Displacement of Jenu Kuruba TriBe

Displacement of Jenu Kuruba Tribe

ILS stands in solidarity with the Jenu Kuruba tribe and condemns the forced evictions from their ancestral lands in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve without consent or legal due process, causing the severing of sacred ties to their land and the collapse of their way of life

We recognise their courage and resilience in reoccupying their land and resisting eviction through protests, legal petitions, and physical re-entry into the forest to reclaim their rights under the Forest Rights Act.

India has a racist and colonial Conservation Policy

India’s conservation model operates on a racist, colonial playbook that treats Adivasis as "trespassers" on their own land. Authorities and big conservation NGOs (WWF, WCS, WTI) brand them "second-class citizens" and scapegoats for environmental damage, erasing their role as the forest’s original guardians. The parallels for this can be drawn with indigenous displacement across Asia, Africa and Turtle Island.

The goal?

Clear the land for a profitable tourism industry. NGOs are complicit in the fiction that relocations are "voluntary," while armed guards destroy homes and crops, assault residents, and intimidate anyone resisting. Reserves like Nagarhole were imposed without consent, illegally bypassing the Forest Rights Act and international law to turn ancestral forests into a business.

Scales of Tribes Displaced

Across India, 56,247 families (from 751 villages) have been evicted from 50 tiger reserves since 1972. At least 417 families were evicted in 2022-2023 alone from two reserves.

Currently, 400,000+ Adivasis face eviction across 19 states per a 2024 NTCA directive.

Jenu Kuruba Struggle

Since 1974, over 6,000+ Jenu Kuruba have been forcibly driven out of Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. Between 2000 and 2024, 300+ families were violently evicted from the Antharasanthe range and dumped into cramped, disease-ridden "rehabilitation" camps where adivasis are severed from their heritage.

In 2007, the Karnataka government declared Nagarhole a tiger reserve without consulting the tribe, illegally bypassing the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Refusing to surrender, the Jenu Kuruba filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court in 2019 to demand their rights under the FRA.

Since 2023, over 700+ Jenu Kuruba from 25 villages have held defiant protests at Nagarhole’s gates, condemning the NTCA as “trespassers on our land” (Survival). Evicted families re-entered the forest in 2024, rebuilding homes and planting crops - only to face forest officials who bulldozed huts, razed fields, and beat resisters.

Today, the Jenu Kuruba continue their reoccupation despite arrests, false charges, and state violence, uniting with mass protests across Udanti-Sitanadi, Kaziranga, Rajaji, and Indravati reserves.

Their resistance continues - in fact, on Indigenous people’s day (Aug 9 2025), 400 people from the Advasi community stood at the gates of Nagarhole Tiger Reserve and rightly installed a board saying

“The Nagarahole forests are the ancestral land of Adivasi clans. You are now entering the traditional boundaries of the Adivasi peoples of the Nagarahole forests. Nagarahole is a self-governing area of the Adivasi people. This land is the habitat of the Adivasi people. In these forests, the people, animals and the forests are equal. The customary laws of the Adivasi people and the special provisions of the grama sabha are applicable here. Your conduct here must be respectful and dignified.”

India’s tiger conservation policy executes violent theft of Adivasi lands. This land grab imposes a colonial people-free conservation myth for tourism profit violating tribal rights and ecology. Research has consistently shown that respecting indigenous folks rights and autonomy are key for better outcomes on conservation.

Adivasis have always been the forests' proven guardians - their stewardship ensures both community and tiger survival.