Whose land is it, anyway?

Mass evictions of tribals make little sense

The Supreme Court’s recent order to state governments to provide data on evictions of tribals and forest-dwellers against rejected land claims under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 has underlined the inconvenient truth of the systemic indifference to a marginalised section of India’s population. Signs of tribal discontent with the way the FRA, which seeks to recognise forest-dwellers’ rights, was administered were evident in the “long march” of rural folk from Nashik to Mumbai in March 2018 last year. At the time, tribal leaders voiced complaints of a high rejection rate of claims under the FRA. Instead of correcting