A Fact-Finding Report on Forced Evictions, Rehabilitation Betrayals and Fortress Conservation in Nagarhole https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/we-can-live-with-the-tiger-not-the-forest-department/
A joint fact-finding by:
Fridays for Future Karnataka
Philip Kujur, Adivasi Activists’ Forum for Indigenous Peoples, Jharkhand
Subrat Sahu, Documentary Film Maker, New Delhi Sharanya Nayak, Rangmatipadar Commune, Odisha
Abstract: This fact-finding report attempts to bring to light the struggles and challenges of the Adivasi people living inside Nagarhole forests who have been defending their rights by resisting against the violations and violence by National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) Nagarhole Tiger Reserve (NTR) project. Nagarhole has been home since generations to Adivasi peoples like the Jenu Kurubas, Betta Kurubas and Yeravas.
This fact-finding report attempts to bring to light the struggles and challenges of the Adivasi people living inside Nagarhole forests who have been defending their rights by resisting against the violations and violence by National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) Nagarhole Tiger Reserve (NTR) project. Nagarhole has been home since generations to Adivasi peoples like the Jenu Kurubas, Betta Kurubas and Yeravas. Ever since Nagarhole was declared first a wildlife sanctuary in 1955 to when it became an independent critical tiger habitat in 2007, these communities have been criminalised for living inside Nagarhole and have fought against their forced eviction. But this resistance of the last 30 years to retain their homes and rights has been met with violent assaults, death threats, filing of false criminal cases and the destruction of their lands and crops by the forest department and its security forces like special tiger protection force (STPF). But Adivasis of Nagarhole have collectively fought back the Karnataka state forest department’s attempts to evict them in the name of conservation through their organisation, the Budakattu Krishikara Sangha (BKS). The Jenu Kurubas have been the driving force in this long-standing resistance.
In the last three decades, these communities have faced a huge amount of harassment, aimed at silencing their leaders and stopping them from organising themselves for their rights. Some of the members and leaders of BKS have had to live with the spectre of long prison sentences hanging over them. Many community members we spoke to are still attending courts weekly or monthly for getting bail, which incurs a huge cost on the family and puts severe psychological pressure in even demanding their due rights. Despite these ongoing threats and risk to their own safety, community leaders and members have continued to speak out for the rights of the peoples of Nagarhole and beyond.
25/05/2022