“The space from where you enter the village now were all farms," the grandmother reminisced, “... farms on this side, farms on that side. We used to farm rice, sorghum, finger millet, white musali, maize and some edible vegetables.” One day “the forest people,” that is, forest officers, came to stop pada residents from farming and later “planted some types of trees in our farms. Nothing is left anymore. With my parents' generation everything was wiped out. Now we feel like we are in exile!” “Our condition became like this,” precarious, she added “from the moment we lost our farms,” pointing to her frail, thin body against the backdrop of the surrounding houses whose GI sheet walls had rusted. “Our children suffered,” she continued further with moist eyes, “Elder kids from the pada used to purchase vegetables from outside the forest with some money. People get, no—sold vegetables ... and then cook them? Such young children! For them I used to cook a vegetable mixed with salt. We used to eat it for lunch and dinner with a sip of water to fill our stomachs. We couldn't manage chapaati or rice at that time.” The “forest people” disallowed farming in SGNP since its establishment in 1981. According to the numbers in a recent report, between 1978-2020, SGNP’s forest cover increased by 225 percent while farming area reduced to 07 percent. The “forest people” were producing a forest. In turn, they also produced precarity for its adivasi residents.
