In the Nagadabra village, there are two hamlets/ settlements affected by conflict: Nagadabra -Mathpur-Kodwagodan andTandidahra-Mathpur-Kodwagodan.  

In both these settlements/hamlets, Baigas have been facing violence and harassment from the neighboring Panchayat village of Kodwagodan (non Baigas) along with the forest department and police officials who do not approve of the Baiga settlement and accuse them of encroaching on their land and forest boundaries.

In the first case, the Baiga community came down in 2002-03 from the hills of Chindideeh village to settle in what is now called Nagadabra. In between, they had settled in the Kuhlidongri panchayat but had to move. According to the community, they moved down from the hills because of several reasons: rocky/infertile land on the pahaar (hills) and because supported by a campaign carried on by Ekta Parishad, a civil society movement to claim government land for indigenous communities and promote equitable land distribution.

Since 2016, there have been recurring episodes of extreme and explicit violence by the Kodwagodan Panchayat (separated by a river) and forest department on Nagadabra village. This intensification of violence may have to do with granting of land titles (both revenue and forest titles have been distributed) to households in Nagadabra village in 2016 in the post-Forest Rights era and declaration of Nagadabra as revenue village.  

The situation gets further complicated wherein the community has been given land deeds for the adjacent plots of land, which is not actually occupied by them while some land deeds are invalid/apaatra (A legal case around this is being planned by the Baiga community with Human Rights Law Network, Chhattisgarh). The village has also been involved in an old court case with the forest department and neighboring panchayat of Kodwagodan, over the use of forest resources (wood, etc).

The members of Nagadabra informed that in the summer of 2016,  Kodwagodan Panchayat in collusion with Mathpur Panchayat and forest department grazed animals on their agricultural land, destroyed the crops (according to Baigas of Nagadabra they had titles for this land) and fenced the land. The forest department also took away their animals, releasing them only after some money was paid illegally. Incidents of violence re-occurred where houses were destroyed and villagers beaten up again in 2017, 2018, and 2019, when the new Tandidahra settlement next to Nagadabra was attacked (details below). In the 2018 incident, when the villagers and the local activists protested against the high handedness of forest department, police, and neighboring panchayats, the protesting local activists were also physically manhandled and beaten up by the police.

The second case is of 75 Baiga households that moved from Fifdi in Birhuldeeh Panchayat and settled in a land next to Nagadabra village (settlement calls itself Tandidahra) post monsoons in 2016. Between this they had settled in  Badaura from where they were evicted by the administration. They chose to move to Nagadabra after receiving permission from Sub Divisional Magistrate (Block authority), hoping to eventually get land deeds from the administration. However, the Sub Divisional Magistrate office or other state departments never followed up or recognized the rights of the Baigas in times of conflict.

The community decided to move for several reasons: their village land was rocky and infertile, poor government services- lack of roads as one had to cross nine streams to reach the main panchayat village, the water source was 2 km away downhill, decent functioning health center 20 km away in  Kukdur, no school-creche, etc. Further, they learned that their village had fallen in the newly notified tiger corridor from Bhoramdeo reserve to Achankamar tiger reserve, and for this project, they were asked by the authorities to leave (This is in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act which does not require the village to be relocated from tiger corridors).

The settlement has been attacked thrice in 2017, July 2018 and June 2019 by the Joint Forest Management Committee of neighboring Kodwagodan panchayat, Mathpur panchayat, forest department, and at times also the revenue department and police. In the different incidents of violence, the community was physically attacked, newly made huts and water sources were destroyed, the land was bulldozed and agricultural equipment and mobiles confiscated. In July 2018 incident, the villagers and their animals were forcefully corralled into trucks and they were dropped at a far off village after which the villagers took temporary shelters in different villages. After 2019, police complaint was lodged to protest violence.

Both the settlements/hamlets in Nagadabra and Tandidahra (surrounded by rivers on three sides) do not have a pucca road to Mathpur panchayat (non- Baigas) and get cut off from the main road/panchayat in monsoons. Nagadabra lacks enough handpumps and villagers allege that they are kept marginalized by the main village panchayat of Mathpur who also resent their occupation by restricting their access to forest resources and denying the benefit of the schemes that come to panchayat like Employment Guarantee

Scheme. It is the same situation with Tandidahra, only poorer. In the beginning, they were not given proper shelter and had been living in the open in precarious conditions while later their huts were destroyed. Currently, one-two families live in the settlement to ensure their claim to their land. It is to be understood that this migration/movement of settlements/villages is not a one-time incident rather an ongoing process. This is in the background of the decades-old movement by the Baigas to demand forest/land title deeds. The conflict has manifested itself in legal tussles, recurring state violence, and also physical and economic violence on the Baiga communities with no support by the state institutions to take action or resolve the conflict.

*Information based on conversations with Baiga community members and leaders, government documents, applications, and media reports. Some information about the first case study was collected in 2016 during a research study with the Public Health Resource Network.

Past few decades has seen the migration of Baigas (forest-based indigenous community classified as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups ) from the hills to the plains for various factors relating to the environment; such as the building of conservation parks , the decreased access to forest due to factors such as: the ban on traditional slash and burn cultivation, the impossibility of practising settled agriculture in the mountains, decreasing forests endangering the traditional forest-based livelihoods and neoliberal development model resulting in poor welfare schemes or its implementation.

The cases of two adjacent villages of Nagadabra and Tandidahra affected by conflict will be showcasing the patterns of conflicts/migration faced by the community in the Pandariya block of Kabirdham district of Chhattisgarh and the socio-economic& environmental consequences to it.

The consequence for these newly settled villages in the plains has been the state institution’s (Forest department, police) refusal to recognize/resolve their rights over land, crops and forest resources (even when they have received the title deeds under Forest Rights Act, 2006 or when their movement has been approved by the sub-district officials). The state/its institutions have become a perpetrator of physical and economic violence year after year (beatings, destruction of crops and property) on a regular basis along with the neighboring village communities (who too claim the right to resources).

The community has come together to fight for their land, crops and forest resources in the newly migrated areas. This fight has gone parallel to demand for services such as handpump, school nutrition services and roads for years.

The conflict has led to significant environmental, socio-economic and health impacts for the community further marginalizing the community and increasing inequities.

II. Geography

The two case study villages are located in Pandariya block (23% Scheduled Tribe population) in Kabirdham district (21% ST population) of Chhattisgarh state in India. Kabirdham district is flanked by forest reserves and animal conservation project. The block or district is not a Scheduled Area, as defined under the Constitution.To the north east there is the Achanakmar Wildlife Sanctuary and Kanha Tiger reserve towards the west. The Chilpi range (Bodla) and Dongargarh Khara Range (Bodla block of Chhattisgarh) reserve forest are to the south west.

The major scheduled tribes in Pandariya include Gonds, Baigas, and Agarias.

II. What are the common elements/patterns in these different conflicts?

These common elements of the movement of Baigas (pre 2006 or post 2006) to the plains, settlement in the new villages, demand of deeds and subsequent violence by the neighbouring villages with the support of state institutions such as forest department and police can also be seen in conflicts of Sajjankhar-Kukdur, Nagadabra -Mathpur-Kodwagodan, Kharjiti, Cheetabadri- Dalamahua.

Prima facie, these conflicts seems like a tussle between villages/habitations due to lack of clarity on boundary demarcations.Even though disputes between villages due to lack of clarity in boundaries is common, in this particular context of the block, the village disputes overlap with the tussle between PVTG- non PVTG communities, The PVTGs here being the Baigas. The PVTG communities are politically – socio economically marginalised and end up bearing the brunt.

However, this conflict is not to be framed simply a tussle between two villages or two tribal communities. The state institutions (administration, forest, police) have had a major role during the origin of the conflict historically as well as the inability/reluctance to resolve them.

Common elements/patterns-->

-Baiga-non PVTG conflicts

-Movements from hills to plains due to various reasons over the past decades (most of them recent, other dating at most 20 years back)

-Destruction of crops and property and Ouster/Violence by neighbouring (non PVTG) villages assisted by state institutions.

-State’s inability to resolve these conflict over the years

III. What are the environmental angles to these conflicts?

-Migration of the Baigas from the mountains to plains in search of better opportunities/dignified livelihoods is directly related to the changing land nature/agricultural patterns (ban on shifting agriculture), climate change, uneven development, restrictions to forest resources (which had been the main livelihood of these economies)/conservation projects by the state and the inability of the state’s welfare schemes to reach them.

-Forest department builds conservation projects/restricts access to forests which affects the livelihood of the communities forcing them to migrate (as in case of Case study 1). When the communities start doing agriculture (ploughing), the forest department tries to throw them out. In another similar case of Sajjankhar, the forest department has been trying to do plantation in titled land.

-Attack on the crops, animals, land and livelihoods of the indigenous communities. Physical and economic violence unleashed by the state on the communities.

-Confusion between forest and revenue department itself. Why does the departments not want to/unable to resolve the conflict- State /bureaucracy does not see Adivasis/tribal as the owners of the land. Land deeds were provided at some point of time because of the corruption or provided by the revenue department without the knowledge of forest department /villagers. Corruption further does not lead to resolution of conflicts.