Centre to identify tribals who fled Chhattisgarh due to Red terror

NEW DELHI/RAIPUR: In a first, the tribal affairs ministry is going to conduct a survey and identification of the tribals who moved from Chhattisgarh to Andhra Pradesh in the wake of the rise in Maoist violence 15 years ago. Once verified, the tribals will be eligible for their return and rehabilitation in the state under Forest Right Act 2006.
As per CGNet Swara Foundation, an NGO based in Raipur, when the Naxal violence escalated around 2004-05, about 16,000 tribals (5,000 families) were uprooted from Chhattisgarh. Around 3,000 families moved to around 150 villages in the forests of the neighbouring state Andhra Pradesh, which after the bifurcation of the state, includes parts of Telangana.
“These Internally Displaced People (IDPs) live a life worse than almost anyone in India. They have been living without access to basic resources,” Shubhranshu Choudhary who runs the NGO told TOI in Raipur.
Besides, last month forest officers visited the village of Rasanagudem at Mulkulapalli block of Bhadradri Kotadudem district in Telangana and asked all the 25 IDP families living there to go back to Chhattisgarh. Couple of months ago, officers had come with police and they allegedly broke 58 houses of IDPs and gave similar instructions.
Forest Rights Act (FRA) gives land rights to all Adivasis (indigenous people) who worked on their land till December 12, 2005and has been hailed by many as a law aimed at ‘correcting a historic injustice against India’s indigenous people’.
Most of their native villages, Choudhary said, are remote and still many under the Maoist control and influence. “They are afraid to go back to their original habitat and desire that the state government grants them alternate and safe land in exchange of their existing holdings,” he said.
However, tribal affairs secretary in Delhi, Deepak Khandekar said that there is an additional problem with the extension of the FRA to the displaced tribals. The law stipulates that the inhabitant has to be living in his area continuously for him or her to avail land rights in the forest, he pointed out.
Until now, the secretary said, the ministry had not received any complaints from anyone about internally displaced tribals from Chhattisgarh. But CGnet’s report on 623 IDP families who want to apply for FRA and a list of settlements in Andhra and Telangana, he said, will be considered as complaints.
“We will first verify and establish the circumstances in which they were displaced and their credentials,” he said.