Articles by Ajit Menon

This paper critically analyses the politics of claim-making, vis-à-vis, the Forest Rights Act by illustrating how three distinct political actors in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, have used the FRA. In this analysis the law has not been taken as an immutable category, but rather as a political instrument that various groups use to assert their identities and political imaginaries. In doing so, these imaginaries invoke unique histories and reference multiple "genealogies of belonging." By highlighting the multiple uses and interpretations of the FRA in Gudalur, this study opens up space for a discussion around some larger concerns implicated within issues of forests, rights and conservation, particularly, the limits of seeing Adivasis as the only authentic traditional forest-dwellers by highlighting the blurred boundaries between various categories--Adivasi and non-Adivasi, forest and non-forest, legality and illegality. It is in these liminal spaces, where boundaries are blurred, this study offers an analysis informed by the analytic of governmentality to argue that local actors exercise agency in either taking on or resisting environmental subjectivities framed by the FRA.

The notification of Mudumalai Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu as a tiger reserve in 2007 has resulted in a contested politics between activists, non-governmental organisations and conservationists with regard to the future of protected area management. This paper presents an account of how these actors positioned themselves around not only the creation of the tiger reserve, but also the proposed elephant corridor and the Forest Rights Act of 2006. It suggests that due process of law has not been followed adequately and that sufficient scientific evidence has not been presented in the public domain as required. The Forest Rights Act is seen to offer an opportunity to democratise the management of natural resources with all its social and ecological complexities and provide the necessary checks and balances to bring about conservation based strongly on scientific evidence.

Judicial interpretations of constitutional directives towards assuring adivasi rights have been of many kinds, especially in instances when such rights have overlapped with the discourse of sustainable development or the need to ensure the greater common good. The struggle to ensure adivasi rights is one that must then seek a constant engagement with the law.

Case of the Kolli Hills Hydroelectric Project Ajit Menon V Saravanan If hazards of displacement are to be avoided, it is not enough to provide legality to rehabilitation policies and ensure right of access to information regarding a development project Tenurial security of land belonging to tribals is to be guaranteed if their arbitrary acquisition by the government, leading to their displacement, is to be prevented.