He had in September 2016, also iterated that his government was determined to bring the tribal people of the state on a par with other communities. Going by a news item on the front page of this newspaper on Thursday, the Sonowal government is examining introducing stricter rules to protect tribal land. According the report, Dispur is also examining curtailment of certain powers of deputy commissioners, including that of issuing ‘No Objection’ certificates for transfer of land especially belonging to tribal people. Once the new rules are introduced, deputy commissioners will only have to forward any such application to Dispur, where those will be examined and scrutinized by the State Revenue and Disaster Management department. With the Assam Assembly session starting from Friday, the people of Assam – and particularly the tribal communities – will be eagerly looking forward to the highest decision-making and policy-making body of the state to discuss this issue of alienation of tribal land and compel the government to take urgent steps to protect tribal land. The high-powered committee constituted by the Centre for suggesting measures to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord should also examine taking up the issue of protection of tribal land in the state.