State, forest and Adivasis at crossroads: Netarhat field firing range and contestations over rights

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent trend in researches within the global south focusses on indigenous movements and contestations over rights. In an era where the ideology of state-sponsored development often threatens indigenous rights and identity, and converts Adivasis into victims rather than beneficiaries, forested communities find it increasingly more difficult to come to terms with it. Reflection of this trend is felt in Netarhat, an area of Jharkhand. In 1990s, Netarhat became witness to contestation over rights over forest and landscape between the state and the Adivasis over converting the area into a field firing range by the army through a proposed pilot project. The paper sets the study on a historical backdrop which has its reverberations in the post-colonial protest movement and conversion of the area into a strong bastion of Naxalism (left wing extremism) in recent decades. The first section of this paper seeks to throw light on colonial and post-colonial policies and debates. The second part discusses the shifts in state policy from the ‘line of fire’ to the launching of grand projects of elephant corridor, tiger reserve and wolf sanctuary and finally to an eco-sensitive zone. It bases its narrative on the struggle by the indigenous groups against dehumanisation and violation of basic human rights.