The Difference between Heaven and Hell

There is an apocryphal story that when an adivasi was asked what his conception of heaven was he replied - "miles and miles of forest with deer and mahua trees in them". Later when he was asked what his conception of hell was he replied - "miles and miles of forest with one forest guard in them"! Ever since the British set up the Forest Department in 1855 this has been the sordid story of conversion from heaven to hell of the habitats of adivasis in this country and the process is continuing till this day. Of late things have become a little desperate. In 1995 a person called Godavarman filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking for its intervention in saving the forests of this country which he alleged were being decimated by various people in collusion with the forest department. The upshot of this was that in 2000 the Supreme Court passed an interim order asking for the eviction of unauthorised occupants of the forests of this country. The forest department used this as a pretext for evicting lakhs and lakhs of adivasis who had been residing in the forests since time immemorial but had been deprived of any legal documents in support of their residence.
Immediately adivasi organisations all over the country began agitating against this unjust action of the forest department and there were many skirmishes throughout the country and many adivasis died as as result. Finally as a result of these campaigns an Act was passed in parliament in 2006 granting adivasis legal title to the land that they had been cultivating for ages together. Even though the Act had many deficiencies and the Rules for implementation had even greater problems nevertheless this will in the end give many adivasis legal rights to the land they are cultivating. However, the forest department which is the biggest landlord in this country does not like this at all and so has been consistently trying to evict adivasis before the Act is actually implemented. Once again murderous skirmishes have started and on February 13th two adivasis were killed in police firing in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat when thousands were protesting the arrest of five of their brethren by the forest officials when they were tending to their land in the forest. Thus for the adivasis in this country even today the forest department truly continues to be the devil of devils.