From msarin@SATYAM.NET.IN Sun Jun 19 12:26:01 2005
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 13:12:50 +0530
From: Madhu Sarin
To: nathistory-india@Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: Bill on MoTA website
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Dear all,
The draft tribal rights bill has been placed on MoTA's website from June
3:
http://tribal.nic.in/index1.html
Regarding the law making process, the problem is generic rather than
specific. As members of the drafting committee, all of us were bound to
'secrecy' which we were perhaps naive to take too seriously. With the DG
forests also a member of the same committee, MoEF itself went to press
with their critique (which, incidentally was not expressed during the
drafting process), and thereby violated the govt's own rules. Perhaps due
to their inexperience, offficials of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs stuck
to the official rules, thereby enabling a massive misinformation campaign
against the bill being launched which was left unchallenged.
As far as process is concerned, perhaps excepting the RTI and EGA bills,
the tribal rights bill evolved through fairly broadbased consultations
with those whose lives have been made hell by all the other conservation
laws, all of which were enacted without any consultation, particularly
with those whose lives have been directly impacted. How much
consultation, for example, were the FCA (treated by conservationists as a
sacred document despite it's having frozen huge non-forest lands as
'forest') or the WLPA preceded by? Was any 'consensus' created in their
favour, taking the views of those living in and cultivating the lands
which have been brought under their ambit into account? And how much
'consultation' is involved in the implicit new law making in the Supreme
Court orders under the Godavarman case?
Leaving conservation and forestrights aside, how much 'consultation' was
demanded for the horrific unlawful activities act which has repalced
POTA? or for revisions to the CrPC?
I am personally amazed by the din generated by a bill which has the
potential of bestowing long denied citizenship rights on some of the most
marginalised communities of this country when no one blinks an eyelid
when their rights are trampled upon on a daily basis by other laws passed
without any consultation or transparency.
May I suggest that demands for improved 'process' should be generic and
applicable to ALL laws and not focussed only on specific ones,
particlularly those focussed on empowering those excluded from all the
country's decision making processes. Maybe the Right to Information Act
will facilitate such transparency in the country's law making processes.
It will be interesting to see how much use is made of the RTI Act.
Madhu
----- Original Message -----
From: Ashish Kothari
To: nathistory-india@Princeton.EDU
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: tribal rights vs wildlife
Janaki, I've been hearing that the Min. of Tribal Affairs plans to
put a version up on its website for public comments....as far as I
can see they have not done it so far. I don't know why the
delay...they should have done this as soon as a draft was
available.
To my mind, this kind of secrecy is unacceptable. I support the
intent and quite a bit of the substance of the Bill (though I also
have serious reservations about some portions), but I am very
disappointed by the process used. Unfortunately, we tend to do this
with most of the Acts that we as NGOs or activists have pushed or
supported....whether wildlife/forests (the Wild Life Amendment Act
was subject to even less debate then the Tribal Bill has been), or
tribal rights, or others. The only one that I know was up on the
website for a long time for public comments, and then over a year
with the Parliamentary committee which went to several parts of the
country to solicit inputs, was the Biodiv. Act....though here too I
am sure more consultation should have been done.
I know of no case where local communities have been involved in
drafting or finalising an Act.....though it is interesting that
quite a bit of the motivation and substance of what has gone into
the Tribal Bill has come from adivasi movements across the country.
Ashish
Ashish Kothari
Kalpavriksh - Environment Action Group
Apt. 5 Shree Datta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana
Pune 411004, India
Tel: 91-20-25675450
Tel/fax: 91-20-25654239
Email: ashishkothari@vsnl.com (or ashish@nda.vsnl.net.in)