On 26th June 2024, I presented my first-year board paper review with external examiners Sophie Haines and Clare Barnes, both from the University of Edinburgh. They strongly recommended I read Arpitha Kodiveri’s book Governing Forests: State, Laws, and Citizenship in India’s Forests (published by Yoda Press in 2024) to better understand the themes of livelihood, forest and community, and colonialism, which are also central to my PhD project.

The book explores the relationships among forest laws, colonialism, the criminalization of communities, the modern state, and resistance to it. It is broadly divided into two sections and consists of eight chapters with detailed notes and references. The first section (Chapters 1–3) focuses on the legal and historical foundations of forest laws in India and the state’s engagement with them. The second section examines how forest-dependent communities resist the Indian state.

The Indian State: Colonialism, Conservation, and Criminalization

The book’s first section addresses technical and conceptual aspects of state and citizenship regarding forests and communities. The state often favours capitalist interests, compromising the rights of forest-dwelling communities (FDCs). For example, the state has supported bauxite mining by Vedanta Resources in Kondingamali, diluting FDC rights and stifling resistance, representing a pro-business or extractive state with an authoritarian approach. Such actions are often justified under the guise of development or public welfare. An “absentee state” creates a developmental gap in remote areas that industries then fill transactionally, demanding local lands for their projects while creating infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and roads (Chapter 2).

The colonial government laid the foundation for forest conservation laws with the Indian Forest Acts beginning in 1865. Since then, numerous acts, rules, and regulations have shaped conservation in India (Chapter 1). The book describes the “paper state,” which is concerned with the documents, notifications, laws, and bureaucratic procedures that govern forests, citing the Indian Forest Act (IFA) 1865 & 1927, Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA) 1972, Forest Conservation Act (FCA) 1988, and Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006. These laws give the bureaucracy authority to enforce stringent actions against protesters and forest communities, creating a state monopoly over forests and leading to what is termed a “police state.” However, laws like FCA 1988, FRA 2006, and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) 1996 empower local communities to challenge state dominance over forest resources.

Recent amendments to forest laws, particularly the Forest Conservation Act 1980, have minimized state accountability and silenced forest-dwelling communities (Chapter 6). The new 2022 Forest Conservation Rules remove the requirement for Gram Sabha consent if the state government approves a project. These amendments reduce the accountability of the state to local citizenship claims, favouring capitalist and pro-business interests.

Communities and Citizenship

Beyond the extractive state, forest-dwelling communities envision an “imagined state” that listens to their voices and provides spaces for their citizenship claims in forests. This imagined state is termed a “deliberative state.” Forest communities exercise their citizenship claims with this deliberative state through tools like the FRA, Scheduled Areas, and PESA, achieving a “negotiated sovereignty” with the state.

Citizenship in forest governance encompasses entitlements and responsibilities with the nation-state, though the legal categorization of communities affects their claims to citizenship benefits (Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6). Legal classifications like Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) assign different rights and entitlements over forest resources, creating exclusions and divisions among forest communities. Middlemen (Dalals) further exacerbate divisions, often extracting consent from communities through social licensing (Chapter 5). Dalals, frequently from forest-dwelling communities, divide people along various lines, favouring those who support projects by providing them with compensation and rehabilitation while excluding opponents. Beyond these intra-community divisions, the state discriminates institutionally and systematically against SCs and other communities in forest laws.

As a case study, Kodiveri explores how the FRA aims to address historical injustices toward STs but simultaneously excludes Dalits and other forest dwellers. By citing Gail Omvedt, Arpitha argues for the “invisibilization” of Dalits in environmental discourse (Chapter 4). She highlights new forms of untouchability emerging during the formation and implementation of the FRA and the exclusion of Dalits from the forest economy. Kodiveri advocates for Dalit inclusion in environmental and climate justice efforts, calling for grassroots movements rather than what she describes as Brahmin environmentalism, which remains limited to urban, elite, upper-caste perspectives.

Personal Critique

A key limitation I found in the book is the lack of independent voices from pastoral communities. As a member of the shepherd community and an activist working to elevate the voices of pastoral people in Maharashtra, I am aware of the growing challenges that forest laws—particularly the IFA 1927 and WLPA 1972—pose to the lives and livelihoods of the shepherd community. The book lacks an in-depth analysis of the state’s impact on pastoral communities.

Conclusion

The author envisions a future of forest governance rooted in a preventive approach rather than a compensatory one. The compensatory approach, which permits deforestation with compensation requirements for reforestation in other locations, tends to favour capitalists. This approach displaces communities, perpetuates extractive practices, and leads to flawed rehabilitation processes.

Kodiveri advocates for deliberative democracy in forest governance, envisioning the state as a trustee of forest resources. She calls for forest laws that operate within a framework of care, where all stakeholders actively contribute to forest conservation. To achieve this, she argues, state policies must adopt a deliberative approach imbued with care. Overall, this book serves as a guiding light for scholars like me who aim to study the relationship between the state, livelihoods, forest conservation, and criminalization.

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Saurabh Hatkar is a PhD Candidate in South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh.