It was evening, and the villagers of Bahadurpur and Arbolda in West Bengal’s southwestern district of Nadia sat together under a giant tamarind tree to get some respite after a hot day of toil and the enduring effects of a battle raging for about half a century between them and the State.

It was the day after a Calcutta High Court on 2 January 2024 quashed an eviction notice and forbade coercive action against what are called “other traditional forest dwellers” in the Palashgachi forests, until forest rights were recognised, as per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, commonly called the FRA, and 2007 Rules and Guidelines.

The laws describes other traditional forest dwellers as “any member or community who has for at least three generations prior to the 13th day of December, 2005 primarily resided in and who depend on the forest or forests land for bona fide livelihood needs”.

The high court judgement gladdened 113 families of Bahadurpur and Arbolda—the villages are next to each other—who depend on the land in question.

There is no specific count available of such forest dwellers nationwide, but along with scheduled tribes they number more than 350 million, according to a 2009 estimate by the union environment ministry.

The ruling was particularly relevant to West Bengal, where the Trinamool Congress party government of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and its predecessors have rarely addressed “historical injustice”, as the law says, in a state that ranks second-last nationally in implementation of the FRA.

We are happy that we achieved this victory through a legal battle… Everyone resorts to violence these days,” said a visibly relieved Asadul Sekh, one of five petitioners and foremost among community representatives in a legal saga that arose from India’s grassroots.

The other petitioners are Shripati Mandal, Manik Rajowar, Rabi Rajowar and Tapan Rajowar, who in March 2024 offered to represent the others when they challenged an eviction notice from the government in January 2024




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