Quote: All this was said much better and more eloquently over three decades ago by anthropologist Verrier Elwin. Writing in 1963, having made his home among the tribals and forests of India for some 30 years, Elwin deplored the “constant propaganda that the tribal people are destroying the forest”. He asked pointedly how the tribals “could destroy the forest. They owned no trucks; they hardly had even a bullock-cart; the utmost that they could carry away was some wood to keep them warm in the winter months, to reconstruct or repair their huts and carry on their little cottage industries”. Who, then, was (and is) the real culprit? Elwin wrote of the: “feeling amongst the tribals that all the arguments in favour of preservation of forests are intended to refuse them their [rights]. They argue that when it is a question of industry, township, development work or projects of rehabilitation, all these plausible arguments are forgotten and vast tracts are placed at the disposal of outsiders who mercilessly destroy the forest wealth with or without necessity.”
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:49:26 +0000
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