Security Camps on Tribal Properties

• 13 Aug 2024

Why in News?

According to a Citizen’s report, most of the security camps in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, post 2019, have been set up on private or community properties of tribals without their consent and in severe violation of existing laws.

Key Points

• The proliferation of paramilitary camps set up without the consent of tribal communities in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, which are meant to facilitate mining operations and corporate interests at the cost of Adivasi lives and constitutional rights.
  • The peaceful democratic protests against the camps have been ignored or suppressed using brutal methods, such as lathi-charge, burning the sites, and firing on the protestors.
• Most of these camps have been set up in areas that currently fall in the conservation or no-mining zone as per the Management Plan for Sustainable Mining 2018.
• The report calls for the implementation of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 and the Forest Rights Act, 2006 to respect the law and end human rights violations.

Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996

• About:
  • The PESA Act was enacted in 1996 “to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution relating to the Panchayats to the Scheduled Areas”.
    • Part IX, comprising Articles 243-243ZT of the Constitution, contains provisions relating to municipalities and cooperative societies.
• Provisions:
  • Under the Act, Scheduled Areas are those referred to in Article 244(1), which says that the provisions of the Fifth Schedule shall apply to the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in states other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram.
  • The Fifth Schedule provides for a range of special provisions for these areas.
  • Ten states — Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Telangana have notified Fifth Schedule areas that cover (partially or fully) several districts in each of these states.

Forest Rights Act, 2006

• The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 was introduced to formally recognise and grant forest rights and occupation in forest lands to forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have resided in these forests for generations, even though their rights had not been officially documented.
• It aimed to address the historical injustices faced by forest-dwelling communities due to the forest management policies of colonial and post-colonial India, which failed to acknowledge their long-standing symbiotic relationship with the forests.
• Additionally, the Act sought to empower forest dwellers by enabling them to access and utilise forest resources sustainably, promote biodiversity and ecological balance, and protect them from unlawful evictions and displacement.