Van Gujjars in Peril as Eviction Notices Served in Dehradun’s Lachhiwala Range
By Kushal Choudhary , Niharika Mehra
Source: NewsClick, 21 May 2023
People from the Van Gujjar community gathered at the Lachhiwala Forest range office in Dehradun on Friday to peacefully demonstrate against the sudden eviction notices served to them. The notice termed these traditional forest dwellers as “illegal encroachers” and was served to many Van Gujjar families in the Lachhiwala range.
The meeting was organised by the Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan (VGTYS), an organisation built by the young Van Gujjars who are trying to reclaim their tribal identity and rights that the Constitution safeguards. The president of the Sangathan, Md Ameer Hamza, said, “The notices are illegal and do not provide any opportunity for the community to present their side to the concerned authorities through legal means. According to the Indian Forest (Uttaranchal Amendment) Act, 2001, the person who is termed as an encroacher must be served notices such that they are allowed to present their case legally. These notices do not have any mention of any legality whatsoever.” “According to the working plans of the Forest department itself, the Van Gujjar community has been living here for the past 120 years,” he added.
In an ensuing confrontation between the Gujjars who have gathered and a forest department official, Ghanand Uniyal, the Gujjars reiterated that the notice served to them is outside the ambit of the law as it violates the rights of forest dwellers under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. Uniyal said, “The anti-encroachment agenda is present in all the departments and ranges of forests as per the orders by the state government and the CM. The Lachhiwala range is more sensitive. Gujjars have been allocated land in the range but this allocation has not been implemented. Now we see that there is encroachment of large amounts of land. We have taken into consideration all the laws and acts including tribal and forest rights laws.”
The Van Gujjar representatives responded by asserting that the notice of encroachment served encompasses all Van Gujjar households in the range, labelling every dera in the Lachhiwala range as encroachment. They say that the forest department has the right to remove the encroachers but there is no information provided whatsoever about the details of the encroached area and which persons and families are encroachers.
Many women from the community who participated in the meeting expressed their concerns about the sudden notices handed over to their families. Reshma, a Van Gujjar woman living in the Lachhiwala range said that her family has been living here since 1910. “Our five generations have lived here and the forest department has repeatedly troubled us with such notices. This land on which we live is also a resettlement land. They say we need to resettle from the forests, but instead of making arrangements, they serve us such notices about encroachment. We would happily accept the eviction notices had there been enough amends by the government but as of now,
I fail to understand why our entire community in this forest range is being termed encroachers,” she said.
Reshma said that such impromptu notices given to the community affect their collective well-being and mental health. “We don’t know what will happen to us, the fear of uncertainty looms over us. We are living presently based on the permits provided by the department, but we are questioned like this. We would accept anything in accordance with the law if it ensures that we won’t be served notices like this yet again and we earnestly wish for a solution to our continuous plight. It hurts being termed encroachers in the very forests our generations have lived in,” she said.
Commenting on the marginalised status of the tribal community, Reshma added that the community is largely uneducated and is cut off from the mainstream. “We are supposed to be given ST status, we live in the jungles but we are denied such status. But what more can we think of now when we have to live in this constant state of anxiety where even the roofs over our heads are under threat? We are experiencing sleepless nights, these notices are a hindrance to our children’s education as well,” she said.
