PM paying 'lip service' to Adivasis' cause, govt denying them justice: Congress
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Friday accused the Centre of going "full throttle" on attempts to deny Adivasis justice and said the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA) was a "full mockery" of the Forest Rights Act, illustrating the government's hypocrisy.
The Opposition party also claimed that DAJGUA, in "typical Manuvadi fashion", only sees these communities as forest-dwelling 'vanvasis' who are 'labhaartis' (beneficiaries), rather than political and economic actors in their own right.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said today is the 150th birth anniversary of 'Dharti Aaba Bhagwan Birsa Munda', one of the greatest sons of India and a fierce advocate of self-governance and social justice.
"The non-biological PM is in Jamui, Bihar paying lip service to the cause of the Adivasis on this occasion, even as his Government goes full throttle on attempts to deny Adivasis justice," Ramesh alleged in a statement.
"The Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA) - named after Bhagwan Birsa Munda, but a full mockery of the Forest Rights Act- illustrates this hypocrisy," he said.
Ramesh said the Forest Rights Act ( FRA 2006) passed by the Manmohan Singh's government was a revolutionary law and it transferred power and authority over forests from the forest department to the gram sabha.
In another departure from precedent, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs was empowered as the nodal authority to implement the law, he pointed out.
The FRA empowered the Adivasi community and gram sabhas to govern and manage forests as a major reform to ensure democratic governance of forests, Ramesh said.
"After the revolution, however, came Narendra Modi's counter-revolution.
DAJGUA fundamentally undoes this historic law and the democratic reform in forest governance," he claimed.
Ramesh said it dilutes the authority of Ministry of Tribal Affairs by giving authority to the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change in the implementation of FRA.
Rather than empower the FRA's statutory bodies - namely the gram sabha, the sub-divisional committee, the district level committee, and the state level monitoring committee - DAJGUA has created a vast parallel institutional mechanism of FRA cells at the district and sub-divisional levels and arming them with large funds and contractual staff, he pointed out.
They are directly under the centralised bureaucratic control of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and State Tribal Welfare Departments, and lack accountability to the FRA's statutory bodies.
DAJGUA empanels and engages technical agencies/domain experts /corporate NGOs for the FRA implementation and CFR management activities of the gram sabhas by the State Tribal Welfare Departments, he said.
Ramesh argued that these FRA cells are to take over what the FRA statutory bodies are required to do by law, leaving these statutory bodies to be appendages to these FRA Cells, nominal bodies reduced to carrying out the biddings of these FRA cells, he said.
"This has been done without attention to the economic and social sensitivities involved, even as a massive budget has been allocated for this (Rs. 1 lakh for the technical agencies for each CFR). For example, in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP government engaged the Maharashtra Knowledge Company Limited (MKCL) to create the VanMiTRA app, which made the transparent process of submitting FRA claims into an obscure, online process that technical operators took charge of," he said.
Three lakh claims were rejected as a result, he added.
Adivasi groups are justifiably worried about the same happening at a large scale due to the engagement of such tech agencies, Ramesh said.
The forest department has now been allowed to be a part of the gram sabha's own committee for management of community forest resources, a direct violation of the FRA, Ramesh said.
"The FRA was enacted for empowering Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities to govern and manage their resources. DAJGUA, in typical Manuvadi fashion, only sees these communities as forest-dwelling vanvasis who are labhaartis, rather than political and economic actors in their own right," he alleged.
As captured in the Adivasi Sankalp unveiled by Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Nandurbar, Maharashtra on the 12th of March, 2024, the Congress is committed to the honest and fair implementation of the FRA, Ramesh asserted.
"It is part of our guarantees to the people in both Jharkhand and Maharashtra and will continue to be a priority for upcoming assembly and parliamentary elections," he stressed.
Tagging his statement, Ramesh said on X, "As the non-biological PM pays lip service to the Adivasi cause by celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Dharti Aaba Bhagwan Birsa Munda today in Jamui, we should not be fooled: his Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA) is nothing but an absolute mockery of the revolutionary Forest Rights Act (2006) and Adivasi self-governance."
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Over 350 illegal religious structures removed along Nepal border
Lucknow, May 11 (PTI): The Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday said that more than 350 unauthorised religious sites, including madrasas, mosques, mazars and Eidgahs, have been identified and subjected to sealing or demolition in recent days, an official statement issued here said.
Acting on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's clear directive that no religious encroachment will be tolerated, the administration in districts such as Pilibhit, Shravasti, Balrampur, Bahraich, Siddharthnagar and Maharajganj has launched a sweeping campaign, it said.
The authorities have systematically identified illegal structures and taken strict action, continuing operations even on Sunday.
The chief minister has made it clear that encroachment in the name of any religion will not be allowed and all violators, especially those running unrecognised religious institutions, will face legal consequences, the statement said.
On May 10 and 11, 104 madrasas, one mosque, five mazars and two Eidgahs built illegally on public and private land were identified in Shravasti. All were issued notices and sealed, it said.
One illegal madrasa on public land was demolished and two unrecognized madrasas on private land were sealed, the statement added.
In Bahraich, officials identified 13 madrasas, eight mosques, two mazars and one Eidgah illegally constructed on government land.
After issuing notices, five were sealed and 11 were demolished, including eight madrasas, two mosques and one mazar, the statement said.
In Siddharthnagar, the authorities identified four mosques and 18 madrasas and one more madrasa for illegal construction. Notices were issued to these structures. Five madrasas were sealed and nine were demolished. In total, action was taken against 23 illegal structures in the district, it said.
In Maharajganj’s Nautanwa tehsil, Parsamalik village, an unrecognized madrasa operating on Maktab land was shut down based on a report submitted by the District Minority Welfare Officer.
The building’s keys were handed over to the local police station in-charge. So far, 29 madrasas and five mazars constructed through encroachment on public and private land have been demolished in the district.
In past two days in Lakhimpur Kheri, two mosques, one Eidgah on public land along with eight madrasas on private land were found to be illegally constructed.
Of the 13 structures identified, one was served a notice, nine were sealed and three have been demolished so far, the statement said.
The district authorities in Pilibhit have identified an illegal mosque built on public land in Bharatpur village, covering an area of 0.0310 hectares.
According to the district magistrate, a notice has been issued to the parties involved, seeking a response within 15 days. Action against the illegal construction will be taken after the notice period ends, it said.
On Sunday, an under-construction madrasa on public land in Virpur Semra village, Tulsipur tehsil, was demolished in Balrampur. So far, 30 madrasas, 10 mazars and one Eidgah have been demolished in the district.
Ten of them were built illegally on public land, while 20 were constructed without authorization on private land, the statement said.
