Aredath, Gautam

Almost two decades have passed since the rights-based turn in forest governance, mitigating historical injustice towards forest dwellers, through the promulgation of FRA in India. Thousands of villages have received community forest rights (CFRs) till now. But, the ground realities of policy implementation still evade the development of decentralized forest governance – a promise of the much-celebrated Forest Rights Act. What is seen instead is a slow, skewed rights recognition based on negotiations between multiple actors with differential abilities to influence outcomes. Successes in one pocket or state do not find rapid adoption in others, nor are the successes always sustained. For example, in Maharashtra, progressive policy reforms decentralized the sale of non-timber forest produce through community-led institutions that were initially supported by the provision of working capital. This support was soon withdrawn in subsequent years, weakening the impact of decentralized NTFP trade. In Chhattisgarh, the recognition of CFRs was overdue for several years. A political push led to the vigorous distribution of forest rights titles to villages since 2019. Yet, a closer analysis of village-level data found that there were numerous cases with under-recognition of CFR areas. What leads to such erratic processes and outcomes? Drawing on policy implementation cases from the states of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, in this paper we analyse the persistence of power asymmetries notwithstanding the push for institutional reform in state agencies while operationalizing rights-based forest governance. We show that the outcomes in terms of giving power to community-based institutions result from the Forest Department’s colonial history and power over institutions of forest conservation, the post-colonial social welfarism-oriented framing of the Tribal Department and administrative agencies couched in contestations of caste and class, and the unsteady support of political groups to the demographically marginal forest-dwelling communities.

Forest Rights Act marks a significant turn in forest governance in India. Thousands of villages now have community forest rights (CFR) that empower them to manage forests to address local needs. The FRA further mandates different state departments such as those responsible for forests, agriculture, and social welfare to provide technical and financial assistance to the rights-bearing, village-level institution of gram sabhas. There have, however, been limited institutional reforms that fully acknowledge and incorporate the gram sabha in the larger forest governance structure. In this paper we draw on cases from Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh in central India to analyse the recent approaches adopted in these states to facilitate CFR gram sabhas or its members in forest management. Broadly, these approaches can be categorised into three – withdrawal of the state, welfare-based state support, and demand-based state assistance. Attempt at withdrawing state presence in gram sabhas includes the deregulation of non-timber forest products (NTFP) allowing their trade by gram sabhas and their federations. This approach while giving gram sabhas autonomy may also expose them to vagaries of the markets. On the other hand, attempts that continue or increase the state presence include increasing direct and indirect investment into state-led participatory programs and NTFP-trade cooperatives focusing on welfare of individual members of the gram sabhas but by-passing the gram sabhas themselves. A third attempt has been the demand-based convergence of pre-existing state schemes towards gram sabha-led community forest management goals. All three approaches may be attempted simultaneously and may or may not be enforced onto gram sabhas or their members. We compare these approaches to understand the form of state facilitation necessary in post-rights scenario for sustainable forest governance through CFR gram sabhas.