Ranchi, Aug. 26: About 250 hamlets of the 403 Munda tribal villages have been wiped out in 56 years, says a survey conducted by the Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan (JJBA).

The NGO concluded that 247 original settlements, which used to flourish during Independence, no longer exist.

The JJBA survey says that only 156 of the original settlements are in existence today.

According to the survey, hundreds of acres of tribal land and village forests have either been usurped by outsiders and non-tribals or have been forcibly acquired by the state, violating the provisions of the Bihar Private Forests Act, 1947, and the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908.

“Original Mundari settlements, numbering 156, have been traced at Khunti, Murhu, Aarki, Tamar and Bundu under Ranchi district and at Kusai block in West Singhbhum. In 1947, such original settlements were spread across Palamau, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Gumla, Lohardagga and West Singhbhum districts,” the survey said.

JJBA spokesman Sanjoy Bosu Mullick said the survey results would be used to expose large-scale alienation of tribal land and alleged inaction of the state.

“Though the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, prohibits transfer of tribal land to outsiders, 247 village settlements have vanished in 56 years, implying that hundreds of acres of forests and tribal land have passed into the hands of outsiders,” he added.

Mullick said the group would demand the restoration of tribal land to the original owners.

The JJBA spokesman said following the Aryan invasion from the North, the Dravidian races, including the tribes, unable to match the physical superiority of the conquerors, were pushed southwards in search of safer haven.

Mullick added that as the southern thrust intensified, Munda tribesmen infiltrated into the Jharkhand region where the thick forest cover and the hilly terrain provided them with a natural habitat.

“As the Mundas settled down they had begun to clear forests making land available to them for agricultural purposes.

“In course of time, such settlements that included village forests came to be known as Mundari khuntkatti areas, which implied joint and community ownership of all the land cleared by the original settlers,” Mulliuck said.

He said the survey of land rights of 1908 and in 1932 undertaken during the then British regime granted legal rights to the Munda settlements denoting all land cleared by them as community lands.

The rights of the tribals over their lands and forests were further strengthened by the CNT Act of 1908 and later by the Private Forest Act of 1946, which prohibited sale or transfer of tribal land to outsiders.