Anand P. Vaidya

Dags för en ny IndienbildBilden av Indien i västerlandet, även i Sverige, är minst sagt motsägelsefull. Å ena sidan vet de flesta att indisk ekonomi blomstrar, att indierna numera är världsmästare på IT- och relaterade tjänster globalt och att Indien har världens största drömfabrik i form av Bollywood.Å andra sidan 'vet' alla att det är landet där kvinnor behandlas värst i hela världen, där huvudstaden New Delhi kallas våldtäkternas huvudstad alla kategorier. Lägg därtill den utbredda fattigdomen, förorenade floder och storstädernas kaos.

Future of the Forest is the story of legal transformations of forests across India through collective action. Since the nineteenth century, Indian forest dwellers have been unable to enforce their claims to the land on which they live or the products of it that they use. But at the turn of the twenty-first century, a new national movement led to the passage of the Forest Rights Act, a landmark law that recognizes the tenure and use rights of India's millions of landless forest dwellers. Anand P. Vaidya tracks the Forest Rights Act from the movements that pushed for its passage to its drafting—and the many revisions it underwent to satisfy coalitions of local peoples, conservationists, and a wide spectrum of political parties and movements—and finally to its impact on two neighboring villages in central India's forest belt. The forests have seen a long history of political authority enacted to the benefit of the powerful; Future of the Forest follows the work of activists and forest dwellers who turned to the law to shift this balance of power.

Future of the Forest is the story of legal transformations of forests across India through collective action. Since the nineteenth century, Indian forest dwellers have been unable to enforce their claims to the land on which they live or the products of it that they use. But at the turn of the twenty-first century, a new national movement led to the passage of the Forest Rights Act, a landmark law that recognizes the tenure and use rights of India's millions of landless forest dwellers. Anand P. Vaidya tracks the Forest Rights Act from the movements that pushed for its passage to its drafting—and the many revisions it underwent to satisfy coalitions of local peoples, conservationists, and a wide spectrum of political parties and movements—and finally to its impact on two neighboring villages in central India's forest belt. The forests have seen a long history of political authority enacted to the benefit of the powerful; Future of the Forest follows the work of activists and forest dwellers who turned to the law to shift this balance of power.