‘We will develop our forest villages’: Adivasis in Odisha’s forests say no to relocation and forced migration

Tribal villages in Similipal Tiger Reserve have for decades been relocated outside the reserve to protect its wildlife, but 43 gram sabhas are opposing these evictions and demanding development

Nidhi Jamwal

“In our village in the forest, we were kings,” recalls Arjun Murmu, whose family had to relocate outside the Similipal Tiger Reserve’s core area. Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story

SIMILIPAL TIGER RESERVE, Odisha: “Is it possible to go back to our village in the forest?” asked Arjun Murmu, a Santhal Adivasi, sitting outside his pucca home in Manada village, oblivious to the laughter of his grandchildren playing nearby.

Even nine years after relocating to Manada, home for Arjun is still Kabatghai, a village in the core area of the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in Mayurbhanj district. It isn’t outside the reserve in Manada (seven kilometres from the Jashipur block headquarters), where his family had to move along with 46 other Santhal families in 2016. 

For over three decades, the STR authorities have relocated Adivasis from the reserve’s core area to create an inviolate zone of 845.7 square kilometres to protect tigers. This zone – notified as the Similipal National Park on April 24 this year – has the state’s highest concentration of tigers. According to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, a national park must not have any human habitation or activities such as grazing, farming and forest resource extraction.

As a result, five villages inside the reserve’s core area – Kabatghai, Jenabil, Jamunagarh, Barahakamuda and Bahaghar — were relocated by the authorities. Bakua, the sixth village, refused to move out and so, it was kept out of the national park.

These relocations – ostensibly voluntary – changed the lives of Adivasis in the core area irrevocably. They lost their farmlands, had reduced access to forest resources, and many became daily-wagers. This has served as a warning to other villages inside the reserve, which have started getting organised in order to resist relocation from their ancestral forest homes.

“We were told [by the authorities] that our kids would study in an English-medium school and become babus [government officials],” Arjun told The Migration Story. After relocating, Arjun’s grandchildren did start attending an English-medium school, but he can’t help but feel that they were all better off inside the reserve. “In our village in the forest, we were rajas [kings]. Now we are naukars [servants].” 

Arjun Murmu (left) and his brother, Govind, used to be farmers, but after relocating, they’ve become daily-wagers. Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story

In Kabatghai, Arjun and his older brother Govind used to cultivate paddy and mustard on 20 acres of land. Murmu’s eyes brighten as he recalls how they gathered a variety of tubers, edible leaves, fruits and honey from the forest. “Our streams had the best fish,” he said. 

But Arjun is painfully aware of how different their lives are now. Today, the brothers and their families own no farmland, can’t cultivate paddy or mustard, and are dependent on rations they get through the Public Distribution System. “From landowners we have become manual labourers and daily-wagers,” he said sadly.  

The costs of relocation

The rehabilitation package offered to these villagers by the state has left them with only a small parcel of land. “Each displaced family got 10 decimal [1/10^th of an acre] of land to build a new home and 10 lakh rupees in a fixed deposit,” said Dhaneshwar Mahato, who has been working in these forest villages since 1991 and is part of the Centre for Regional Education, Forest and Tourism Development Agency (CREFTDA), a non-profit organisation.

“But beneficiaries can only access the monthly interest amount and not the principal amount of 10 lakh rupees, except under special circumstances,” he added. 

A 2018 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Land Use Policy has also documented the impact of relocation on the livelihoods of tribal households in the reserve. It used primary data from 40 households that were relocated outside the reserve and compared it with data from 61 households that were not relocated and lived inside the reserve. 

The study found that the average share of income from agriculture, livestock and non-timber forest products was relatively higher for households living in the core area. Conversely, income from non-agricultural wage labour contributed the most to total income for those who were relocated outside the core area.

The authors of the study also noted that “although access to educational facilities, transport and healthcare are reported to be some of the immediate benefits after relocation, food security of the displaced households is found to be adversely affected due to reduced crop diversity and output”.

Sita Murmu’s goats have little access to grazing land after her family had to relocate from their village in the reserve’s corea area.  Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story

The experience of Sita Murmu, who moved from Kabatghai to Manada with six family members, supports the study’s findings. 

“In our forest village, I had a large number of goats, cows and other livestock. There were pasturelands and enough fodder and water. Now, I have only a few goats, and there is barely any grazing land for them here,” she told The Migration Story as she guided a handful of goats in Manada, her grandson’s palm in one hand, an umbrella in the other.  

“One adult goat [of the Black Bengal breed] sells for up to 16,000 rupees and is our source of income,” she said. After relocation, her family receives only around 4,000-5,000 rupees a month, which is the interest on the fixed deposit given to them as part of their rehabilitation package. They cannot liquidate the principal amount, however, except under special circumstances.

“Earlier, we cultivated paddy, rapeseed and mustard in our forest village, but now we depend on rice from the government,” Sita added. 

Though her granddaughter is now enrolled in an ashram school for tribal children, Sita’s son works as a daily-wage labourer or a sharecropper. 

Change, one village at a time

The recently notified Similipal National Park, India’s 107^th, has the country’s maximum legal protection for wildlife and forests. It is situated inside the larger Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR), which is spread across 2,750 square kilometres and consists of the core (or inviolate) area and a buffer zone. 

People from 20 tribal groups live inside the reserve’s buffer zone, including the Kol, Ho, Santhal and Bhumij, as well as particularly vulnerable tribal groups like the Hill-Khadia (or Khadia) and Mankadia.  

According to a news report from January this year, 30 villages, located in the central and northern parts of the reserve, are likely to be relocated for tiger conservation. While the gram sabhas of all these villages are against the relocation, they are yet to receive official relocation notices from the government. 

People from 20 tribal groups live inside the Similipal Tiger Reserve’s buffer zone, including the Kol, Ho, Santhal and Bhumij. Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story

The Similipal Tiger Reserve, spread across 2,750 square kilometres, has a core area (green) and a buffer zone (yellow). Map credit: National Tiger Conservation Authority 

The case of Bakua village in the core area is exemplary. It has resisted relocation, refused to move out, and forced the authorities to leave it outside the national park limits. 

Bakua is also a member of the Similipal Vikas Parishad, a collective of 43 gram sabhas from tribal villages inside the reserve. These villages came together for a common cause: the protection of ancestral tribal rights over forest land and development in the buffer zone.

The Parishad’s current president, 42-year-old Mohanty Birua of the Kolho tribe, told The Migration Story that “all the 43 gram sabhas are members of the Parishad, and we collectively decide on what development and conservation activities need to be undertaken in our villages and forests. We will not allow any more eviction of Adivasis from their homelands.”

Birua, who is from Naana village in the reserve’s buffer zone, added that the Parishad works with various state departments and service agencies to ensure that development schemes are implemented in villages inside the reserve.

Since it was set up in 2015, the Parishad has emerged as a strong pressure group. It has been instrumental in pushing the government to build approach roads to villages and to implement drinking water and electrification schemes. 

Living with underdevelopment

Birua himself grew up in the shadow of eviction and relocation. He recalls his childhood inside the reserve, which, at that time, had no roads, electricity, transport facilities or access to healthcare. 

“I remember the day I saw a jeep for the first time in my life. I was a young child. My schoolmates and I were on our way back from [residential] school. We had to walk for hours through the dense jungle. Hearing a loud, unfamiliar noise in the distance, we hid behind trees. Soon, a large jeep packed with well-dressed tourists drove past,” he told The Migration Story, adding that he could still remember the smell of the exhaust mixed with that of dust. 

With no access to basic services, the life of Adivasis living inside these reserve was anything but easy. All development activities inside the forest were controlled exclusively by the forest department.

Birua’s own struggles led him to fight the local panchayat elections in 2012, and he was elected to the Astakuanr panchayat samiti. 

“At that time, there was no transport to our forest villages, and medical centres were far away in towns. Teachers did not want to come to the schools inside the forest. We were looked upon as encroachers with no legal rights over the forest and forest produce,” said Birua. 

However, he and other local tribal leaders found an ally in The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights Act), 2006 (commonly referred to as Forest Rights Act or FRA), which came into force in 2008, four years before Birua was elected to the panchayat samiti.

Mohanty Birua is the president of Similipal Vikas Parishad, a federation of 43 tribal villages, which has pushed the government to provide basic services inside the reserve. Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story.

Fighting for forest rights

The FRA recognises a number of rights of forest-dependent communities. Certain provisions of the act are particularly empowering, such as Section 3(1), which recognises community forest rights (CFR) of gram sabhas of forest-dwelling communities.

In fact, on April 9, 2015, 43 villages of three gram panchayats in the reserve (which subsequently formed the Parishad) received title deeds for their community forest rights – only the second time in the FRA’s history. 

“After we got our CFR title [deed] for 3,000 acres of forest, the villagers got together to protect their land,” said Maheshwar Naik from Billapagha village, which has 65 families of the Bathudi and Ho tribes. 

“Women formed groups to patrol and guard the jungle, and forest fires have reduced since. We are able to trade in forest produce. The weekly haat [market] at the gram panchayat level has been a boon,” added Naik, who is also the president of Billapagha’s Community Forest Resource Management Committee (CFRMC), a legal body of gram sabha members set up as per the FRA.

A collective is born

While villages in the forest were organising themselves to secure their rights under the FRA, another parallel process had begun. 

“The tribal villages inside Similipal realised that they were being denied the most basic services that all the other citizens of the country received from the government, such as education, healthcare and others under various government schemes,” said Mahato of CREFTDA. 

“They knew they had to come together as a collective to get their voices heard and their constitutional rights met. This led to the formation of Similipal Vikas Parishad,” he added.

The Parishad, a non-registered federation, was formed on April 9, 2015 – the same day that the 43 villages from Gudugudia, Barheipani and Astakuanr gram panchayats got their CFR title deeds. 

“We collectively decide what development and conservation activities need to be undertaken in our villages and forests,” said Birua. Members of Panchayati Raj institutions are a part of the Parishad as well, and it ensures that health workers and school teachers regularly visit Similipal. 

“Mini solar grids have been set up to electrify forest villages, tubewells have been sunk to supply safe drinking water, and bus services have begun inside Similipal,” Birua added. The Parishad and local villagers even do shramdan (volunteer work) to repair their village roads. 

But the road to the present has not been easy. In November 2023, there was a face-off between the Parishad and the forest department. It was peak tourist season, and Parishad members blocked the gates of the reserve, preventing outsiders from entering. 

They did this to get the attention of the authorities and demand better roads and connectivity for their villages under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. They also petitioned for mobile towers, a concrete bridge across the reserve’s main road, and employment opportunities for youth in peripheral areas.

The Similipal National Park, situated within the larger Similipal Tiger Reserve, has the country’s maximum legal protection for wildlife and forests. Nidhi Jamwal/The Migration Story

The Parishad, the reserve officials and the Jashipur police reached a consensus after more than a month, and the reserve was finally reopened to the public. Today, the villages in the reserve have roads and drinking water, and mobile towers are in the process of being set up.

“Our main concern is to provide livelihood opportunities to our youth inside Similipal so that they do not have to migrate to big cities and work as labourers,” Birua said.

He emphasised that the Parishad promotes co-habitation with tigers and other wildlife. And that Adivasi communities, who have been living side by side with tigers for centuries, are intimately connected to the forest and dependent on it for their livelihood. 

“We do not want to be displaced anymore. We do not want any more eviction and forced migration. Rather, we will live in our forests and develop our forest villages and forest-based livelihoods for our Adivasi youth,” he concluded. 

Edited by Subuhi Jiwani

Nidhi Jamwal is a Mumbai-based journalist who reports on environment, climate, and rural issues.