The All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) has called upon the Assam government to immediately halt proposed evictions from four Taungya villages located within the Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest in Nagaon district, contending that the exercise is contrary to the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) and disregards the historical circumstances under which these settlements came into existence.
In a detailed representation submitted to the authorities, the organisation has argued that the residents of Kandapara Longjap Taungya, Padumoni Taungya, Hatijur Taungya and 9 No. Kheroni Taungya cannot legally be treated as ordinary encroachers on forestland. According to the representation, these villages were established under the Taungya system—a forest management arrangement created and administered by the Forest Department itself—which settled families within forest areas in return for their labour in forestry operations. The organisation has further contended that any attempt to evict these residents without first recognising and verifying their rights under the Forest Rights Act would violate both the statutory protections contained in the legislation and repeated directions issued by the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
At one level, the dispute concerns four villages facing the threat of displacement. At another, it raises far-reaching questions about the implementation of one of India’s most significant social justice legislations. The controversy unfolding in the Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest goes to the heart of a long-standing tension in India’s forest governance framework: how should the law treat communities that were settled in forests through state policy, contributed labour to the development of forest landscapes for generations, and yet never received formal recognition of their rights over the land they occupied?
The issue is particularly significant because the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006) was enacted precisely to address what Parliament described as the “historical injustice” suffered by forest-dwelling communities whose customary and occupation-based rights were either ignored or never formally recorded. Far from excluding Taungya settlements from its protection, the legislation expressly recognises them as a distinct category of forest villages and provides mechanisms for the recognition of their rights and, ultimately, the conversion of such settlements into revenue villages. Yet nearly two decades after the enactment of the law, residents of many forest villages in Assam continue to exist in a state of legal uncertainty, vulnerable to eviction despite the protections ostensibly guaranteed by Parliament.
The present controversy therefore extends beyond the immediate fate of the affected villages. It raises fundamental questions about whether communities specifically recognised under the Forest Rights Act can be subjected to eviction before the statutory process for recognition of rights has been completed. It also exposes a deeper contradiction within forest administration itself. The families presently facing eviction are not alleged to have recently occupied reserve forest land. Rather, they belong to settlements whose origins lie in a state-sponsored forestry system that depended upon their labour and permitted their occupation for decades. The attempt to now classify these communities as illegal occupants invites scrutiny not only of the legality of the eviction notices themselves, but also of the larger failure to resolve the historical status of forest villages in Assam.
To understand why the AIUFWP has described the proposed evictions as unlawful, it is necessary to revisit both the history of the Taungya system and the legal protections that Parliament sought to create through the Forest Rights Act.
A forest department that created settlements now calls their residents encroachers
For more than a century, the people living in Kandapara Longjap Taungya, Padumoni Taungya, Hatijur Taungya and 9 No. Kheroni Taungya in Assam’s Nagaon Forest Division have occupied a peculiar position in India’s forest governance framework. Their villages were not spontaneous encroachments. They were settlements created and sustained under the colonial and post-colonial Taungya system, a system designed by the Forest Department itself to secure a stable labour force for forestry operations. Yet today, these very communities are being served eviction notices and labelled “encroachers.”
The contradiction is stark. A state institution that historically settled families inside forests for the purpose of forest management is now seeking to remove their descendants by treating them as unlawful occupants. The legal problem is even more serious. The proposed evictions appear to be directly contrary to the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA), a legislation enacted precisely to remedy such historical injustices.
The controversy unfolding in the Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest is therefore not merely a dispute over land. It is a test of whether the Forest Rights Act will be implemented in Assam in the manner Parliament intended, or whether communities specifically recognised by the Act will continue to face displacement despite statutory protection.
The forgotten history of the Taungya system
Understanding why these evictions are problematic requires understanding who the Taungya residents are.
The Taungya system was introduced by the British colonial administration as a method of forest management. Landless peasants and shifting cultivators were settled in forest areas and permitted to cultivate land while simultaneously providing labour for forestry operations, timber extraction and plantation work. The arrangement supplied the colonial Forest Department with a dependable workforce while reducing the costs of forest management.
In Assam, Taungya settlements were established throughout the colonial period. Historical studies show that these settlements functioned primarily as labour colonies for the Forest Department. Residents were expected to perform forestry work in exchange for limited cultivation rights and habitation. Over time, however, these temporary settlements evolved into permanent villages as generations of families continued to reside there.
Professor Chandan Kumar Sharma and Indrani Sarma, in their study on forest villages and forest dwellers in Assam, explain that forest villages and Taungya settlements were integral to colonial forest governance. They were not illegal occupations of forest land but settlements consciously established by state authorities to support forestry operations.
The history of the Lutumari Longjap settlements is consistent with this broader pattern. Indeed, official records produced by the Assam Government itself demonstrate that families were deliberately settled under the Taungya system in the Kaki and Lutumari Reserved Forest areas. A June 7, 1974 communication from the Assam Forest Department directed authorities to provide temporary shelter to hundreds of evicted families under the Taungya system in Kaki Reserved Forest and Lutumari Longjap Reserved Forest after proper screening by designated committees.
This document is critically important. It shows that occupation of these areas was not clandestine or unlawful. The state itself facilitated settlement under an official policy framework.
The present attempt to classify residents of these villages as encroachers therefore raises an obvious question: how can people settled by the Forest Department under a recognised Taungya scheme subsequently be treated as illegal occupants?
The Forest Rights Act, 2006 explicitly recognises Taungya Villages
The Forest Rights Act leaves little ambiguity on this issue. One of the most significant features of the FRA is that it expressly recognises forest villages and Taungya settlements. Section 2(f) defines “forest village” to include settlements established by Forest Departments for forestry operations and specifically includes “all types of Taungya settlements.”
This inclusion was not accidental. Parliament enacted the FRA to address what the statute itself describes as the “historical injustice” suffered by forest-dwelling communities whose customary rights were never recognised during colonial rule and continued to remain unrecorded after independence. The Act acknowledges that state forest policies systematically excluded forest dwellers from legal recognition despite their long-standing relationship with forests.
Taungya communities were among the clearest examples of this injustice. For decades they supplied labour to the Forest Department, helped create and maintain forest landscapes, and lived under state supervision without ever receiving secure tenure over the lands they occupied. The FRA was designed to correct precisely this situation.
Consequently, the law not only recognises Taungya settlements but also creates a pathway for their legal transformation. Section 3(1)(h) specifically recognises rights relating to the “conversion of all forest villages, old habitations, unsurveyed villages and other villages in forests” into revenue villages.
The legislative intent is therefore unmistakable: forest villages and Taungya settlements are to be regularised and recognised, not erased through eviction.
AIUFWP’s case against the evictions
According to the representation submitted by the AIUFWP, the affected families possess a range of documentary evidence demonstrating their long association with the settlements, including Taungya allotment records, annual khiraji pattas, electoral documents and other official records. The organisation argues that these documents, read alongside the historical record of state-sponsored settlement under the Taungya system, fundamentally undermine attempts to characterise the residents as illegal occupants of forest land.
The organisation has also drawn attention to a June 7, 1974 communication issued by the Assam Forest Department relating to settlement under the Taungya system in Kaki Reserved Forest and Lutumari Longjap Reserved Forest. According to the AIUFWP, the document demonstrates that the state itself facilitated the settlement of families in these areas and therefore cannot now ignore the historical basis of their occupation while pursuing eviction proceedings.
Most importantly, the representation argues that the Forest Rights Act creates a statutory bar against eviction until the process of recognition and verification of rights has been completed. Since the affected villages fall within a category of settlements expressly recognised under the legislation, the organisation contends that any eviction undertaken without completing this process would be unlawful.
The complete document may be read here.
The Most Serious Legal Problem: Section 4(5) absolutely prohibits eviction before rights recognition
Even if there were disputes regarding individual claims, the FRA contains a clear statutory safeguard. Section 4(5) states: “No member of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe or other traditional forest dweller shall be evicted or removed from forest land under his occupation till the recognition and verification procedure is complete.”
This provision is central to the architecture of the FRA. It recognises that forest dwellers historically faced displacement before their claims could be heard. Parliament therefore prohibited eviction until the entire process of recognition, verification and adjudication of rights had been completed.
The legal consequence is straightforward. Before any eviction can lawfully occur:
- Forest Rights Committees must be constituted.
- Claims must be invited.
- Claims must be verified.
- Appeals must be exhausted.
- Rights must be finally determined.
Only after completion of this statutory process can questions of removal arise. According to the representations made regarding the four Taungya villages, no meaningful FRA implementation process has been initiated and no recognition exercise has been completed. If this is correct, eviction notices issued at this stage would be fundamentally inconsistent with Section 4(5).
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MOTA) has repeatedly clarified that no evictions are permissible
The legal position becomes even clearer when one examines official directions issued by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the nodal ministry responsible for implementation of the FRA. In April 2015, the Ministry expressly directed State Level Monitoring Committees to ensure that Section 4(5) is implemented “in letter and spirit” and that no forest dweller is evicted or removed until the FRA process is complete.
The Ministry also repeatedly expressed concern regarding wrongful rejection of claims, lack of communication of rejection orders, failures in appeals processes and improper implementation by state authorities. It instructed states to review doubtful rejections and ensure that rightful claimants are not denied protection.
Subsequent communications reiterated that implementation cannot be rushed, procedural safeguards cannot be bypassed, and recognition of rights is incomplete until appeals are exhausted and records of rights are created.
These directions are highly relevant in Assam because the state has historically faced criticism for weak implementation of the FRA. The current dispute appears to arise precisely because rights-recognition processes have either not commenced or remain incomplete in the affected villages.
The Supreme Court’s 2019 intervention strengthens the protection
The legality of the proposed evictions must also be examined in light of developments before the Supreme Court. In February 2019, the Supreme Court initially issued directions concerning claimants whose forest rights claims had been rejected. However, following widespread protests and more than a dozen legal interventions in the ongoing Wild Life First case, interventions that high-lighted the misconceived framework of the original order, the SC the Court subsequently stayed the eviction-related consequences of its own order! In fact, Sokala Gond, Nivada Rana, AIUFWP backed by Citizens for Justice and Peace, were among the first who filed an Intervention Application in the Supreme Court to prevent the mass eviction of Adivasis and traditional forest dwellers. The application argued that the FRA vests independent rights in Adivasi women, and that evictions violate their constitutional rights. Finally, MOTA itself supported these contentions (the matter is ongoing). Reports on this crucial legal intervention may be read here.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs thereafter circulated a detailed communication to all States explaining the Court’s stay order and reiterating the necessity of reviewing wrongful rejections, ensuring proper procedures, communicating reasons for rejection, allowing appeals and preventing evictions before completion of statutory processes.
The significance of this history is often overlooked. The central concern before the Supreme Court was that thousands of claims across India may have been rejected without proper adherence to FRA procedures. The Court’s intervention effectively reinforced the principle that forest dwellers cannot be removed merely because authorities assert that they lack recognised rights.
In the case of the four Taungya villages, the issue is even stronger because these communities belong to a category specifically recognised under the FRA itself.
Historical records undermine the “encroacher” narrative
The language of “encroachment” occupies a powerful place in public discourse. Yet its application to Taungya villages is legally and historically problematic. An encroacher is ordinarily understood as a person who unlawfully occupies land without authority.
The residents of the four villages claim the opposite: that they possess long-standing documentary evidence demonstrating their lawful association with the settlements. According to representations submitted to the Assam government, residents possess Aadhaar cards, voter identity cards, Taungya allotment documents, annual khiraji pattas and even historical records linked to wartime service.
More fundamentally, the historical record demonstrates that Taungya settlements were established by state authorities themselves. Academic research on Assam’s forest villages documents how generations of landless peasants were settled within reserved forests to serve as labourers for forestry operations. These communities were denied secure tenure despite their contribution to forest administration and conservation.
The FRA was enacted precisely because Parliament recognised that such communities had suffered historical injustice.
To describe them today as encroachers without first determining their statutory rights risks reversing the very objective of the legislation.
Assam’s longstanding failure to implement the FRA
The present controversy also exposes a larger governance problem. Nearly two decades after enactment of the FRA, implementation in Assam remains deeply uneven. There have been documented persistent difficulties in recognising the rights of forest dwellers, especially among non-tribal forest village residents whose historical circumstances differ from those in central India.
Forest villages across Assam have long existed in a legal limbo. Settled by the state, dependent on agricultural cultivation, and often possessing decades of documentary evidence, many residents nevertheless remain without formal tenure security. The result has been a recurring cycle of uncertainty, conflict and eviction threats. The four villages in Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest appear to be the latest manifestation of this unresolved problem.
The constitutional dimension
Beyond statutory violations, the issue raises constitutional concerns. The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted Article 21 of the Constitution as encompassing rights to livelihood, dignity and shelter. Communities that have lived in officially recognised settlements for generations cannot be dispossessed through administrative action that disregards statutory protections.
The FRA itself is a welfare legislation enacted to realise constitutional commitments to equality, social justice and protection of vulnerable communities. Any interpretation that permits eviction of Taungya residents before recognition of rights would undermine these constitutional objectives.
What the law requires now
The legal position emerging from the FRA, Ministry guidelines and Supreme Court proceedings is clear. Before any eviction can occur:
- Eviction notices should be withdrawn or kept in abeyance.
- Forest Rights Committees should be constituted in the affected villages.
- Individual and community claims should be invited and processed.
- Historical records relating to Taungya settlements should be examined.
- Claims must be verified through the statutory process.
- Appeals must be exhausted.
- Revenue village conversion under Section 3(1)(h) must be considered.
- No coercive action should occur until the entire process is completed.
Anything less would defeat both the text and purpose of the Forest Rights Act.
Conclusion: A test case for the Forest Rights Act in Assam
The eviction notices issued to residents of Kandapara Longjap Taungya, Padumoni Taungya, Hatijur Taungya and 9 No. Kheroni Taungya are not merely administrative notices. They represent a collision between two competing visions of forest governance.
One vision views long-settled forest communities as encroachers whose presence must be removed. The other—the vision embodied in the Forest Rights Act—recognises that many of these communities were settled, used and controlled by the state itself, and that their continued insecurity is the product of historical injustice rather than illegality.
The FRA was enacted to resolve that injustice. It specifically recognises Taungya settlements, provides for their conversion into revenue villages, and unequivocally prohibits eviction before recognition and verification of rights are completed. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has repeatedly reaffirmed this position, and the Supreme Court’s interventions have further underscored the need for procedural safeguards.
The question before Assam is therefore not whether these communities should be evicted. The question is whether a law enacted by Parliament to protect forest dwellers will finally be implemented in the state in the manner intended. Until that process is completed, the attempt to remove residents of these Taungya villages stands on deeply questionable legal ground and risks perpetuating the very historical injustice that the Forest Rights Act was enacted to undo.
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