 Agitations against land acquisition have multiplied over the years. Displacement, loss of livelihood and lack of adequate compensation have forced peasants and tribals to protest in droves all across the country, be it the Posco site in Orissa or Bhattaparsal in Uttar Pradesh. Displacement of forest dwellers, those who are dependent on forests for livelihood, is yet another issue. Newsclay exclusively examines one such agitation, this time against prospective loss of means of subsistence by small peasants and tribal people in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. The agitation is led by all India Democratic Women's Associations and all India Agricultural Workers Union with massive support from the local residents. Mirzapur is a lush green area dotted with hills and abundant in water resources. The primary source of income for forest dwellers who constitute a large chunk of the population is subsistence farming. This is supplemented by income from work under NRGS scheme. We don't have a place to stay. We have two boys and two girls. We don't have a place to stay. When we have a family, we don't have a place to stay. We don't have a place to stay. My father is 16 years old. We have 4 brothers and 4 sisters. We have 5-6 boys. I don't have a place to stay. We are from the same family. We come from the forest. We are from the forest. We come from the forest. But we don't have a place to stay. The issue at hand is about acquiring land from forest dwellers for an earth forestation project. A scheme titled Uttar Pradesh Participatory Forest Management and Poverty Elevation Program Funded by an international NGO called the Japan International Cooperation Agency is under implementation by the Forest Department of UP. The project claims that it aims to enhance forest cover in 14 districts in the area with the cooperation of local residents. News Clicks examination in Mirzapur however suggests that the story is something else and certainly not to the liking of or benefit to many local residents. The scheme envisages that a plantation drive of commercially viable trees will be carried out across the districts and local people would plant the trees and maintain them while being paid under NREGA. All decisions would be taken by a joint forest management committee and the produce of the planted trees will be equally shared among the community and the forest department. The scheme also involves a role for NGOs. The residents however assert that the ground reality is far from the promises made by the advocates of the scheme. How participatory is the scheme which claims to have participation from the local people? The scheme has been working on the land for the past 20-25 years and the land is being cut off and the farm is being constructed. They should be involved in the scheme. They don't even know about it and the scheme has been formed. Who dominates the Joint Forest Management Committees? What happens to people on whose land trees will be planted? People living in the forest, or in a forest, will be removed as per the plan. One area is called Atikramad. Atikramad does not exist in this area. Atikramad is a way to vacate the area, so it will be vacated as per the plan. The main purpose of this project was to get rid of the problems here. People living in the forest, like Lalganj, were doing farming in the forest. They were putting up a military force there. All the houses of 200 people were demolished. No one was going to speak freely there. People living in the forest, like Lalganj, were not allowed to speak freely there. People living in the forest, like Lalganj, were not allowed to speak freely there. Does NRGA give confidence to people to participate in this mega-scheme? This is the situation in NRGA. It is the situation in every place. They have made the law that money should be given in 7 days. Today, they have given it. But the ones who are sincere, are not able to prepare their files in 7 days. Who will give the money in 7 days? In our village, the work done by NRGA has not been done. It has been 3 months. They have not been paying their rent in restaurants and other people's expenses. They are not paid the amount of land they work for. The work in NRGA is not slow. If it takes 10-15 days, we have started working here. If it takes 15 days, our work stops. If the budget comes, it will take another year. The local residents' voice concerns about the environment and depleting forest cover themselves. What comes across is that the non-implementation of the Forest Rights Act of 2006 is responsible for this high-handed attitude of the Forest Department. The law has made such a fight that there has never been a single person among them. Even today, it is a matter of the past. In Sherwa, the same way. There is an old woman. Even today, if it is necessary, I will show you. She said that when I got married, when I came as a bride, my house was in this jungle. My house was here. Today, the woman is alive. She has been separated from the jungle and has fled. Today, people have been living in the jungle for three generations. I mean, there was no education, no education. They don't have any documents, no evidence. There is a witness that everyone can say that these people were here. But they don't even want these poor people to be divided. That's why they don't want to be divided. If they are divided, they will do their job if they earn money. Rampant corruption, combined with the feeling of betrayal by the officials, has galvanized the agitation in the Mirzapur Forest Belt. So far, the government is trying to save the jungle. In our view, because my age, my understanding, we have seen that the jungle has ended in many places. The forests of Sadhu Sant, they have made trust. So, the five villages have been brought here and there, and the rest of the surrounding areas have been built. Thousands of these lands have been kept by the people of Babu. The rights of the people living in the jungle are the ones who light the stones of the jungle and sell the wood of the jungle there. But the situation is that there are so many wild animals here. No one is stopping them. They take food from them, they eat it every year. And they don't do anything. And when we go, we do everything. There is a village called Pedhe. It is the area of Sonbhadra. It is the border between Sonbhadra and Mirzapur. What we have seen there is the GCB machine. The big machines that make the mountains fall down. So, the GCB machine makes the whole area fall down. Now, the entire plot has been emptied. The big people are working on it. There are 40-50 people working on it. We are saying that this is a ranger or a parish guard. Where have they gone? However, it is to be noted that wherever a united and sustained struggle has been fought, the forest department has been forced to provide relief to the forest dwellers. We are not there. We are shown so much relief there. This is where the law is imposed. Where there is power. Most of the women we have worked with are from the Dalit family. These women have come out of the society and are fighting for their rights. We have been living in the village. We have been living in the forest for 10 years. We have been living for 10 years. We have been working with the Dalit family. We are doing this for the next 20 years. We have been living in the forest for 10 years. What are you doing on the land that we are going to buy? We are digging. We are digging the forest. So, you don't agree with the forest guards? How should I agree? If there were 10 villages, there would be 4 villages and there would be more jungles. If there were 2 villages, there would be 2 villages. If there were 3 villages, there would be 3 villages. The struggle in Mirzapur comes to an end. We need to get out of here. We can't get out of here. We need to get out of here. We need to get out. We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. Resistance against the scheme is only a microcosm of the larger struggle. The struggle for livelihood, for constitutional rights and for land. The story in Mirzapur fits very much with other agitations elsewhere. People with traditional livelihoods have refused to give up their lands and habitat and are struggling for their rights under law to be honoured.