Home is where the forest is: Uprooted, forest dwellers long to go back

Every morning, A. Suresh Kumar wakes up a little disconcerted. In a hurry to get to work, he battles a mix of emotions that leave him slightly irritated, a little angry and totally disappointed. With no time to waste, Kumar gets ready and leaves for one of the tea estates near Ayyankolly in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district.

Kumar has been working as a driver transporting tea leaves from the tea estate to the factory ever since he was relocated to Ayyankolly from his settlement in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve under the ‘Golden Handshake’ scheme. Two years on, not a day goes by when Kumar has not regretted the move.

Back home in Puliyalam, over 6 km deep inside the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, where his forefathers lived for generations, Kumar says, his life was peaceful, unlike now when he is always worried about feeding his family that includes his wife and two children.

“I wish I had not accepted the money offered by the forest department to relocate,” says Kumar.

The life in the forests, Kumar adds, was completely different. “I would start my day at 8 am and wind up work by 5.30 pm because it’s unsafe in the forest after dark due to the movement of wild animals. But that was more than enough time to finish work,” he says.

In Puliyalam, Suresh Kumar had about two acres of farmland on which he cultivated vegetables – bitter gourd, brinjal, broad beans and paddy – for most part of the year. He managed to sell his farm produce after taking care of his family’s needs. He also drove schoolchildren from his settlement to the government school and back about 3km away. The job earned him about Rs 10,000 per month and, Kumar says, it was enough because the family didn’t have too many expenses.

As part of the compensation to relocate, the Tamil Nadu forest department gave Kumar two acres of land in Ayyankolly. But the problem, according to him, is that the area doesn’t have sufficient water for cultivation. “Even if we have to plant bananas or coconut trees, it will take years to fruit. How are we supposed to manage until then,” he asks.

Such constraints forced Kumar to work as a daily wage labourer in his new place of residence. “Here, I work for more than nine hours. Even though I reach home around 6.30 pm, I have to be always ready in case the estate authorities call me, sometimes even at night and early morning hours. Despite working so hard, I hardly earn Rs 300 a day,” he adds.

Recalling the times when he aspired to own a television set at home, he says, “We did not have electricity in Puliyalam. My son and I always dreamed of watching TV together. Here I have both electricity and a television, but I don’t have the time. If I sit with him to watch TV, how will I feed him?”

“The only advantage of staying in Ayyankolly is that my son gets a quality education. Other than that there are absolutely no benefits at all. We do not even have basic facilities such as roads and proper water supply,” he says.

To add to the anxiety, the fact that not everyone moved out of the forest of their own volition irks people like Kumar.

“In 2010, the forest department had sought the opinion of the tribal villagers whether they wanted to relocate. Even though only a handful agreed to move out, the department forcefully relocated most of us. As of now, more than 400 families have been relocated out of the forest and many of us are unhappy,” says U Siva Devan, another forest dweller who moved out of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.

Insisting on the importance of allowing people to live at a place of their choice, Devan says while they like to visit towns once in a while, they do not want to stay in the town for more than a couple of days. “More than anything, we miss the tranquility of the forests,” he adds, alleging that a lot of misappropriation took place under the Golden Handshake scheme when it came to distributing compensation to the forest dwellers.

The forest dwellers have, however, lost more than just the peace and quietude the forests had to offer.

“Along with peace and happiness, we are losing our culture and tradition,” says V Thangaraj, a resident of Alagappapuram, Madurai district. His family, along with 100 other families, was evacuated from the reserved forests in Madurai and Theni in the late 1980s. They belong to the Pulayars community, a Scheduled Tribe (ST).

“Decades ago, as per the tradition of the Pulayar community, a girl and boy could start living together from the day they decide to marry. There was no concept of conducting a grand ceremony and inviting hundreds of people. But now, after we started mingling too much with the people from the plains, we have also started conducting grand weddings, seeking permission from parents and relatives,” he explains.

“Similarly, earlier we used to conduct an annual festival for our deity in the forest. Everyone from our settlements would participate in it without fail. But now the tradition is lost. We no longer even visit the temple,” Thangaraj says.

Explaining that they are still collecting herbal leaves from the forest and selling it in the town, Thangaraj says the forest department has been putting restrictions and limiting the number of days that they could stay in the forest. “Earlier, we used to stay in the forest for up to 20 days. Because it takes time to spot and identify herbal plants. Now, the department does not allow us to stay for more than five days. As a result, sometimes we return with small quantities of herbal leaves. There are times when we even return empty-handed,” he explains.

If they were allowed to stay in the forest itself, Thangaraj insists, they wouldn’t be facing such a situation. “We could collect the herbal leaves whenever we wanted.”

When asked why they were evicted from the forest, Thangaraj says the movement of wild animals in the forest increased over the years. “With that, the threat to our life also increased just as we are a threat to the wild animals.”

But that doesn’t mean the villagers believe that man-animal coexistence is not possible.

“Why can’t humans and animals co-exist in the forest? Haven’t they co-existed for generations together? Just like animals, the forests also belong to the forest dwellers and it is a part of their life,” says Mohan Kumar, Erode district coordinator of Tamil Nadu Tribal People’s Association.

Pointing out that most tribal communities are either farmers or gather minor forest produce, Mohan Kumatr says the government is actually putting their livelihood at stake by relocating them out of the forest. “Not just that, they have so many things like burial grounds of their ancestors and temples inside the forest. So many memories and stories are associated with it. The government is actually doing them more damage than good by moving them out,” he adds.

For instance, S Lakshmi, an adivasi from Puliyankandi in Coimbatore, does not know anything about her ancestors other than the fact that they once resided inside the Anamalai Tiger Reserve from where they were evicted for the construction of the Aliyar Dam in the 1960s. “My grandparents used to live inside the forest. They used to collect honey and forest produce both for personal consumption and sale. But I don’t know anything more than that,” she says.

Lakshmi works at a private mill for a daily wage of about Rs 450 per day. Whenever time permits, she also segregates threads of worn dresses and sells them for Rs 20 per kg.

“This is how many of them have become rootless. They are slowly losing connection with their culture. It is true that changes are inevitable but it should be gradual,” says S Thanraj, a tribal rights activist.

None of the acts–Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882, The Wild Life (protection) Act, 1972, The Indian Forest Act, 1927 and The Forest Rights Act, 2006–say that forest dwellers should be relocated from the forest. Instead, they insist that their rights should be recognised, says CR Bijoy, an activist with the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national forum for forest dwellers.

“But forest dwellers were threatened and thrown out of the forest for decades in violation of all norms. People were removed from the forest in the name of dam construction and several other activities. The government has no record of it. In the 1980s when the Tribal Research Institute sought details about people evicted from the forests, the district collectors denied anyone was evicted,” he explains.

“No law says that a tribal should be evicted even from tiger reserve forests. As per the law, the critical tiger habitat should be protected if it is in bad shape. For that the state government should form a committee and make enquiries at the ground level,” he says.

He has some more suggestions.

“If the human activities in a particular area pose a threat to the tigers, a discussion should be held with the community requesting them to give up that activity. Only if the community says that they cannot give up the activity and cannot co-exist with the animals, they should be relocated. Also before relocating them, arrangements should be made to provide alternative livelihood. But none of these requirements have been fulfilled,” he says.

Over the last few years, the forest department, Bijoy says, has issued eviction notices to more than 1,500 families in multiple districts, including the Nilgiris, Dindigul, Erode and Theni questioning why they should not be evicted since they were encroaching upon forest land. He says this is against the law, which mandates such ‘encroachments’ to be regularised.

What’s more, there is no government data on how many families have been forced out.

“Historical injustice has happened to them. It is high time justice is done,” he adds.

Despite several attempts, forest department officials were not available for a comment.

Back in Ayyankolly, Suresh Kumar’s patience is wearing thin and he no longer expects any answer from the authorities. He just longs to go back someday. “I wish I had remained there and not agreed to move. The forest is where we belong,” he says.