Violent Social Conflicts in India’s Forests –Society, State and the Market
Conference on Indian Forestry: Key Trends and Challenges, 5 – 6 March 2009, New Delhi
This article looks at conflicts over meanings and objectives over forest use and control in and around India’s forests, ranging from everyday contestations over forest access between different communities in a village, to violent encounters between the forest department, police and villagers, to battles that are fought out in the court. Civil society responses to conflict cover a wide spectrum from advocacy with parliamentary parties, legal intervention, and political mobilisation to armed struggle. Within civil society, even those who believe in lobbying and legal intervention, must be differentiated by class and region, since they bring with them very unequal strengths and unequal access to government. The political clout of associations of retired foresters is, for example, quite different from that of associations of poor peasants. State responses equally vary between negotiation, indifference and severe repression, depending not just on the interlocutors, but on the political expediency of the moment. This chapter will include a typology of forest conflicts.
The full text is available at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46103035/Violent-Social-Conflicts-in-India-s-Forests
