HUNDREDS of indigenous Jenu Kuruba people have mounted an indefinite protest outside the Nagarhole national park in Karnataka, India, against government attempts to force them off their land.

The adivasi group say their land has been turned into a tiger reserve for tourists and many have been forcibly evicted by the Forest Department.

The Jenu Kuruba complain that their eviction is being part-funded by the US Fish & Wildlife Service because it helped pay for the tiger reserve.

Leader JK Thimma said the people had long lived alongside tigers in the forest and “know how to take care of the forest and animals.

“We don’t want any money. We want to live free in the forest. The tribes, the forest and the animals are all one ... if [they] come and shoot us, we are ready to die — but not to leave.”

Jenu Kuruba woman Muthamma said that while tiger populations were safe while the tribe lived there, loggers and poachers would move in once the indigenous people are gone.

Another forest-dwelling tribe, the Soliga, were the first people to get their community forest rights recognised in a tiger reserve;  tiger numbers there then increased far more than the national average.

Adivasis or indigenous forest inhabitants have come under sustained attack by the Narendra Modi government, with India’s Supreme Court ordering the eviction of more than eight million people from their ancestral lands in February 2019. Tribes must formalise their claims to land they have always lived on to stay put, but the government ignores many claims — the Jenu Kuruba have not received a response to claims submitted back in 2009.

Though Indian authorities say reforms to the Forest Act are about conservation, environmentalists point out that deforestation has accelerated under Mr Modi, with approval for logging and mining operations being issued more quickly than under previous governments. Last year, New Delhi approved auctions to exploit 40 new coalfields, 80 per cent of which lie in ancient forest inhabited by adivasis as well as endangered species such as elephants.

Survival International senior researcher Sophie Grig said the Jenu Kuruba face “constant harassment” from forest guards.

“They are the true conservationists and protectors of Nagarhole’s forests,” she said. “It’s high time their rights to live in their ancestral lands are recognised.”