INTRODUCTION:

Forests play a major ecological function of conservation and preservation of our rich biodiversity and contribute to climate stability by enhancing the quality of the soil. Apart from its grave environmental significance, forests also play a pivotal role in social, cultural, historical, economic and industrial development of any country. Forests attributes to a multiple number of stakeholders addressing their needs which range from daily livelihood, agriculture, animal husbandry on one hand to the production of energy, industrial and commercial resources on the other hand.

Therefore the issue of governance, rather good-governance, in the better conservation and preservation of the forest sector has actively being pursued over the years both at the global as well as at the national levels. In India, historically, rural economy was intimately related to forest resources and those resources were controlled by the community as a whole through their sustainable and indigenous methods. However, with the advent of British colonization those forest resources fell prey in the hands of selfish rulers who overexploited them to meet their own ends. The environmental managers of British India created a bureaucratic and segmented mental landscape and they set about restructuring the physical landscape to match it by bringing forests solely and exclusively under State domain.¹ In the post colonial period, the independent Indian government was yet to get rid of the colonial hangover and hardly made any substantial change to the prevailing administrative structure. States continued to retain command and control over the management and protection of forest resources.² The crisis, however, gained significance only in the early 1980s. The 1980s witnessed the rise of community forestry, which sought to look first at community needs designing a local forest program around them. It was also realized that the forest resources can be better protected and sustained if forestry undertakes Joint Management programme with a community oriented approach. Therefore, in the late 1980s while India witnessed active voices favouring a down-top model of forest management, the issues pertaining to development was still being questioned from certain corners. The dichotomy between development and sustenance raised a serious concern on the issue of forest governance, where scholars advocate for a decentralized structure of governing the Indian forest sector which would liberalise the rights of the indigenous forests-dwellers, curbing the unrestricted dominion of the State over the forests and forest products.

A paradigm shift of the entire understanding of forest management from a revenue oriented State approach to a people oriented participatory approach still has to cover a plethora of hurdles and conflicts. The issue of transparency, credibility and competency both on the part of the State as well as local government are to be answered. Moreover, issues of conflicts at the local level are to be emphasized as new responsibilities and opportunities are devolved to the community.³

PRE INDEPENDENCE FOREST LAWS IN INDIA:

In ancient India, the tradition of sanctity and importance of forests were largely recognized. Country’s rich biodiversity is reflected in the heterogeneity of its forest cover which nearly meet 40% of its energy needs and 30% of the fodder needs.⁴ In the Vedic period, plants and certain trees such as peepal, banyan, neem and tulsi were grown in every household. They were used for the purpose of extracting medicines and were considered as gift of nature and purifier of the environment. However, during the period of colonization the British Government systematically established control over the forest on the pretext of public usage and public benefit. Analysis shows that British, having depleted their oak resources in Britain, eyed on the rich timber resources of India to meet the needs of ship building and railway expansion. Subsequent thereto, teak, black wood, sandalwood and other such trees were promptly declared to Government property in order to prevent the local people from using them.⁵ Therefore a paradigm shift to the human-resource relationship came about with the arrival of the British. State control, management and ownership of the forest resources, under the concept of eminent domain, began to take roots under the colonial rule.⁶ The legal ordering and framework began to be so fashioned as to internalize and stabilize the concept of Centralised Management of the Forest Resources.

The first attempt at asserting state monopoly was through the Indian Forest Act, 1865 which aimed to facilitate the acquisition of those forest areas that were embarked for railway supplies.⁷ It was replaced later by the Act of 1878 which abrogated all the customary rights of the rural population countrywide, by providing for three classes of forests, namely, “Reserved Forests”, “Protected Forests” and “Village Forests”.⁸ The most commercially valuable forest areas were deliberately deemed to be the reserved forests wherein State had overall control involving either the relinquishment or transfer of claims and rights in regard to its resources, although in the limited context, access was granted to the community people. The Protected Forests were also under the command and control of the State with some conditional concessions being granted to the local population. However, the commercially valuable trees and species were reserved under the State domain. It is a process of expanding control of the protected forests, the right of having access to the fuel wood and fodder as well as the gazing rights was suspended and thereby the rights and interests of the people over the forest resources were gradually limited, curtailed limited and finally eliminated. The third category of forests, i.e. the Village Forests comprising of the village areas in the forest zones were only left to the control of the community for the purpose of gazing as it hardly had any commercially exploitative value.

Subsequently, the first Forest Policy was framed under the advice of the German agriculturist Volcker in 1894 with the purpose of enabling, along with the existing Act of 1878, an easy acquisition of wood for meeting the defense requirements and other revenue-earning purposes.⁹

However, in the year of 1927 the imperial rulers came out rampantly with a comprehensive legislation of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 which consolidated all the pre-existing laws relating to the forest management. The Act continued with the earlier classification of the forests and gave more powers to the State in the Reserved Forests increasing the number of listed offences and enhancing the punishment for some of the offences.¹⁰ In the case of Protected Forests, rights and privileges of persons were recorded. The Act deemed to concentrate and lay more emphasis on the rights and privileges of individuals rather than the local communities. Standard histories point out that the 1927 legislation was simply an extension of the Act of 1878, with an expansion of government prerogatives representing "continuing efforts by the colonial administration to restrict popular access to Indian forests."¹¹ Even though the fact cannot be denied yet it can be stressed that the Act more in consonance with the Forest Policy of 1894 with its emphasis on favoring revenue-generating agricultural demands. However, the legislations passed then, by and large worked against the interests of the rural and tribal population whose very existence, to a substantial extent had been wiped out. Therefore Centralized management scheme of the forests introduced by British Raj had largely been revenue oriented and not conductive to efficient eco-management.¹²

FOREST LAWS IN THE POST INDEPENDENCE ERA-A SLOW SHIFTING PARADIGM:

In the post-independence era, a status-quoist frame of the legal ordering continued for a long stretch of time. The Forest Policy of 1952 did not bring about any major change to the prevailing laws. The policy only focused upon forest production and management under the concept of eminent domain of the State. The shifts happened to take place during the activist frame when the legislatures were coming up with series of reformative measures that touched upon the human rights sentiment. The rights of the indigenous people also started getting recognized as a major element of human right through international as well as national laws. The role of the Constitution adopted with a democratic set up also imbibed the major element of governance in contrast to the strong centralized administrative set-up introduced by the colonial rulers. In the initial days of the running of the Constitution, it reinforced the English concept of eminent domain and continued with the centralized set up of governing the natural resources. However, with the 42^nd Amendment of 1976 for the first time, an obligation was imposed upon the State to endeavour to protect and improve environment and safeguard the forest resources. Therefore, the Constitution created space for adoption of socio-welfareist scheme in environmental management. The concept of eminent domain therefore shifted to bring about reform in the command and control structure in preserving and conserving the natural resources. The State was also thrown with an obligation to distribute ownership and control of material resources for the subservience of common good and to ensure that the operation of the economic system did not lead to concentration of wealth and means of production in only to the handful of people at the detriment of the community at large.¹³

Moreover, the Sixth schedule of the Constitution read with Articles 244(2) and Article 275(1), made way for administration of tribal areas in the north-eastern region by the creation of autonomous districts and autonomous regions.¹⁴ Similar provisions were laid down under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution for the administration and control of scheduled areas by entrusting such functions to a Tribal Advisory Council. Such an innovation brought about in the management model boosted the grass root governance and ensured a facilitating application of indigenous wisdom in the forestry management. A major outcome came in the form of the 73^rd Amendment of the Constitution in 1992 which discovered the Panachayat Raj Institutional mechanism in order to usher a democratic decentralization of power. Such a mechanism raised high hopes of facilitating the installation of local self-government bodies at villages, taluks and district levels and in town and city municipal bodies.

In this backdrop, a pressing need was felt was having a comprehensive legislation which would operationalise the application under such a constitutional mandate. The Forest Act, 1980 was therefore a remarkable milestone in the way of conservation of forests. The major objectives of the Act were to combat deforestation and environmental deterioration.¹⁵ The definition of “forest land” under the Act¹⁶ not only included “forest as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in the Governmental records, irrespective of ownership.”¹⁷ The Act imposed restrictions on the use of the forests for non-forest purposes. However, power led in the hands of the State Government or any competent authority to pass orders for de-reserving any reserve forests or portion thereof, or allow anybody to use the reserve forest for non-forest purposes. The Act was supposed to have consolidated the powers of the Union by imposing a check on the State Government and its agencies from prejudicially interfering with or harming the forest habitat.

The Policy of 1988 was however a turning point in the management of the forest resources in India. It was declared by the Government that the principle aim of the Policy was to “ensure environmental stability and maintenance of ecological balance including atmospheric equilibrium which are vital for the sustenance of all life forms-human, animals and plants. The deprivation of direct economic benefit must be subordinated to this principle aim.”¹⁸ The Act makes reference of the rights of shifting cultivation, pasturage, right to forest produce etc., but those rights were not expressly granted to the indigenous people unless so claimed. Furthermore, even though the rights of the indigenous people residing in the forest were recognized, the drawback lied in the Central level legislation as it only spoke of establishing an advisory committee to advice the Central Government as to any matter connected with the conservation of forests but does not specifically deal with forest management issues.

It was only in the early 1990s that Governments recognized the merits of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) which safeguarded the rights of communities whose existence and livelihood depend upon the forests and who by their close connection and knowledge of the forests can keep an eye on smuggling activities to a much greater extent than the forest officials.

To order to give effect to participatory Forest Management, in 1990 Government issued guidelines to State Government highlighting the need and procedure for the involvement of village communities and voluntary agencies in the protection and development of the degraded forests.¹⁹ The Government realized the importance of indigenous people, especially woman, who bear intimate knowledge about various species, growth characteristics, utility and medicinal value of forest vegetation. In its initial days Joint Forest Management received support substantially from bilateral and multilateral donors. The progressive figures of JFM were impressive and were accruing positive benefits to the poor and other forest-dependent communities paving ways for better opportunities for community management. The JFM programme got launched in various States wherein the States sought for legal recognition to the JFM Committees. The flagship programmes initiated under JFM urged for increasing access to forest areas for the community people other than the village forests. They also laid stress upon the participation of women in the Management Programmes being the members of the executive committee and office-bearers. JFM in India included partnership in management between the Forest Department and rural or village communities, with both sharing of rights and responsibilities. Therefore the JFM came up with good promises in sharing of responsibilities and accountabilities of the Community people in sharing of forest produce and decision-making powers and in this process it lifted the spirit of a micro-centric approach through participatory development of the community groups.

NEW LEGISLATION RECOGNISING RIGHTS OF THE INDEGENIOUS FOREST DWELLERS THROUGH DECENTRALISED GOVERNENCE SYSTEM:

The major breakthrough came in the form of a new legislation of Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 which was passed to recognize and vest the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have been residing in such forests for generations, but whose rights could not be recorded.²⁰ The Act provided a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and vesting in respect of forest land. The Act was the outcome of various International obligations taken up by India, judicial pronouncements, Draft National Development, Displacement, Rehabilitation Policy of 2005 and most importantly the draft of National Policy on Tribal in 2004, which recognized that Scheduled Tribes in general are the repositories of indigenous knowledge and wisdom which needs to be protected. The Act also came up as compliance to the Constitutional mandate enshrined in Articles 29(1), 244 and 244A. Section 5 of the present Act empowers the holders of any forest rights to protect the wild life, forest and biodiversity; ensure that adjoining catchment area, water sources and other ecological sensitive areas are adequately protected; ensure that the habitats of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers are preserved from any form of destructive practices affecting their cultural and natural heritage; ensure that the decision in the Gram Sabha are taken to properly regulate access to community forest resources and stop any activity which adversely affect the wild animals, forest and biodiversity.

The Act, under Section 5, has empowered the the village level institutions or Gram Sabha to protect the wild life, forest and biodiversity; (b) ensure that adjoining catchments area, water sources and other ecological sensitive areas are adequately protected; (c) ensure that the habitat of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers is preserved from any form of destructive practices affecting their cultural and natural heritage. The forest dwellers are also empowered to ensure the decisions taken by the Gram Sabha is in compliance with their rights being protected under the Act. Thus the village institutions or Gram Sabha are being provided with the right to prepare a plan for the protection and management of community forest resources; prepare and adopt norms including institutional arrangements for the protection and regulation of access to and sustainable use of the community forest resources; prepare norms for community wild life management; evolve procedures to protect, conserve, regenerate or manage the resources while protecting the interests in forest rights of vulnerable groups and women; evolve methods for monitoring and implementing such norms.²¹

The Gram Sabha is empowered to request for the assistance of the Forest Department or other local authorities for implementing its norms and such authorities shall provide the requisite assistance and take corrective action as may be necessary, where there is violation of norms created by it in exercise of this right or direct the concerned authorities to proceed in accordance with law. Gram Sabha should also play an important role to guide the functioning of the Joint Forest Management Committee, Eco-development Committee, Watershed Committee, Biodiversity Management Committee or any other such committees or institutions concerned with the management of forest resources. In case there was a conflict between a decision of a Gram Sabha and a user group in regard to exercise of rights under Clause (1) of Sub section (1) of Section 3 of the Act, the decision of the Gram Sabha would prevail, while ensuring that forest rights of vulnerable groups and women were not put to any disadvantage.²²

Therefore in the past few decades, a number of new local institutions at the community level have been established, while traditional local institutions have been strengthened to protect and manage community forests in developing countries.²³ Decentralization and democratization are thus realized to be the vital processes in political system that brings better transparency, accountability, responsiveness, equity and opportunity for mass participation in the local decision making for establishing a just social order.²⁴ The Environment Impact Assessment programmes and National policies adopted across the political spectrum of the country recognised the vital role that natural resources play in providing livelihoods and securing life-support ecological services. In this perspective a need for a comprehensive policy statement has been evident for some time in order to infuse a common approach to various sectoral and cross-sectoral including fiscal approaches to environmental management.

As we discuss the importance of constitutional mandates, national policies and legislative mechanisms, the role of judiciary in formulating a decentralized structure cannot be undermined. The landmark case of T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad v. Union of India²⁵ set the milestone in the Indian spectrum which became a guiding force in establishing the fact that decentralized forest management in India can show a sea change in its goal of preserving and managing the natural resources. The Apex Court lamented the fact that it has lost its faith from the bureaucrats, from the State and therefore in the Godavarman’s case the Court came up saying that even if the wood is taken is to be taken out of the forest, the permission of local committee is necessary.

The term decentralization basically connotes devolving power in the hands of local community by the Government which feels directly the consequences of that power. It is process by which certain duties and responsibilities are vested upon the local authorities by the Government. While centralization follows a top down model where powers of governance transcends from the State to those who stands at the base of the social pyramid which consist of the local people, decentralization attributes the flow of power right people lying at the base or the grass root.

So far as the governance in the forest sector is concerned, forestry provides a useful entry point for governance programmes due to its focus, linking the global to national and local; high levels of income and other benefits which it generates, and its importance in rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation. Moreover, public participation, accountability, transparent government, and pro-poor policy change themes have been central to the forest, which are also crucial dimensions of governance.²⁶ Local people’s rights for centuries unknown were restricted to only usufruct rights over non-commercially valuable forest products even if they have lived in the forest for generations, while commercial rights are allocated by the state to logging companies. Thus it shook the very base of ensuring equality in relation to forest produce.

The movement from government to decentralized governance in the forest sector resulted in the emergence of new participation of relevant actors who helped in adaptive and interactive learning processes, comprehensive, holistic and inter-sectoral coordination, and in facilitating implementation along with principles, and practices of good governance in a diverse society like India. Nonetheless, the governance in forest gradually brought about modifications in several aspects relating to the role of institutions, communities and socio-economic factors.²⁷

Therefore advocating for the pressing need of having decentralized governance in the forest sectors, some pertinent issues randomly crop up. The first issue is what powers and resources are to be transferred and what should be the basis of such transfer. The second in the line goes as to how to best accommodate the system in a quasi-federal Constitutional structure. To address the first issue emphasis may be made to the access theory which formulates “bundle of rights” with their conception of access as a “bundle of powers”.²⁸ For rural citizens a decentralized management thrust upon them the responsibilities to protect and preserve the forest resources in lieu of the right to gain access to them either temporarily, such as for short or long-term contracts in concession, or permanently on constitutional and legislative guarantees.

The trend towards decentralization, however, not only aims at ensuring bundle of rights to the community down-trodden people whose rights were never taken care of, but also concentrates on the outward extension of the administrative decision-making. Delegation of power in the hands of the private non-state entities or the forest-based village people is the transfer of managerial responsibilities to the organizations which are indirectly to be controlled under Central Government. Thus, it seeks to ensure that the voices of the indigenous people do not remain suppressed or unheard under the pressure of the State decision making.

The decentralized structure also provokes the emergence of non-State actors in the level-playing field as enunciated by the neo-liberal movement. Neo-liberal thinking have been promoted widely through Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank which recommend that tasks which used to be the responsibility of the state should either be transferred to private enterprises or carried out jointly by governments and private sector companies in public-private partnerships. This is also seen to have an influence on the practice of forest and natural resource management. The democratization wave in the late twentieth century also stimulated the involvement of non-state actors in forest management, as it paved the way for stronger participation of Civil Society.²⁹

Furthermore, the 73^rd Amendment to the Constitution institutionalized three tier of local government at district called “Zila Parishad”, blocks known as various local bodies like “Taluk Panchayats”, city corporation etc and village levels known as “Gram Panchayats”-all collectively were connoted as Panchayat Raj institutions.³⁰

Coming to the second issue being raised, it has been witnessed that there has been a worldwide trend towards decentralization which includes within its spectrum de-concentration, delegation and devolution of powers in the hands of the State. In the Indian context, looking back at the 73^rd Amendment, which is based on one of the major directive principles of the State policy enshrined in the Article 40 of the Constitution “the States shall take steps to organise panchayats and vest them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self government”; the spirit behind this measure is to install effective institutions of self government at the local level. Article 243(g) widely empowers these bodies to enjoy devolution of powers and responsibilities with regard to preparation of plans for economic development and social justice as well as implementation of schemes for the above relating to matters listed in the 11^th Schedule.³¹ Thus in India, the co-existence of federalism, local-government systems, innumerable public undertakings, autonomous institutions and voluntary organizations produce plurality of jurisdiction to share their control over the environmental resources.³²

However, the policies of governance introduced, as discussed, seems to be really complex, covering global-local links, sector-sector links, and differing values, but it is increasingly recognized that governance problems underlie many forest problems. Great progress has also been made in forest-level assessment and planning, but it has limitations. The JFM programmes which received a significant appreciation had a fair share of weaknesses as its very policy guidelines hardly bore are legal consequences. JFM worked under a circular generated under the Policy adopted in 1988 which was merely an opinion of the Houses in a Parliament and therefore were not binding in legal parlance. Moreover, Legal forestry and forestry laws, are not always based on criteria of sustainability, and even if diligently followed, many regulations would not result in sustainable management.³³ Forests being the powerhouse of resources of commercial value, the civil servants, pursuant to their own narrow interests, have always caused hindrances in the smooth running of decentralized structure. Furthermore, decentralized responsibilities without proper financial aid and economic power in the hands of the local communities make the whole process futile and consequently the unfair practice comes into play resulting in unsustainable management of resources.

In some spheres it is being argued that too much devolution of power in the hands of the local community may lead to detrimental consequences. With no proper means of checks and balances the local community may appear to establish autonomy over the resources which in turn may restrict the way to development. Therefore, even though the powers need to be devolved to the base level marginalized sections, care should be taken so as to see that they are made accountable to either to provisional or the Central Government and if not, then atleast to the citizens of the country.

Thus it can be reiterated that a fair and equitable distribution of administrative powers is very much necessary in order to take the fruit of success both in the concern for preservation and protection of resources as well as in the attainment of right to development. Therefore a healthy relationship between the Central and local government is identified as the key to the success of the decentralized structure. A framework for decentralized government requires appropriate and effective sharing of authority to make decisions and raise revenues, and sharing of responsibilities among levels of government according to their individual abilities and needs and also efffective enforcement and accountability at all levels of government to ensure that government agencies are acting fairly, efficiently and effectively in carrying out their mandates.

CONCLUSION- A WAY FORWARD:

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 has been appreciated to have the potential to reestablish the symbiotic relationship between the forests and forest communities. However, based on the experience of last decade, there is an urgent need to remove the prime hurdle coming from the mindset of forest department. Education campaign needs to be launched especially for them so that they learn to accept the “new paradigm” in which they are no longer rulers of the Indian jungles; they must now learn to facilitate of community forest governance. Another important step that would make the implementation smoother is to bring all forest related laws in harmony with the Forest Rights Act so that they aid, not hinder the provisions of the Act. It would be better to legally make the Act supreme over other overlapping laws in applicable areas. The most important step would be to strengthen lower Gram Sabhas and empower them to take responsibility of their surroundings by claiming their rights. That is the only way to promote grass-root democracy in the true spirit of Panchayati Raj Act. Powerless Gram Sabhas are also negating the benefit of another important act for forest tribes in the Schedule V areas, the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. In fact, strengthening both the Acts is the best way to defeat the menace of Naxal violence, which has been allegedly labeled as the biggest internal threat to the country.³⁴

Therefore, though there have been failures as well as successes, forest sector has considerably more experience with governance issues than the other sectors, and this experience has been catered at all levels—local, national and international. Forestry brings to life key governance concerns. Thus, progress in the forest sector can potentially lever wider gains in good governance. Participation can give local people the experience, first of being consulted, and then of greater responsibility for local resources which would result in a better protection and preservation of the forest resources. The high commercial value of the forest resources increases the propensity to corrupt management and to lead to political distortions. On the one hand, the state agencies for forest management are often alleged to be in an alliance with the forest industry. On the other hand, forest-dependent people are typically widely dispersed and not well organized.³⁵ Therefore, the local people tend to have low security of land and tree tenure, negligible public voice, and little incentive to promote. The UN has therefore suggested that some universal norms and values do apply and has published a list of characteristics of good governance: participation transparency; responsiveness; consensus orientation; equity; effectiveness and efficiency; accountability; and strategic vision.³⁶

REFERENCE:

1. Benjamin Weil, Conservation, Exploitation, and Cultural Change in the Indian Forest Service, 1875-1927 (Environmental History, Vol. 11, No. 2 Apr., 2006) at pp. 319 Published by: Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3986234 .

2. Supra Note 1 at p. 178

3. Aruna Kumar Monditoka, Decentralized Forest Governance - A Policy Perspective (Centre For Economic And Social Studies, Hyderabad) available at www.cess.ac.in/cesshome/wp/RULNR_Arunkumar_working_paper_93.pdf accessed on 30.03.2014

4. Mohammad Naseem, Environmental Law in India (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, Great Britain, 2011) at p. 525

5. Supra Note 5

6. S.N. Chary and Vinod Vyasulu, Environment Management-An Indian Perspective (Macmillan India Ltd., 1st ed. 2000) at p. 236

7. A.K. Poddar et al, Forest Laws and Policies in India (Regal Publication, 2011)at p. 66

8. ibid

9. Commercial Production of timber was the main thrust of the policy, but it also acknowledged the need to preserve forests for its ecological interests.

10. Supra Note 5

11. Haeuber, "Indian Forestry Policy in Two Eras”, at p.27

12. As eminent scholar Ramchandra Guha observed, the manner in which under the Forest Act of 1878 the “annexationists” defeated the “populists” and thus gave the State a greater control over the forest management.

13. Articles 39(b) and 39(c) of the Constitution of India (Directive Principles of State Policy)

14. Supra Note 5at p. 527

15. Supra Note 1

16. Section 2 of the Act

17. T. N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. UOI, 1996 (9) SCALE 2

18. Section 8 of the National Forest Policy, 1988

19. Supra Note 1

20. Satish Shastri, Environmental Law, (Eastern Law House, 4th ed., Lucknow, 2012) at p. 334

21. www.mainstreamweekly.net/article607.html accessed on 08.12.2017

22. Supra Note 22

23. Kulbhushan Balooni et al, Declining Instituted Collective Management Practices and Forest Quality in the Central Himalayas (Economic and Political Weekly April 21, 2007) at p. 1442

24. Richard Crook and James Manor, Democracy and Decentralisation inSouth Aisa and West Africa (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998) at p. 2 cited by P. Ishwara Bhat, Law and Social Transformation (Eastern Book Company, Lucknow 2009) at p. 898

25. (2002) 10 SCC 606

26. Supra Note 4

27. ibid

28. Supra note 4

29. ibid

30. Supra note 1 at p. 443

31. arc.gov.in/q-decentral.doc accessed on 09.12.2017

32. Supra note 30

33. ibid

34. https://socialissuesindia.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/appraisal_forest_rights_act_2006.pdf accessed on 21.12.2017

35. Supra Note 4

36. ibid

Received on 16.05.2018 Modified on 26.06.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(3): 517-523.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00087.6

The Rights of the Indigenous Forest Dwellers in the Governance of Indian Forests-A Critique