<p>India’s 2070 net-zero pledge has triggered a concerted, nationwide hunt for solar parks, wind farms, and green hydrogen hubs. But the geography of this new economy conveniently overlaps the landscape of the country’s 104 million Adivasis. These communities, protected by the provisions of the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule, already bear an unequal burden from the social costs of coal mining, dam construction, wildlife sanctuaries, and biodiversity conservation. If the shift to a low-carbon economy proceeds across these lands with the same extractive logic, “green” might become synonymous with dispossession rather than a road to justice for future generations.</p>.<p>Scheduled Tribes (STs) are only 8.6% of India’s population but have absorbed almost 40% of all development displacements since 1950. Jharkhand alone has 2.2 million Adivasi evictees with resettlement at less than one-third. A study commissioned in 2023 for the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency estimates that 50,000 sq km of new land will be required to meet the 500-GW non-fossil target in 2030. While much of it is in Scheduled Areas (SAs), one can easily see that due to the preponderance of commons in Adivasi areas outside SAs, the acquisition of commons will disproportionately affect the Adivasi community.</p>.<p>Central India’s Hasdeo Aranya is a textbook case of the clash between climate ambition and constitutional rights. Approval for coal blocks has led to the felling of thousands of sal trees, cutting through a critical elephant corridor. Gram Sabha decisions in Ghatbarra and Hariharpur recorded 94% opposition on grounds of loss of mahua, tendu, and grazing land. In February 2024, however, the Chhattisgarh government cancelled their Community Forest Resource (CFR) titles to expedite project clearances. What is marketed across the world as clean energy tastes locally like a fresh wave of expropriation.</p>.Adivasis, activists slam forced evictions in tiger reserves.<p>The mineral boom is no longer innocuous. In February 2024, the Geological Survey of India announced 5.9 million tonnes of lithium in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district, home to Gujjar-Bakarwal pastoralists. A paper titled State’s Best Practices in Mining published in January 2025 by the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) highlighted that 80% of critical mineral blocks are in districts with STs comprising over 25% of the population.</p>.<p>Mining projects threaten to underground villages that have acquired CFR rights, threatening the tenure gains. Where tenure is secure, forests sequester carbon. Remote-sensing analysis indicates that the 2000-2020 forest cover loss in CFR villages with titles under the Forest Rights Act was 20% lower than in neighbouring non-CFR villages, avoiding an estimated 24 million tonnes of CO₂. Yet, of the 35 million hectares of land eligible for titles under the Act, only 5.2 million have been granted, and only 4% of the available have title deeds.</p>.<p>A justice-based transition requires three steps. First, enact free, prior, and informed consent as a statutory requirement for all renewable and mining activities in SAs, giving effect to the Supreme Court’s Samatha doctrine. Second, establish a climate justice fund – a 1% element of the union climate budget to support community renewables, restoration, and livelihood diversification. Third, establish state-level just transition commissions with Adivasi representation and obligatory social-impact audits. These must be time-bound, transparent, and subject to the supervision of an independent ombudsperson reporting to Parliament.</p>.<p><strong>Adivasi-centred future</strong></p>.<p>Efforts such as the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) – a part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) – talk about conserving the ecosystem. These efforts can benefit the Adivasis but the approaches of intervention should be designed not to alienate or associate the community instrumentally. To use French philosopher Felix Guattari’s concept ‘Ecosophy’, the forest enjoys a unique place in the Adivasis’ ‘way of life’ and ‘world view’, subsequently shaping their conduct towards nature.</p>.<p>Ecology experts argue that any forest patch bearing a uniform tree variety signifies the British policy of replacing natural forests with commercial ones. Realising the commercial value of forests, exploitative policies continued in post-colonial India. Movements of community resistance such as the Chipko Andolan are examples of varied responses to the State’s forest policy.</p>.<p>There are partnership models where pastoralists who rent out their common lands are paid in annual dividends. They illustrate that decarbonisation can empower Adivasi self-governance, provided communities are considered co-operators rather than mere, passive stakeholders.</p>.<p>Current initiatives such as Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) aim at reducing greenhouse gas through afforestation in degraded areas to sequester carbon. On the other hand, REDD+ aims to conserve the existing forests so that carbon remains trapped within the forest. This global policy incentivises afforestation and conservation through carbon trading. It is quite possible under these initiatives that trees with greater potential to trap carbon rather than restoration of natural vegetation will be taken up. Therefore, it is advisable to have a clear policy on REDD through community participation, allowing for the planting of tree varieties that are useful to the people as well as helpful in achieving the climate targets.</p>.<p>To prevent a repetition of fossil-age injustices, India must use the Adivasi areas as a constitutional compass. Lithium, gigawatt-sized solar farms, and high-voltage transmission corridors are required, but so is the ecological knowledge of the people who have saved the densest forests. A low-carbon republic built on high-carbon politics will be too heavy to stand, weighed down by its contradictions. Climate justice is not an afterthought – it is the ventilator that will breathe life into India’s green promise.</p>.<p>(Neil is Head of the Department of Political Science, St Joseph’s University, Bengaluru; Sujit is Assistant Professor, School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)</p><p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
<p>India’s 2070 net-zero pledge has triggered a concerted, nationwide hunt for solar parks, wind farms, and green hydrogen hubs. But the geography of this new economy conveniently overlaps the landscape of the country’s 104 million Adivasis. These communities, protected by the provisions of the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule, already bear an unequal burden from the social costs of coal mining, dam construction, wildlife sanctuaries, and biodiversity conservation. If the shift to a low-carbon economy proceeds across these lands with the same extractive logic, “green” might become synonymous with dispossession rather than a road to justice for future generations.</p>.<p>Scheduled Tribes (STs) are only 8.6% of India’s population but have absorbed almost 40% of all development displacements since 1950. Jharkhand alone has 2.2 million Adivasi evictees with resettlement at less than one-third. A study commissioned in 2023 for the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency estimates that 50,000 sq km of new land will be required to meet the 500-GW non-fossil target in 2030. While much of it is in Scheduled Areas (SAs), one can easily see that due to the preponderance of commons in Adivasi areas outside SAs, the acquisition of commons will disproportionately affect the Adivasi community.</p>.<p>Central India’s Hasdeo Aranya is a textbook case of the clash between climate ambition and constitutional rights. Approval for coal blocks has led to the felling of thousands of sal trees, cutting through a critical elephant corridor. Gram Sabha decisions in Ghatbarra and Hariharpur recorded 94% opposition on grounds of loss of mahua, tendu, and grazing land. In February 2024, however, the Chhattisgarh government cancelled their Community Forest Resource (CFR) titles to expedite project clearances. What is marketed across the world as clean energy tastes locally like a fresh wave of expropriation.</p>.Adivasis, activists slam forced evictions in tiger reserves.<p>The mineral boom is no longer innocuous. In February 2024, the Geological Survey of India announced 5.9 million tonnes of lithium in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district, home to Gujjar-Bakarwal pastoralists. A paper titled State’s Best Practices in Mining published in January 2025 by the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) highlighted that 80% of critical mineral blocks are in districts with STs comprising over 25% of the population.</p>.<p>Mining projects threaten to underground villages that have acquired CFR rights, threatening the tenure gains. Where tenure is secure, forests sequester carbon. Remote-sensing analysis indicates that the 2000-2020 forest cover loss in CFR villages with titles under the Forest Rights Act was 20% lower than in neighbouring non-CFR villages, avoiding an estimated 24 million tonnes of CO₂. Yet, of the 35 million hectares of land eligible for titles under the Act, only 5.2 million have been granted, and only 4% of the available have title deeds.</p>.<p>A justice-based transition requires three steps. First, enact free, prior, and informed consent as a statutory requirement for all renewable and mining activities in SAs, giving effect to the Supreme Court’s Samatha doctrine. Second, establish a climate justice fund – a 1% element of the union climate budget to support community renewables, restoration, and livelihood diversification. Third, establish state-level just transition commissions with Adivasi representation and obligatory social-impact audits. These must be time-bound, transparent, and subject to the supervision of an independent ombudsperson reporting to Parliament.</p>.<p><strong>Adivasi-centred future</strong></p>.<p>Efforts such as the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) – a part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) – talk about conserving the ecosystem. These efforts can benefit the Adivasis but the approaches of intervention should be designed not to alienate or associate the community instrumentally. To use French philosopher Felix Guattari’s concept ‘Ecosophy’, the forest enjoys a unique place in the Adivasis’ ‘way of life’ and ‘world view’, subsequently shaping their conduct towards nature.</p>.<p>Ecology experts argue that any forest patch bearing a uniform tree variety signifies the British policy of replacing natural forests with commercial ones. Realising the commercial value of forests, exploitative policies continued in post-colonial India. Movements of community resistance such as the Chipko Andolan are examples of varied responses to the State’s forest policy.</p>.<p>There are partnership models where pastoralists who rent out their common lands are paid in annual dividends. They illustrate that decarbonisation can empower Adivasi self-governance, provided communities are considered co-operators rather than mere, passive stakeholders.</p>.<p>Current initiatives such as Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) aim at reducing greenhouse gas through afforestation in degraded areas to sequester carbon. On the other hand, REDD+ aims to conserve the existing forests so that carbon remains trapped within the forest. This global policy incentivises afforestation and conservation through carbon trading. It is quite possible under these initiatives that trees with greater potential to trap carbon rather than restoration of natural vegetation will be taken up. Therefore, it is advisable to have a clear policy on REDD through community participation, allowing for the planting of tree varieties that are useful to the people as well as helpful in achieving the climate targets.</p>.<p>To prevent a repetition of fossil-age injustices, India must use the Adivasi areas as a constitutional compass. Lithium, gigawatt-sized solar farms, and high-voltage transmission corridors are required, but so is the ecological knowledge of the people who have saved the densest forests. A low-carbon republic built on high-carbon politics will be too heavy to stand, weighed down by its contradictions. Climate justice is not an afterthought – it is the ventilator that will breathe life into India’s green promise.</p>.<p>(Neil is Head of the Department of Political Science, St Joseph’s University, Bengaluru; Sujit is Assistant Professor, School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)</p><p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
