A mini conference was conducted on forest rights in the Vibgyor Film Festival Thrissur. The guest speakers on the panel were Max Martin, Roy David, Dr. Shankar, Meghnath, Roma Mallik, Civic Chandran, Bhaskar Rao, Prafulla Samanth Rai, Sukhantha Mohanthi.
The first speaker was Sukhantha Mohanthi, a member of Orissa Development Action Forum (ODAF). ODAF was established in 2008. It deals with the following four major issues
1. Non availability of funds
2. Less amount of documents
3. Difficulty on the part of communities to get maps
4. Problem to file cases
The next speaker was Profulla Samanth Rai. He said " Rights of the people have been taken away by the rulers both colonial as well as of the post-independent India . The state is doing nothing to implement acts in their favour. On December 16, 2000, sixteen tribals including three women were shot dead. Posco company from North Korea with American money came and looted 6000 acres of agricultural land exploiting local minerals and water resources. “Any democratic movement is dangerous"
Meghnath was the next speaker. He shared his experiences with the tribals with whom he has been staying for thirty five years. An incident similar to the Muthanga issue had taken place in Morijapi Sundarban in 1997. "Indian Britishers have made Man and Nature antagonisitic to each other". “Our aim should be to make the government democratic and accountable to the Society.
Roma Mallik , an activist from U.P, working for the rights of Adivasis and Dalits was the next speaker. "The Forest is burning nowadays." The number of democratic movements are more than Maoist movements. In 1927, Indian Forest Act, also called the Bible of Forest was introduced. The abolition of feudalism was brought into practice by the congress, but the land belonging to the people were transferred to the forest department and the rights of the people were totally ignored. The forest people say that they got independence only after this act. People even started questioning Maoists and decided not to feed them. "There is a fight for political and physical space and the fight should be fought politically". "The fight is going to be intense". "From independence till now there has been no Land Rights Act".
The next speaker Civic Chandran, an activist, editor of Padhabheda, said that the first question should be that whom does the forest belong to? The forest department is bound to answer the question that in 1947 when we got independence, how many forests were there and how many are there now. According to the PESA Act nobody, not even the president is allowed to enter the forest without the permission of the Gothra Sabha." Why is it that the tribals are not allowed to have self-governance?"."Forest basically belongs to the tribals". He wished that the Adivasi leader C.K Janu should have been present in the conference.
