There are bouquets and brickbats for Raman Singh government in Chattisgarh. Bouquets for enforcing the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, and brickbats for the fault-lines in the process. The Forest Rights Act provides for election of forest rights committees in every village.

These committees in turn are expected to invite claims for recognition of forest rights. This process will be completed by June 30, 2008, according to the state chief secretary. There is a hitch though. Neither the officials nor the villagers have as yet a clear understanding of the provisions of the Forest Rights Act. More over seasonal migration from the state is very high at this time of the year. In case, the BJP rushes through its paces with an eye on the forthcoming assembly elections, it is possible that many eligible claimants may not be able to make their claims under such a rushed schedule.

Environmentalists and campaigners for people's rights have taken up the issue with the chief minister. They have shot off a letter to him. The government is yet to respond. Madhu Sarin, environmentalist and scholar, Nagaraj Adve (People's Union for Democratic Rights) Rohit Jain ( Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative), C.R.Bijoy (People's Union for Civil Liberties), Shankar Gopalakrishnan (Campaign for Survival and Dignity), Gautam Kumar Bandyopadhyay, (People's Alliance for Livelihood Rights), Nandini Sundar (Delhi University), Xavier Manjooran (Adivasi Mahasabha), Sarathchandra Lele (Senior Fellow & Coordinator, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment & Development) VS Roy David (National Adivasi Alliance), Soma KP (gender and women's rights activist), and Renji George Joseph (Alliance for Holistic and Sustainable Development) are in the forefront of the campaign particularly to save the rights of people who had left their native villages in Naxalite violence hit Dantewada and Bijapur districts.

The two districts together have a population of 7.19 lakhs spread over 1200 villages. They are predominantly - 78.5 per cent - tribals. About 50% of these villages, with an approximate population of 3.5 lakhs, are currently displaced. While about 47,000 are living in roadside camps set up by the government, another 40,000 or so have fled to the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh to escape the ongoing violence between Salwa Judum and Naxalites.

The whereabouts of the remaining 2, 63,000 villagers from the abandoned villages are unknown. In at least 644 abandoned villages in the two districts, no gram sabha meetings required under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act for initiating the process of recognition of rights can be organised under present circumstances.

What is more, Andhra Pradesh Tribal Welfare Department has decided not to confer any special privileges to tribals from Chattisgarh who had taken shelter in their state. Put simply it means that these tribals will not be eligible for land and forest rights in Andhra Pradesh where they have been given shelter after their displacement. That will be a double blow to them.

On the one hand they will not be able to claim their rights in their original villages in Chhattisgarh. On the other their adopted state is denying them any special privilege. Whether it is by design or by default, the reality is both Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh are depriving these tribals of their forest rights even while claiming that the law of the land is being upheld and enforced. This is, to put mildly, nothing but a terrible subversion of justice.

As the Adivasi campaigners contend, the only way out is suspension of the implementation of Forest Rights Act in the Naxal violence hit villages. Simultaneously, the government should double its efforts to facilitate speedy return of the villagers to their native lands. Also, the Raman Singh government should not allocate any land to outsiders in tribal belt. It also should grant prospecting lease or any other such lease for minor minerals should be given in these villages.

Is there any one out in Raipur Secretariat listening to these demands? Over to the Chief Minister.