Colonial forest policy imposed many injustices on forest-dependent communities inmainland India, including ignoring pre-existing cultivation and taking away people’s rightsto access and manage the forest. Perhaps the most extreme form of these ‘historicalinjustices’ is the creation of ‘Forest Villages’ (FVs) in central India for providing cheaplabour for the colonisers’ forestry operations. The tragedy is that even 75 years afterIndependence and 15 years after the landmark Forest Rights Act came into effect, thisinjustice has not been redressed in several states. In particular, Madhya Pradesh (MP)has the highest number of such villages (925). The inhabitants of MP’s FVs have gonethrough multiple cycles of unjust rejections of their rights to live, to cultivate agricultureland and to manage their own forests. Last year, the government declared the‘instantaneous conversion to revenue village status’. But, due to a combination ofignorance, apathy and a forest department that does not want to let go, nothing haschanged on the ground. The story of the FVs of Baiga Chak region of Dindori district isparticularly heartbreaking.