Latest news with #JenuKurubas
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Adivasis say Project Tiger and tourism are displacing them from their ancestral land
TOI correspondent from London: Indigenous communities across India are being pushed out of their ancestral lands in the name of tourism and expansion of tiger projects whilst the laws to protect them are being diluted and not implemented properly, Adivasis told a global press briefing on Monday. 'They say India has got freedom. But I think Adivasi people have not yet got freedom,' J C Shivamma, from the Jenu Kuruba tribe, said at the online event organised by Community Network Against Protected Areas. She is among the 52 households who reoccupied their ancestral land within Nagarhole tiger reserve on May 5, 35 years after their families were forcibly evicted. 'Some of our family members died when in the plantations, but our sacred deities, our graveyard, everything that concerns us, is still in the village, so we used to go back to bury our people in our ancestral land, but it was always a fight with the forest department toconduct rituals. We consider our ancestors to be on the lands, they become deities and this way we were tortured. If we have to die, we will die on our ancestral land,' she said. Shivu JA recalled how their houses were burnt and elephants brought to destroy their fields when they were evicted from Karadikallu. 'This land is ours. It's not any tiger project or scheme of the govt for tiger conservation,' he said. 'Our elders are very happy now. We are having our food, we are going for honey collection. We have our own water resource. We sit together in the evening, and they are teaching us songs. All these songs and lessons were silenced for 40 years." 'The forest department keeps saying that only after your rights are recognised, you can live on this land. We already have these rights,' he said. The Jenu Kurubas are filing a case against the Forest Department under the SC/ST Atrocities Act for withholding their rights and filing an appeal against 39 rejected forest rights claims. 'Why are their rights not being recognised despite the notification of central legislation such as the Forest Rights Act 2006,' asked scholar Nitin Rai. 'People across the country in different states are fighting the same battles. It is important to find a way to raise a collective voice for what is happening all over,' said lawyer Lara Jesani.
New Indian Express
17-05-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
As tribals continue sit-in, Karnataka's Nagarhole relocation programme under scanner
BENGALURU: With a group of tribals claiming to be Jenu Kurubas staking claim over forest land in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve (NTR) since May 5, the issue has now caught the attention of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. PA Seema, Director, NTR, said that as on date, 1,800 families continue to stay inside NTR. 'They have been given forest rights. But the 150-200 people who illegally entered NTR, on May 5, 2025, are not forest dwellers. They stay around coffee estates and now sit in protest in groups of 30-35 on rotation basis. All old applications demanding forest rights have been cancelled. Now 50 fresh applications are before Kodagu district administration,' she said. The Forest Rights Act came into existence in 2008. It recognises the rights for habitation/self-cultivation of tribals/ dwellers who were actual occupants of forest land as on December 13, 2005. These people have to be staying inside for at least 75 years. NTR data shows the last tribal relocation was done in 2016-17. Experts and forest officials admit to the gaps and ineffective implementation of the voluntary tribal relocation programme over the years in NTR, which has led to the present situation.
Deccan Herald
07-05-2025
- Deccan Herald
Adivasis continue protest in Nagarahole
Fifty-two families of the Adivasis -- most of them Jenu Kurubas -- entered the forest on Monday, blaming the Forest Department for the delay in looking into their claims made under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The officials have stated that the claims were rejected earlier.
