LAND AND FOREST RIGHTS IN NORTH EAST INDIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TRIPURA

Abstract

Traditional tribal societies of North East India were symbiotically related to the nature. Indigenous ethnic groups, living in this region of India since the pre-historic period were traditionally dependent upon forest resources. Land was livelihood and common forest was the source of food and sustenance for them. Intervention of modern State could not preserve this symbiotic relationship between the human society and nature, rather the State is held responsible for the destruction of such system. State-induced process of modernization led large scale destruction of forest. The modern land right regime based upon individual entitlement upon land and other natural resources ruined the traditional ethnic life-world of the ethnic communities. Development projects required land and therefore the State occupied common land without proper rehabilitation for the displaced people. In the case of Tripura also, the administration whosoever controls it hardly cares for the tribal people and their life-world. Outsiders have been encouraged to settle down permanently in Tripura for the sake of generating higher revenues. As a result, the indigenous people gradually lost their control upon land and natural resources. In this context, this paper argues that statist interventions upon natural resources are/were responsible for the impoverishment of the indigenous people in North East Region in general and Tripura in particular.