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Land rights and neoliberalism: an irreconcilable conflict for indigenous peoples in India?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2016

Indrani Sigamany
Indrani Sigamany*
Affiliation:
Centre for Applied Human Rights, York Law School, University of York, England. E-mail: indranisigamany@alumni.york.ac.uk.
*
indranisigamany@alumni.york.ac.uk
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Abstract

Does legislation that grants land rights necessarily ensure justice? The Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA) in India, a landmark social justice law, aims to enhance land security for forest peoples. Increasingly displaced by development and extractive industries that intensify impoverishment, indigenous peoples in India should, with the FRA, be able to protect their land, their livelihoods and their culture. Continued government violations of forest land rights in the name of development highlight that economically vulnerable populations lack the power to take advantage of legislation. I examine the tension of current indigenous land struggles in the context of the legal frameworks of the FRA and the neoliberal culture of India.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 369 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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