ADIVASI OPPRESSION IN MAHARASHTRA 53 nexus of Congress leaders and with more land, goading the rich among the Adivasis themselves. According to the Collector of Dhulia district, 'organized encroachment" has taken place on 10,800 acres of forest land in Sakri and Nawa-pur talukas. The Maharashtra Minister for Forestry alleged that 70,000 acres of forest lands in the districts of Dhulia, Nasik and Jalgaon were encroached upon. According to another government declaration, 1,10,000 acres of forest lands have been encroached upon in the districts of Dhulia, Nasik, Jalgaon, Ghandrapur, and so on. This would mean that not less than one lakh and a quarter landless Adivasis and Sahus live by cultivating forest wastelands. Twenty per cent of the Adivasis in Maharashtra live in Dhulia district. Out of a total population of 16,62,281, in the district, Adivasis number 6,15,801. With ihe biggest Adivasi population it has come to be called the 'Bhilati5 of Maharashtra (the main scheduled tribes of the district being Bhil, Konkani, Pavra and Mavchi). It is^due to this that here the struggle for forest wasteland has assumed an explosive character as in Thana district. The struggle against wage slavery and alienation of lands waged by the agricultural proletariat of the Shahada area against the parasitic, semi-capitalist landlord class is well known throughout the country. The Government of Maharashtra was forced to cut down standing forests over an area of 40,000 acres and distribute the land to the landless Adivasis of Thana district, by the struggle for forest wasteland waged by them during the years 1969-71. The Home Minister, during his tour of Dhulia district in June 1974, admitted that thirteen to fifteen thousand acres ot forest land in Shahada and Taloda talukas could be distributed to the landless Adivasis. Deforestation/or Private Profit The State Minister for Forestry contends that against the basic minimum of 33 per cent, barely 18 per cent of the stated land area is under forest. Government statistics show that the total area under forest and iincultivable land together adds up to 79 lakh hectares, that is, 25.64 per cent of the total surface area. However, the policy of the Maharashtra government is development of forests only in words, but continual destruction of them in deeds. The wilds of the Kathi state in the Satpura ranges (now a part of Akkal-kuwa taluka) ranked next only to that of the Dangs. The forest contractor and the then District Congress President (now Member of Parliament) and the Forest Department ganged up to denude this forest, leaving the Satpuras bald and bare. Congressmen and their families got away with sizable chunks of land here and in the Devmogra forest before and after felling the trees. The Raymond Wollen Mills of Thana was presented with 10,000 acres ofLaling forest land, a few miles away from Dhulia, for breeding Australian sheep. The alarming result of these land grants