| Summary: |
Ever since the enactment of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in 2006, the Environment Ministry relentlessly resisted this law, its substance and implementation, and its nodal ministry, the Tribal Affairs Ministry. This law is to operationalise the transition of forest governancefromacolonialrepressiveforestregimetoademocratic regime, realigning the power relationship at the national, state and the local levels, if not in all of the forests, at least in a substantial part of the forest. The Environment Ministry and its forest bureaucracy perceive this law as debilitating their inherited hegemonic power which they have grown to believe as their exclusive domain over vast areas designated as “forest”. The paper chronicles this resistance, the methods adopted and the intended outcome. The Forest Rights Act, an enabling law, could finally give the forests the much needed democracy, security and nurturing.
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