Zendepar, a tiny hamlet of 300 residents, is the latest village in Korchi taluka (cluster) in the lushly wooded Gadchiroli district to exert its legal right on forest land. It has ventured to do this on the back of rare wins scored in recent years by neighbouring villages—victories that were extracted by tapping into decades-old Indian laws which enshrine these rights but have remained poorly understood and implemented.
In 2017, over 90 villages like Zendepar came together, forming a union of sorts called the Maha Gram Sabha or Federation of Villages. The collectivising has given them not just numerical strength but also awareness of their right to stake a claim on the trees and rocks they have co-existed with for generations but had no ownership of until the laws kicked in.
This union of villages is now using India’s laws that grant them rights over the forest to guard their green cover and monetise the produce, which has arrested migration from villages.
