The Soliga (also spelled Sholaga) community did not receive an unqualified promise that every settlement could remain forever. Their campaign in Karnataka’s Biligiri Rangana Hills led to reported recognition of individual land claims and community rights under the Forest Rights Act, including rights connected with habitat and non-timber forest produce (NTFP). The story is a legal and organizing victory, but continuing relocation disputes show that recognition and enforcement are not the same thing.
Who are the Soligas, and where did the dispute occur?
The Soligas are an Indigenous forest-dwelling community associated with the Biligiri Rangana Hills in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka. The landscape includes the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple area and is commonly known as the BRT landscape. Scroll’s 2018 account described the ecological area as covering more than 500 square kilometres, a figure attributed to that report.
The community’s livelihoods and cultural life have long been tied to the forest. NTFP can include products such as honey, fruit, medicinal plants and other materials collected without felling trees. For Soliga families, access to habitat and forest produce was therefore both an economic issue and a question of whether they could continue living according to established practices.
In an interview quoted by Scroll, Soliga resident Shivmallu said: “Over hundreds of years, we have successfully mastered the art of co-existing with tigers.” That is testimony from a community member, not a judicial finding, but it captures the central argument: conservation and Indigenous presence need not automatically be treated as opposites.
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What changed before the court case?
| Year | Reported development |
|---|---|
| 1974 | The government declared the BR Hills, including the temple area, a wildlife sanctuary. Scroll reported that many Soligas were evicted and moved to nearby plains. |
| 2006 | The Forest Rights Act (FRA) was enacted. Both Scroll and The Indian Express reported that officials restricted or banned Soliga NTFP collection that year; those local events are reported accounts, and the cited reports do not identify corresponding departmental records. |
| 2008 | Soligas took their rights claim to Chamarajanagar district court, according to both retrospective reports. |
| August 2010 | Scroll reported that about 1,200 families received pattas recognizing land rights after a favourable outcome. |
| January 2011 | The sanctuary was declared a tiger reserve. Scroll and The Indian Express reported that NTFP collection was banned again after the designation. |
| October 2011 | Scroll reported that the court upheld habitat and NTFP-related rights and that several village panchayats received community rights. The Indian Express described dismissal of a case concerning NTFP collection and upheld land rights. |
The original 2010 and 2011 orders, including their case numbers, parties and precise statutory reasoning, are not provided in the cited reports. The legal outcome should therefore be described as reported by these two newspapers, not as a quotation from the judgments.
How did the Forest Rights Act support the claim?
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs describes the FRA, 2006, as a law recognizing the forest rights of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. Its framework includes both individual and community rights.
- Individual rights: habitation and cultivation rights in eligible forest land.
- Community use rights: access to forest produce, grazing, fishing and other customary uses.
- Community forest-resource rights: the right to protect, regenerate, conserve or manage community forest resources.
The Soliga campaign used this statutory framework rather than arguing simply that residence inside a protected area should be exempt from wildlife law. The reports describe community mobilization, local collectives and pamphlets in the Soliga dialect to explain traditional rights. Achugegowda, identified by Scroll as a leader in the legal battle, said: “We campaigned rigorously and informed the entire tribe of our traditional rights,”
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What rights were reportedly recognized?
Individual land claims
Scroll reported that about 1,200 families received pattas in August 2010. A patta is a documented recognition of an individual land right; it should not be conflated with a community forest-rights grant.
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Habitat and forest-produce rights
Scroll said the October 2011 decision upheld habitat rights and the ability to collect NTFP. The Indian Express likewise reported that a case over NTFP collection was dismissed and that land rights were upheld.
Community rights
Scroll reported that about 25 village panchayats were granted community rights. The report did not establish that every Soliga settlement received the same recognition or that all claims were implemented identically.
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Did the ruling stop all evictions or relocation?
No. The reported decisions did not settle every question about relocation. Scroll noted that some settlements in core and buffer areas remained subject to relocation discussions and that residents continued to fear displacement.
That distinction matters in tiger reserves. A legal recognition may establish a right or require a proper claims process, while relocation proposals, consent, rehabilitation and day-to-day enforcement can remain contested. The available reports do not support saying that Soligas won a permanent, unconditional right for every family to remain in every part of the reserve.
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Not necessarily. The FRA itself includes community protection and conservation powers. The Soliga case is often presented as an example of Indigenous knowledge being treated as part of conservation governance rather than as an automatic threat to wildlife.
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Scroll reported that tiger numbers were said to have doubled between 2011 and 2015. That is the article’s statement; the reports do not identify an underlying monitoring source, so it should not be treated as an independently verified causal finding. The evidence available does not establish that the rights decisions caused any change in tiger numbers.
For animal welfare and conservation readers, the practical lesson is narrower and more useful: protected-area management must distinguish poaching or habitat destruction from lawful subsistence use, and it must follow the FRA claims process before treating customary residents as illegal occupants.
What does a later Karnataka dispute show?
A 2025 Ministry of Tribal Affairs answer, published by the Press Information Bureau, described a separate dispute involving 52 Jenukuruba families at AtturKolli in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. Thirty-nine claims had been rejected by the Gram Sabha and again by the Sub-Divisional Level Committee in May 2025; 13 claims were still pending before the Gram Sabha, and the claimants had filed a writ petition.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchJenukuruba families in Nagarahole are not the Soligas in BRT, and this later matter did not reverse or reopen the reported Soliga decisions. It does show that recognition of forest rights in Karnataka remains a live administrative and legal process.
What is the clearest way to understand the Soliga victory?
- Organization made the claim visible: Soliga groups explained FRA rights within the community and brought a collective claim to court.
- The law supplied multiple categories of rights: individual land recognition and community access or management rights are related but distinct.
- The reported rulings limited blanket exclusion: the 2010 and 2011 outcomes were described as supporting land, habitat and NTFP-related rights.
- Implementation remained decisive: relocation proposals and later claims elsewhere in Karnataka show that a favourable decision does not end every dispute.
The Bottom Line
The Soligas’ reported victory came through organizing under India’s Forest Rights Act and court proceedings in Chamarajanagar: about 1,200 families received land pattas in 2010, and a 2011 decision was reported to uphold habitat, NTFP and community-related rights. It strengthened their legal position inside BRT Tiger Reserve, but it did not guarantee that every relocation proposal or forest-rights claim would disappear.
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