Crisis of the forest community in postcolonial Indian forest policies and laws

ABSTRACT

The paper highlights a crisis of the forest community in contemporary India and its incompatibility for the realization of democratic forest governance, even after the passage of the Forest Rights Act 2006. A discourse analysis of the forestry sector brings forth the permeation of the broader politics in shaping the forest community in the policy and law documents. The article argues that a mere recognition of rights of the forest community does not subvert the colonial legacy of the state–forest community relationship. In fact, the state sees the forest community as static i.e. apolitical and non-changing to maintain its control over the forests, which is evident through a content analysis of the forest policies and laws in India. This results in a myopic view of the forest community and fails to factor in the changing and contested nature of it, further reducing recognition as a one-time effort and not a process.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest community
• moral economy
• political economy
• discourse
• forest policies and law in India

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr.M V Shiju, Department of Policy Studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies, for all his help and critical comments in shaping this paper and also for reading the first draft of it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The terms in brackets are the keywords picked up from the codes i.e. references on the forest community from the policy and law documents, which help us construct the definition.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amit Jain

Amit Jain is a Doctoral Scholar at the Department of Policy Studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India.

Smriti Das

Smriti Das is an Associate Professor at the Department of Policy Studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India.