The All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) has urged the Assam government to stop the planned eviction of villagers settled in Nagaon district’s Lutumari Longjap reserve forest under a British-era system called taungya.

The British rulers introduced the taungya system in the erstwhile Burma in the mid-1800s to reduce the cost of timber extraction and reforestation. Derived from Burmese words taung (hill) and ya (cultivation), the term describes the people and the agroforestry method they practice by growing food crops alongside saplings of commercial trees, primarily teak.

In a letter to Assam’s Chief Secretary on June 17, the AIUFWP said the residents of four tuangya villages in the Nagaon Forest Division’s Lutumari Longjap reserve forest — Kandarpa Longjap, Padumoni, Hatijur, and No. 9 Kheroni — cannot be treated as ordinary encroachers on forestland. It pointed out that evicting them would go against the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, or FRA, and disregard the historical circumstances under which the villages were established.

Copies of the letter, signed by AIUFWP president Sokalo Gond, general secretary Roma, and executive committee member Raja Rabbi Hussain, were sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Tribal Affairs Ministry, and other relevant Ministries and departments.

The AIUFWP contended that the taungya system of forest management was created and administered by the Forest Department itself to settle families of the taungya practitioners within forest areas in return for their labour in forestry operations. “The situation of the four taungya villages of Nagaon Forest Division clearly indicates that the Forest Department settled them, but later termed them encroachers. This is a gross violation of Article 21A of the Constitution of India that grants the right to life to its citizens and of the fundamental rights as granted to the citizens of this country,” the AIUFWP said.

The organisation also said the residents possess all relevant papers, including the taungya allotment documents and the annual khiraji pattas (revenue-paying land settlement documents), with some families possessing medals awarded during British campaigns in Burma against Japanese forces during World War II.

Appealing to the Assam government to direct the Forest Department authorities in Nagaon to grant relief to the aggrieved taungya families, the AIUFWP cited the example of the Uttar Pradesh government, which has granted revenue status to 38 forest villages in Bahraich, Gorakhpur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Maharajganj, Saharanpur, and Shravasti districts.

“In these villages, only OTFDs (other traditional forest dwellers) reside, including those of the Muslim community,” the organisation said.