While every village has easy access to a primary school, poor quality of teaching affects school attendance. Five of these schools are of better standard than the government schools, as they are run by Bodh and Tarun Bharat Sangh, both important regional non-governmental organisations.

The local economy is highly monetised and credit-based. Purchase of grain and food items is done mainly on credit at the interest rate of 2 to 3 per cent a month. Interestingly, while a typical household possesses several ration cards and below poverty line (BPL) cards, few people actually report buying grains from such shops.

The staple foods of the people in Sariska are ‘roti’ , chutney, milk and ‘chhaach’. Their poor nutritional status, coupled with poor quality water (obtained from deep wells and streams), make them generally unhealthy.

Sariska villagers depend almost totally on forests for their livelihood. Traditionally a pastoralist community, their main source of income is selling milk, ‘mawa’8 and ‘ghee’.9 Except Deori, Kankwari and Kiraska, all of the people of every village reported milk sales as their primary occupation.

Agriculture and daily wage labour were reported as the secondary occupations, by 45 per cent and 38 per cent of households, respectively. People in the three villages of Dabli, Deori and Raikamala (located on the boundary of the reserve) have some agricultural land in CZ-I, being officially revenue villages. People here mainly grow wheat, corn, oat, mustard and gram. Some of the families (18 per cent) in the other villages do own property in the Buffer Zone, on the outskirts of the reserve or further away. The average landholding outside the CZ-I is meagre, ranging from 0-5 bighas.

More than two-thirds (72.33 per cent) of the income of an average household still comes from milk, mawa and ghee sales. Agriculture and daily wage labour together form about 14 per cent of total income. About 6 per cent of the average household income comes from the sale of livestock and about 9 per cent comes from other activities such as pensions or army employment.

By way of livestock, each household among the 190 surveyed owned nine buffaloes, one cow and 12 goats, on average. While goats comprise as much as 54.65 per cent of total livestock holdings, buffaloes make up 40.09 per cent. For the villagers, goats form a liquid asset because they can be sold easily at any time of the year. Herds are commonly doubled each year. Poorer households also tend to rely more on goats as they require less investment in terms of commercial forage and veterinary care.

People usually sell their milk to a local dealer who is usually from their own village. He then sells it in nearby markets, including those in the nearby towns of Alwar and Tehla. Milk is paid for at the rate of Rs 12 per litre from the better-connected villages such as Umri and Kankwari. The rate goes down to Rs 8 per litre in more inaccessible villages. People in the remote villages however, tend to make ghee and mawa out of their milk, which can be kept for a longer period. Price paid by town dealers for mawa varies from Rs 35 to Rs 60 across these villages.

The average household economy, based on livestock grazing and milk sales, literally subsists on the edge. While the average gross annual income per household is approximately Rs 48,175 (Table 4), the average household spends approximately Rs 18,000 every year on farm fodder and commercial fodder.10 Therefore, the average annual disposable household income is approximately Rs 30,190. A significant share of the average gross household income goes toward healthcare (on average Rs 8,500 per household per year). That leaves approximately Rs 27,000 per household annually as expenditure on food which works out to an average of Rs 350 per capita per month. In terms of proportions, about 50 per cent of household expenditure is on food, 21 per cent on commercial fodder, 11 per cent on farm fodder and 16 per cent on medical care. The economy of the average household is debt-ridden and precariously balanced, highly vulnerable in the event of natural disasters such as drought.

People reported a steep decline in average annual rainfall during the last 10 years that has resulted in a decline of as much as 75 per cent in natural fodder availability. The area also faced a severe drought in 2002-03 which caused heavy mortality (approximately 50-70 per cent) among livestock which was devastating for the villagers. Depredation of livestock by leopards and tigers also take their toll on the villagers’ livestock, losses that were not reported to be compensated by reserve management.

Table 2: Demographic Details and Development Indicatorsof Sampled Households in Sariska Tiger Reserve

Village No HH Total Popu-Popu-Popu-Sex Percentage LiteSur-Popu-lation lation lation Ratio of Matri-racy** veyed lation (Age<6) (Age 6 Adults culated (Per to 18) (Age>18) Persons* Cent)

Notes: * (No of persons who have passed class 10/total population > 6 years) × 100. ** (No of literate persons/total population > 6 years) × 100. HH: Household.

Table 3: Development Infrastructure in the Core Zone I Villages

Village Distance to (in km) Availa-Fair Nearest Post Bus Bank Primary Middle Primary bility

BhaganiDabli	4 4	6 10	6 4	6 4	6 10	-0	6 -	6 10	× ×
Deori 11 Haripura 1 Kanakwari 8 Kraska 5 Kundalka 2 Lilunda 3	1 6 1 0 1 5 2 0 1 2 1 3	10 2 1 5 1 0 2 5	15 2 8 7 2 3	1 6 1 0 1 5 2 0 1 2 1 2	-0 0 0 0 5	0 1 0 9 0 1 -	1 6 1 0 1 5 8 2 4	">

13.7 per cent of surveyed households reported losses of goats or buffaloes during the year 2004-05.

People said that the income sources are more diverse today than about 15 years ago due to the fact that people have started going out of the area in search of employment. Most people spend four to six months of the year working in nearby cities – mainly Bhiwadi, Jaipur and Bharatpur. However, most people felt that the local employment opportunities that were available in the past, such as from agriculture or forest department labour, have declined. Importantly, local villagers do not seem to have benefited, even marginally, from wildlife tourism-related livelihoods inside the reserve, being mostly employed on daily wages as drivers or waiters.

Weak Foundations, Strong Convictions:

The Official Basis of Village Relocation

For several years now, ever since ecological research began in Sariska, warnings have been sounded by biologists about habitat degradation, particularly the impact of intensive biomass extraction including firewood and fodder collection and livestock grazing. By 2004, tigers had also become quite uncommon according to both biologists’ and villagers’ accounts. According to biologists, no more than 10-20 adult tigers survived in the few patches of high quality habitat that still existed in Sariska in 1997 [Johnsingh et al 1997]. During summer 2004 [Mazoomdaar 2005], the number was likely to have been much lower, possibly seven to eight. Even within the CZ-I, based on rough visual estimates that are conservative, up to 40 per cent of the total area was estimated to be severely degraded. More recently, quantitative studies showed that an intensive biomass extraction may cause significant changes in forest vegetation such as in types of trees, reduction in canopy cover, density of trees, number of tree species and average height of trees [Kumar and Shahabuddin 2005], changes that have begun to impact its diverse birdlife as well.

Our survey among the local households revealed a widely prevalent perception of decline in quality and quantity of natural resources including grazing lands, forests and water. While 97 per cent of people felt that available area for grazing had significantly reduced during the last 10 years, 85 per cent felt the same for forest area, and 93 per cent of respondents felt that the time needed to collect biomass had significantly increased. However, most people did not feel there had been any decline, in tree species diversity (92 per cent) although in conversations, reports of decline in some key species like ‘guggal’ (Sterculia urens) often came up.

Causes of Biodiversity Loss

While foresters and biologists have unequivocally linked local biodiversity decline to anthropogenic influences, local people’s perceptions on the causes of biodiversity decline in Sariska are far more complex. Most people strongly believe that their use has had no effect on biodiversity at all (83 per cent). In many cases local people also feel that a certain amount of biomass extraction is actually necessary for the health of the forest believing that pruning encourages leaf growth in shrubs and trees.

On the other hand, many villagers believe that they have contributed considerably to the disappearance of trees over the years. Older villagers mentioned that earlier, tree trunks were never chopped; rather only branches and leaves were lopped. While overgrazing and deforestation are admitted to by some, local people feel that the arbitrary restrictions on forest use laid down by the forest department have been indirectly responsible for overexploitation of forests. For example, villagers pointed out that they often cut large branches at a time in haste rather than leaves due to fear of discovery by the forest personnel. Importantly, several people said that exploitation had become more common now due to a sense of alienation springing from the arbitrary changes in use rights.

Villagers also commonly blamed the forest personnel for their poor management of the reserve. People feel that the guards have little knowledge of and interest in a forest and are certainly not comfortable around large carnivores. This perception was largely borne out by our own conversations with forest personnel, only a fraction of whom appeared to be motivated enough to patrol the forest. As a result, forest protection appears to be highly inadequate in the reserve. Neither poaching nor timber-smuggling are uncommon. Motivation among guards to stop intruders is understandable, given their low pay-scales and lack of arms training or insurance against injury. During conversations, references to corruption among forest personnel, political pressure and mismanagement of resources were common, which villagers said had a far greater role in deforestation than local forest use.

Larger Issues: Landscape-level Pressures

In the discourse on reserve management, attention is most often drawn to the forest dependency of local people as the most important “problem” to be solved, as indicated by our numerous conversations with forest personnel. This emphasis has historically obscured the fact that there are several other pressures originating from external extractive pressures, tourism and mining, the effects of which have never been considered in management planning [for instance, see Government of Rajasthan 2004].

Our observations suggest that there is tremendous biomass extraction pressure from outside the CZ-I. Visibly, considerable clandestine grazing, head-loading and fodder collection takes place by people living outside the reserve, many of whom come from towns as far away as 14 km.

Tourism-related pressures are beginning to tell on the reserve

ecology as well. Within the CZ-I, there are two temples which are widely visited by religious tourists – Pandupol and Bandipul temples. The number of visitors approximated 2,93,649 in the year 2004, on days when entry is free for religious reasons.11 Additionally, hundreds of people from surrounding areas enter on foot from three other entry points that are not manned, on free entry days, a source of considerable disturbance. Washing of clothes and cooking utensils and burning of plastic garbage were seen to severely pollute the few water sources, including perennial springs that are critical to the existence of diverse mammals in this semi-arid landscape.

Mining for marble, limestone and dolomite at the periphery of the reserve is another contentious issue. Legal interventions by Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), which started conservation work in the local villages in 1985, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the late 1980s that brought about the closure of as many as 470 mines in and around the reserve. Apart from noise and dust pollution, the local aquifers in Sariska are under threat from activities like marble mining which requires continual pumping out of water from quarries.

Apart from recent habitat change, there still exists much evidence of change in forest vegetation caused by historical commercial use by the state, such as timbering and charcoal production. Local rarity of several commercially extracted tree species such as Acacia catechu (from whose wood charcoal was made) and the lack of old trees of ‘dhok’ (more than 20-30 years old) in clearcut areas also points to such changes.

Above all, the historical mismanagement of administration that has kept people and their development in limbo, has played an important role in habitat loss. Yet these aspects rarely find mention in the public discourse, even when the “tiger crisis” dominates newspaper headlines. The lack of effective protection due to a crumbling administrative structure and prevalent corruption is completely sidelined in current discourse.

Thus it can be seen that though there has been no appraisal of the visible ecological damage caused by wildlife and religious tourism, mining, historical forest use or external extractive pressures, historically the purported cause-and-link relationship between local people and ecological degradation has dictated completely the policy of management in Sariska. This policy has focused on village relocation as possibly the only tool to secure biodiversity, ever since the establishment of the reserve.

In post-independence India the first instance of village relocation from Sariska ordered by the state, dates back to the 1970s when Karnakawas and Kraska villages were relocated to Sirawas (near Silisere, Alwar district) and Bandipul (near Ajabgarh, Alwar district). It was on November 25, 1975, that the then district magistrate issued a notification for the settlement of rights for the villages of Karnakawas, Kiraska and Umri-Deori. People living in these villages were asked to inform the administration of their claims by January 28, 1976. On April 21, 1976 a notification of the Rajasthan government denotified the Rundh Bandipul and Rundh Dulawa Reserved Forest land into revenue lands for purposes of relocation. Similarly, the land at Sirawas was also denotified from Reserved Forest status vide Government of Rajasthan order dated March 23, 1976. While in Rundh Sirawas, 750 bighas12 were denotified, 251.19 bighas were recorded as denotified in Rundh Bandipul and 244.4 bighas in Rundh Dulawa.

In 1977, the actual process of relocation of people from Kraska and Karnakawas began. Apart from land allotments, cash compensations were also recorded as having been paid to villagers. These meagre cash compensations ranged from Rs 50 to Rs 9,705.13 Sixty-nine families of Kraska were paid a total of Rs 1,20,975 as compensation. Nineteen families had ‘pattas’14 for the land they owned inside their old villages (67.18 bighas), out of which 18 were allotted land at Sirawas. One family was allotted land at Rundh Bandipul. Kraska was thereafter declared as forest land and the villagers were only given permission to perform religious activities at their ‘devsthan’ (sacred site) and use the public road. However, out of the 19 families that were allotted land, nine sold their lands off and came back to the reserve along with other landless people, mainly settling near the village known as Kundalka.

Most of the forest department officials see this incident as an exploitative mechanism by local villagers to benefit from both their allotted lands (through sales) while not giving up their rights inside the reserve. However, when confronted with these questions the villagers blamed the forest department for the debacle and alleged that the promises made to them regarding the new site were not fulfilled. For example, they were not provided even the basic amenities at the site. Even the land was not fit for cultivation at the time they were asked to settle there. Above all, they were compelled to accept whatever meagre compensation was provided. They were given compensation on one hand and were made to pay back the amount in many cases as pending “fines”, on the other hand. The fact that the relocation was undertaken during the Emergency of 1975-77 meant that the villagers did not have the opportunity to react publicly to these coercive measures. It is not surprising that the fear of forceful eviction has remained in psyche of villagers even after 25 years, deeply engrained in family narratives [Johari op cit].

Our visit to two of the old rehabilitation sites revealed the stark contrast between promises made and reality of situation. Surrounded by steep hills on three sides, Sirawas is now inhabited by people who bought lands from original allottees of Kraska village. The trees were cleared by the villagers themselves as the forest department did not provide cleared land. The land is fertile and even the water table is satisfactory. However, there is no road to the site from Silisere and one needs to walk for about 20-25 kilometres to reach the site. The other approach is by boat across the Silisere lake. Thus this site remains to this day, almost completely isolated, approachable with difficulty by boat or on foot. There is no school at Sirawas, nor are there any health facilities or access to electricity.

An older forest department official revealed to us stark cases of mismanagement and callousness in allotting the land. The official pointed out that the most of the land provided to the Sirawas people was uncultivable and could not be developed for agricultural purposes. That is the reason why most of the villagers gave up their allotted lands. While nine families did sell off their lands, 10 others returned to Sariska without doing so. Additionally, a large portion of land has not yet been marked up, despite being de-reserved, even three decades after relocation. The villagers alleged that a farm house of around 300 bighas is built on land that was illegally allotted to the owner,15 from the denotified portion of reserved forest.

The second site, Rundh Bandipul, as it is locally referred to, is mainly occupied by original allottee families from Karnakawas. When villagers were relocated here from Karnakawas in 1977, the forest department had not even cleared the growth of vilayati kikar trees. The villagers themselves cleared the whole area and began cultivation. Land is reported to be fertile and the water table is satisfactory. But there are other more serious problems that persist even 28 years after the villagers were relocated. The lands are not marked clearly and distributed. Except for some people, most of the villagers cultivate the lands according to the boundary markings done by them. People of the 35 families settled there, still fear that if their lands are not marked and allotted properly they may even lose their lands and homes once again.

According to the plan, 271 ha of land is required to settle 129 families of the two villages proposed to be shifted in the first phase

– Bhagani (19 families) and Kankwari (110 families) – keeping the requirement of 2.1 ha per family (0.5 ha for housing and 1.6 ha for farming) (reported in the Hindustan Times by Jha 2005). The land available at the proposed relocation site Badhod Rundh, about 222 ha in area, is therefore much less than this required amount. Even this calculation has been done without including land provision for community facilities, such as a school, a hall and cattle-ponds, as required by the state guidelines. Part of the land at the new site, Badhod Rundh, is already encroached upon (according to informal discussions with forest guards), further reducing the net availability of agricultural land for resettlement.

A casual look at the new relocation site of 222 hectares, Badhod Rundh, located 75 km from Sariska, would make one believe that this is an ideal agricultural site. People here generally have satisfactory crops of wheat, mustard, maize, gram and bajra. The site is located on the state highway to Jaipur, offering easy access to markets, schools and other facilities. Some of the homesteads around the site were a picture of prosperity possessing modern machinery, borewells and cemented houses.

However, conversations with adjacent villagers in the proposed relocation site reveal that a huge investment is required by cultivators in this area. Most importantly, expensive borewell facilities are required because the water table has gone as deep as 400 ft due to water-intensive cultivation of wheat and mustard.

Given this difficult situation with respect to water availability, the relocation plan does not even mention provision of drinking water resources, let alone irrigation or borewell facilities. Sustainability of agriculture, even with expensive inputs, is highly doubtful in this area, given the dropping water tables. Concerns of irrigation facilities are specially serious in the lowrainfall zone in which Sariska is located, where surface water availability is limited to the short wet season.The quality of land at the relocation site for agriculture is also doubtful. Part of the land is visibly rocky in nature.

While the plan makes brief mention of utilising existing governmental schemes to develop infrastructure at the new site, there is no exact budgeting of such items. Neither is there any guarantee that basic village amenities will be in place before the oustees are relocated, a condition found to be critical for successful rehabilitation.

The proposed relocation site is adjacent to the village Kakwa which is dominated by the Jat community. Gujjars are traditionally looked down upon by jats given the existing caste hierarchy in this part of Rajasthan. Thus, the degree of acceptance of a new gujjar-dominated village by the more prosperous host community is highly questionable, particularly as conflicts related to livelihoods, water, grazing pastures and fuelwood are likely to arise in future. Caste-related conflicts are likely to further escalate if economic interests also clash.

Lack of forests and pastures close to the relocation site may become another serious concern if agriculture is not successful in the area and the oustees require fodder for sustaining their milk-based livelihoods. Cooking gas connections or alternative sources of fuel have not been considered in the relocation plan.

In the event of agriculture being taken up as a new occupation at the new site, the relocation package makes meagre provisions for crop compensation in case of crop failure in the new site or income compensation during the transition period.

The plan for relocation of two villages from Sariska is thus riddled with innumerable problems that need to be addressed before people can be moved. The Sariska relocation plan is likely to lead to further marginalisation of the gujjar residents. The relocation process adopted in Sariska is likely to lead to a situation similar to that in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary where there has been severe impoverishment, even starvation, of relocated people of the Sahariya tribe, due to lack of development of agricultural livelihoods [Kabra op cit].

We attempted to understand the people’s aspirations from a relocation process, if it was ever carried out. Regarding relocation, answering a simple question about whether they would like to move out, a large number of people (27 per cent) said that they would not like to relocate out of the reserve under any condition. However, 48 per cent of respondents were ready to relocate if their conditions were fulfilled, while only 22 per cent said they would go given the current situation they find themselves in. Incidentally, the figure of 22 per cent is made up largely of people from Bhagani village, whose inhabitants are desperate to move out because of the extremely difficult conditions there, as conversations indicate.

When we asked the villagers to spell out what in their opinion a good relocation package must consist of at the minimum, the largest number of people (34 per cent) said that they would move out if they are given 5-10 bighas of land and Rs 1 lakh as cash compensation along with the basic amenities of a connecting road, a health centre, a school, electricity and irrigation facilities. Around 10 per cent of respondents said that they would move out if they are given 10 bighas of land and paid Rs 2 lakh as additional compensation. Ten per cent of respondents demanded more than 10 bighas and about Rs 2 lakh as additional compensation to move out. A large number of respondents (22 per cent) said that they would agree to whatever package the village decides. Twelve per cent of respondents said that they would not move out under any circumstances.

When we tried to ascertain people’s perception of life after relocation to the new site, most people felt that they would not be able to follow their current occupation (59 per cent) while some were more optimistic that they would (15 per cent). Because the villagers knew of the imminent occupational shift from grazing to agriculture, many felt that relatively Badhod Rundh would be a better place since it would be near the state highway with far better connectivity to the markets than they currently had. Respondents were fairly divided on whether they would like to continue with livestock-grazing as their primary occupation in the new site or not.

Finally, we tried to find out what people think would be effective ways to improve the declining natural resources situation.18 per cent of respondents felt that “strict management” would be more effective, mainly referring to people from outside the villagers who come in for wood collection or grazing. The majority of villagers (35 per cent) believed that only “god” could improve the situation. God in the parlance of the local people, actually refers to rain and other appropriate weather conditions which can deflect drought conditions. However, significant proportions of respondents also believed that cooperation between villagers and forest department (26 per cent) or conferring more rights to villagers (8 per cent) can help improve the situation.

Reframing Conservation Strategy for Sariska

All over the world, economic benefit-sharing with local people, sustainable use options, community-based protection and democratic co-management are being experimented with, as ways to improve the effectiveness of wildlife conservation, a paradigm shift that the Indian bureaucracy seems to be resistant to. Such a shift has become imperative in the face of increasing evidence that the “fences-and-fines” approach is failing miserably in most Indian Tiger Reserves [MoE 2005].

While there is a need for strict protection in the CZ-I, which would necessitate partial relocation, we feel that the CX-I of 400 sq kms should be exclusively managed for biodiversity conservation, and CX-II, CZ-III and the buffer zone should be managed as multiple-use, forested areas covering 466 sq kms. Although it is degraded in large parts, CZ-I has significant potential for revival as tiger habitat, having diverse forest types, permanent surface water and high density of native herbivores. Revival of CZ-I can be done only by justly relocating four villages currently located centrally in it. However, it is also to be recognised that an inviolate Core Zone cannot be maintained without the cooperation and participation of local residents. Therefore, the remaining peripheral villages can be productively envisaged as being part of “protective garland” for the Core Zone.

Relocation, when undertaken, should be based on the principles of decentralisation and using participatory mechanisms. An equitable relocation can take place only if the mechanism adopted takes popular aspirations into consideration and rationally evaluates the requirements beforehand. The cost of relocation which has been set at Rs 1 lakh per family by the state guidelines, has to be substantially revised upwards, as suggested by the Tiger Task Force in 2005 [ibid]. Ensuring that the infrastructural facilities be provided at the relocation site before relocation process begins and dove-tailing governmental schemes with the relocation plan, are two necessary steps for ensuring effective rehabilitation. Above all, expert guidance is necessary in deciding on which, if any, villages are to be relocated, preparing relocation plans as well as their implementation in and around PAs.

As may be obvious by now, relocation by itself, is unlikely to achieve the goals of conservation. Creation of livelihood alternatives for peripheral villages through various means, including augmentation of tourism benefits from the CZ- is necessary. Positive interactions have to be inculcated between peripheral villages and reserve management via substantial compensatory mechanisms such as for loss of access to forest resources, compensation for injuries and crop-raiding by wild animals.

Simultaneously with measures to increase benefits to local residents, there is a strong need for stepping up protective measures that can guard the forests from external extractive pressures that currently threaten the reserve and the removal of encroachments particularly religious structures and advancing agricultural fields on the reserve boundaries. Firm protective measures can only be implemented by improving the capacities and numbers of personnel and the infrastructure for protection. There is a need to enhance motivation among forest officials and to sensitise them to social and ecological concerns through training programmes. Basic field necessities such as provision of at least one official vehicle per forest range, well-funded insurance schemes for injury and lives and free medical treatment are necessary to increase motivation and work capacity among staff. In the longer term, it is necessary to plan for improved management of the buffer zone as a multiple-use area that contributes to biodiversity conservation inside the Core Zone. Large-scale development of plantations, pastures and forests is required in the Buffer Zone of Sariska and beyond, to reduce pressures on CZ-I for biomass. Above all, it is time for us to rethink our current emphasis on “inviolate space” as the only precondition for successful biodiversity conservation in the Indian situation.

EPW

Email: ghazalafarzin@rediffmail.com