Follow TNM’s WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
“It is the Forest Department that is encroaching our land,” 29-year-old Shivu, a Jenu Kuruba man, told TNM over the phone shortly after the Karnataka Forest Department officials demolished six makeshift huts at his ancestral village Karadikallu Atturkolli, on Wednesday, June 18.
Barely one-and-a-half months’ ago, he had addressed a press conference in Bengaluru announcing the intention of 52 Jenu Kuruba families, including his own, to reclaim the village that they were evicted from 45 years ago.
A few days later, they moved back to Karadikallu, inside the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, and built makeshift huts. Dozens of Forest Department officials backed by the police turned up. Despite a stand-off with the Forest Department, the Jenu Kurubas built homes for their sacred deities, as is the practice in their community when they rebuild a village.
Jenu Kurubas are a honey-gathering community with their own language, classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). They had filed claims for their ancestral land in Karadikallu Atturkolli under the Forest Rights Act in 2011.
On Tuesday, June 17, the Range Forest Officer of Nagarahole sub-division issued a notice, telling them that the huts they had built in the Nalkeri forest area were in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. The letter asked them to demolish it, failing which, the Forest Department would take legal action.
The next day, June 18, at around 10.30 am, dozens of Forest Department officials, backed by the police, turned up to demolish the huts. In hours, just four huts were left standing.
Shivu told TNM that he and the other members of the community blocked the Forest Department officials and tried to stop them, but in vain. “It is the middle of the monsoon. There are old people, children, and women. Where are we supposed to go?” he asked.
The 52 families now have no choice but share the four huts that are made of tarpaulin.
Encroachers or rights-holders?
On June 18 evening, Ananya Kumar J, the Assistant Conservator of Forests, Nagarahole Wildlife Sub-Division, issued a press release stating that the tribal people had “illegally entered and occupied” a portion of Atturkolli Forest area since May 5, and that they had built six more sheds on June 17 by clearing vegetation and cutting down around 42 small-sized trees. It also said that the Forest Rights Act (FRA) claims of the 52 families had been rejected.
Shivu, however, begs to differ. “Jenu Kurubas are a PVTG, which has three rights under the FRA. We are the original inhabitants of this land. It is ironic that in the name of conservation, the Forest Department is committing atrocities against us in violation of the Constitution and the FRA. It is running its own dictatorship under the Wildlife Protection Act and is destroying tribal life.”
The Forest Rights Act recognises individual forest rights (IFR), community forest resource rights (CFRR), community forest rights (CFR) and other rights of tribal people and other forest dwelling communities.
On May 19, the Sub-Division Level Committee (SDLC) set up under the Forest Rights Act rejected the IFR claims of the 52 families, saying that there was no record of a village called Aturkolli having existed, and that the land being claimed as Karadikallu Atturkolli did not have any signs of having been cultivated.
As proof of its claim, the letter cited the Nagarahole National Park Management Plan (2000-2010), which showed 43 haadis (villages) but contained no mention of Atturkolli; satellite images from 1985, 2011, 2014, 2019, and 2025; and a letter from the Virajpet taluk Tribal Welfare Officer saying that it had no documentation regarding anyone having lived in that village since 2005.
This decision was communicated to the claimants on May 22. TNM has a copy of one such letter issued by the sub-divisional office of Madikeri sub-division, Kodagu district. The decision can be appealed within 60 days.
Rajan, a Bengaluru-based activist with the Community Networks Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) said the Forest Department's insistence on demanding proof of the village's existence was a violation of the law, and therefore, so was its rejection of the claims.
Old surveys generally recorded larger villages having 1,000 or more people, but not smaller ones such as Karadikallu Atturkoli, which had about 250 people or less. “You won’t find all tribal hamlets in the old gazeteers. The Muzaffar Assadi report calls such haadis vanished villages. In fact, the report mentions about 28 families from Atturkolli village as those evicted from Nagarahole, although the name of the village itself is not mentioned,” he said.
A three-member committee headed by the late professor Muzaffar Assadi, set up by the Karnataka government, had submitted a report in 2014 outlining measures to be taken for the rehabilitation of 3,418 forest dwelling families who had been evicted from Nagarahole in the 1970s. The report has been largely unimplemented.
Rajan told TNM that the Forest Department’s reliance on satellite imagery and government records while rejecting all other evidence is a violation of the law. The Union Tribal Affairs Ministry had taken note of this way back in 2012 and issued guidelines on the importance to be given to satellite images as evidence, he said.
“Use of any technology, such as satellite imagery, should be used to supplement evidence tendered by a claimant for consideration of the claim and not to replace other evidence submitted by him in support of his claim as the only form of evidence,” the Union Ministry guidelines say.
In any case, it is a clear violation of the FRA Rules to reject claims by saying no government record exists of a village or hamlet, because Rule 2 states that inclusion in the government records is not a necessary pre-condition for the recognition of forest rights.
What evidence is acceptable?
Under Rule 13 of the Forest Rights Act Rules, any two pieces of evidence can be provided as proof of tribal people having lived in a particular place. These include government documents such as voter ID cards or ration cards, and traditional structures such as wells, burial grounds, or sacred places.
Rajan said that the copies of death certificates, voter ID cards, school certificates, and ration cards with name Karadikallu Atturkolli had all been submitted as evidence. He added that receipts of honey-gathering cooperative societies under the Large Area Multipurpose Societies (LAMPS) scheme mentioned their villages as Karadikallu Atturkolli. “So is the Forest Department denying its own government’s record?”
Shivu said that the villages that they had inhabited before they were evicted 45 years ago still contained signs of their presence. “We still use the burial ground, which is 200 metres away from the village. Bodies are marked by stones,” he said.
But a blatant irony, he pointed out, is that, several years back, the Forest Department itself had taken away a marker that establishes their presence in the village.
Shivu explained that the Jenu Kurubas refer to their gods as wodeya (male) and wodathi (female). “There is a stone that we worship as Kunthoor wodeya. This stone is associated with the traditional boundaries of the village, and each village belongs to a clan. Back in the 1990s, a range Forest officer named KM Chinnappa had taken our Kunthoor wodeya stone. Archaeologists have dated that stone to the 12th century. It still stands on the premises of the Nagarahole sub-division of the Forest Department,” Shivu said.
He said that Jenu Kurubas’ presence can be found in every part of the forest. “Look at Forest Department maps. You will see places called Kaanthoor, Gonigadde, Ammaale, Kunthoor. These names were given to the land by our ancestors,” Shivu said, explaining that each place was associated with its own traditional boundaries that were recognised by the tribal people.
“The Forest Department has always called forest dwellers encroachers. But the FRA is not a land grant scheme. The Preamble of the Act acknowledges and recognises tribal people and other forest dwellers as rights holders and outlines the legal process for the recognition of that right. So, people of Karadikallu Atturkolli are right holders who have claimed their rights. If their FRA claims are being arbitrarily denied by the Forest Department, it does not mean that they don’t have the right. It just means that their rights are deliberately not being recognised,” Rajan said.
The Preamble of the FRA says that it is an “Act to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have been residing in such forests for generations but whose rights could not be recorded; to provide for a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition.”
Asked why they decided to return to their village in May this year, Shivu said that the people of Karadikallu Atturkolli had been filing FRA claims since 2011. “We waited for years but the government kept delaying it. The Forests Rights Act recognises that we were historically evicted. We are right holders. We were there before any of these forest laws came into effect. It is the Forest Department that destroyed our traditional boundaries and encroached our land. We will appeal the decision rejecting our claim to the land.”
The Karadikallu Atturu Kolli Village Gram Sabha and Forest Rights Committee, Nagarahole Adivasi Jammapale Hakku Sthapana Samiti, National Adivasi Alliance India, and Community Networks Against Protected Areas India issued a joint press release on June 19, condemning the violence against the families of Karadikallu Atturkolli.