Paper short abstract:

Taking the tribal resistance to Vedanta Alumina Project in the state of Orissa, in the Eastern part of India as a case in point, the paper tries to explore and explain the existence and interaction of multiple legal frameworks with respect to use and access to forest.The paper tries to underscore the adivasi’s worldview of forest, and then counter-poses it the state narratives of forest and environmental conservation.

Paper long abstract:

The rapid economic growth agenda of neo-liberalism has resulted in monopolization of natural resources by the state on the one hand, and narrowing down of the resource base for survival of tribal communities on the other. The response to this new threat to survival has manifested through virulent conflicts over the process of development. In this context, the proposed paper tries to understand the conflicting ideologies of forest use and management from a legal pluralistic perspective. Taking the tribal resistance to Vedanta Alumina Project in the state of Orissa in the Eastern part of India as a case in point, the paper tries to explore and explain the existence and interaction of multiple legal frameworks with respect to use and access to forest. The paper tries to underscore the adivasi's worldview of forest, and then counter-poses it the state narratives of forest and environmental conservation. The paper argues that it is not just a simplistic contradiction between the state laws versus the tribal customary law, rather it explains the coexistence of differential explanations over right to local natural resources, and its implications on the adivasi's right over natural resources on the one hand, and the future of environmental sustainability on the other. In conclusion, the paper highlights the failure of the state to recognise and cope up with the local tribal customary laws, while designing public policies for overall economic development of the state at a macro level as well as micro level policies for tribal development and empowerment.