Brinda & team get the Tribal Bill rewritten

NEW DELHI: Left members led by Brinda Karat, who are chasing radical agendas, have succeeded in swaying a select committee of Parliament to “rewrite” the tribal bill.

The panel has not just changed the cut-off date from 1980 to ’05, it has also decided to seek the Parliament’s sanction for extending the benefits of the legislation to non-STs. In the process, the Left leaders have managed to lay claim on the authorship of the Bill.

The Bill prepared by the government had prohibited recognition of any land that was occupied after October 25, 1980. Sonia Gandhi was keen that 1980 — the year that marks the commencement of the Forest Act — should be made the cut-off year.

Congress leaders familiar with the issue have been maintaining that putting ’05 as the cut-off date would only benefit sections of non-tribals, particularly the “settlers”.

But Ms Karat, who appeared to be in agreement with the activist groups’ stand that “millions of people have been evicted, displaced or driven out in the 26 years since 1980” ensured that Ms Gandhi’s wish is not carried out by the government.

Ms Gandhi has been of the view that the Bill, which is aimed at correcting a historical wrong, should be focussed only on the ST population.

Activist groups’ articulate advocate Karat also managed to get the committee to agree to extending benefits of the Bill to non-ST communities. Activist groups feel a large population of forest-dwellers include tribals who are not classified as STs, Dalits and other communities. They feel many of these non-ST groups are traditional forest-dwellers.

The Left leaders also thwarted the government’s attempt to put an effective regulatory system in place. The original plan was to accord a recommendatory status for gram sabhas in the process of determining land rights. It also had a provision of extensive vetting by subdivisional officers to collectors.

The activists have been claiming that such a regulatory mechanism would “encourage corruption” and that vested interests would act through the officials. Ms Karat argued that “the only open, transparent and democratic forum where decisions can be made and openly challenged was the gram sabha.” This prompted the select committee to recommend the scrapping of the “regulatory body” suggested in the bill.

All these changes, in effect, has transferred the authorship of the Bill from the Congress to the Left. This cannot but be discomforting for the Congress as the Bill was aimed at wooing back tribals in north India, who have shifted their political allegiance to the Sangh Parivar outfits and the BJP.