Volume 4, No. 4-5, April-May 2003

In estimated minimum of 20 dead, another 35 women and 31 children missing and scores wounded in one of the worst ever police firings in Kerala’s history. It was a Jallian-wallah Bagh re-enacted - not by a colonial power, but by the Congress(I) government of Kerala. For the powers that be, there was no remorse. In the State Assembly, the Chief Minister, A.K.Anthony, fully backed the police brutality, saying, "such actions will be dealt with severely".

The brutality was unbelievable. But the tribals fought back heroically. They resisted the police onslaught fiercely, armed with sharpened sticks, bows and arrows, knives and sickles.

The battle for the control of the forests, declared as the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary in 1973, and occupied by the tribals since Jan.3, 03, took place on Feb.19. The police operation, which began at 9.00 am under full glare of the media, turned increasingly brutal and insensitive, especially after the AGS (Adivasi Gothra Sabha) activists captured a police constable and a forest official. "From the few television clips that were smuggled out of police scrutiny, and eye-witness accounts, the police seemed to have gone berserk from then on, under cover of a media blackout, using horrendous force on the fleeing activists and their supporters, including children, the aged and women ..".

Tear-gassing and even police firing failed to douse the tribal fury. A fierce battle raged for nearly two hours, before the adivasis began a tactical retreat. Just as it was thought that the battle was over, a constable and a forester were taken captive. The adivasis thrashed their captors, doused them with kerosene and threatened to set fire to them if the police were not withdrawn. They also demanded medical facilities for the injured. The police operations were halted and negotiations were conducted for nearly three hours between senior police officials and activists of the AGS. The ‘hostages’ were kept in a shed surrounded by armed activists. But, the talks failed. Suddenly all hell broke loose with police commandos opening fire in all directions. They fired direct into the fleeing tribals. A freelance news photographer and a freelance videographer were brutally beaten up. After this ruthless attack the police chased away all the reporters and cordoned off the area for over 16 hours. Not only did the attacks continue, but the police obliterated all evidence of the massacre, secretly disposing of the bodies, setting fire to the tents and removing the blood-stains splattered across the entire area. Thousands fled to the forests, with no food to eat, and hounded by thousands of police, being hunted like wild animals.

Arundhati Roy, after visiting the area, in a letter to the Kerala Chief Minister (reported in The Hindu, Feb.28, 03) said: "The Muthanga atrocity will go down in Kerala’s history as a government attempt to decimate as extraordinary and historical struggle for justice by the poorest, most oppressed community in Kerala…… It is the real fight of the truly powerless against the powerful. …. Meanwhile the police are terrorizing the adivasis in the region. Policemen enter settlements and arbitrarily arrest the menfolk, beating them and dragging them away. Their families have no idea what has become of them. When we approached the villages we found ghost settlements, with only a few frightened women and children… It is a ruthless political game by accomplished players. The result of this police raj is that adivasis are too frightened to go to work. People are frightened to employ them. In effect, they are starving to death in their villages — their ration cards have been burnt in the carnage. This is an exacerbation of the situation that led them to fight for the return of their alienated land in the first place".

Top police officials said that the kind of resistance offered by the adivasis was unparalleled in the State’s history and pointed to a well-planned strategy of what he called "outside forces".

The tale of Wayanad’s tribals is one of betrayal and exploitation by ‘settlers’ and successive governments, including the CPM. Of the more than one lakh tribal people in Wayanad, nearly 75,000 are landless. The remaining, mainly Kurichiars and Kurumars, were once landowners, but had to give it up to settlers to clear debts and other obligations.

The tribal people’s demand for land rights in Kerala has been a cry in the wilderness. Not that attempts have not been made to provide land to ensure a decent livelihood to the tribles. It was the prime objective of the Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Lands and Restoration of Alienated Lands) Act, 1975. But this has not happened even two and half decades later. The reason - those who would have to return land to the tribals constituted a powerful vote bank. The political coalitions in Kerala led by the Congress and the CPI(M) have found it politically convenient not to implement the law.

Wayanad has the highest concentration of Adivasis in the State - nearly 1.2 lakhs, according to the latest survey conducted by the Tribal Welfare Department. Last financial year alone, at least Rs. 5.7 crores were spent under Plan and non-Plan programmes by the State Department of Tribal Welfare and to pay the salary of the Department employees in Wayanad. This was in addition to several other schemes meant to benefit the Adivasis.

Yet, it is evident to even casual visitors to tribal settlements in Wayanad that the Adivasis lead a precarious existence. But the main tribal communities, Kurichiars and Paniyars, once had a glorious past. The Kurichiars are known to have fought the British forces for nearly nine years from 1805 along with Pazhassi Raja. The Kurumars once owned large tracts of land. But all the glory has faded from Wayanad’s tribal landscape.

The Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restrictions on Transfer of lands and Restoration of Alienated Lands) Act of 1975 came into effect from January 1982 in the State and it was included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution making it non-justiciable. It made all transfer of property "possessed, enjoyed or owned" by tribals to non-tribal people between 1960 and January 1, 1982, invalid and ordered restoration of such land to Adivasis. But the law remained on paper.

In 1993, Nalla Thampi Thera, a non-tribal in Wayanad, gave a fillip to the Adivasi struggle when the Kerala High Court passed an order on his public interest litigation directing the State Government to implement the 1975 Act. In 1996, the High Court set a deadline of September 30 to evict the non-tribals. The Government responded with as amendment to the 1975 legislation. By the 1990s, signs of discontent emerged from the tribal people especially in Wayanad where some Naxalite groups have been active.

Flexing their political muscle, the settlers forced the LDF and the UDF to amend the "impractical" provisions of the 1975 Act under which they should hand over land in their possession back to the Adivasis. The result was the Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Land and Restoration of Alienated Lands) Amendment Bill 1996 passed by the State Assembly almost unanimously (there was only one dissenting vote). But the President returned the Bill. Another Bill was passed in 1999 which said only alienated land in excess of two hectares possessed by encroachers would be returned to the tribals. The Kerala High Court however rejected the Bill. The State Government has gone in appeal to the Supreme Court and obtained a stay order.

In October 2001, after a fast-unto-death by tribal groups led by C.K.Janu, the Anthony government signed an agreement to provide at least one acre of land (up to 5 acres) to each landless family, but not the land seized by the settlers. The pact thereby shifted the focus of the long-standing demand of the tribal people for the "restoration of their alienated land". But even this was not implemented. 53,472 families were identified as landless. On Jan.1, 2002 some land was identified to be distributed - a mere 2.3% of the required amount. And of this land identified a mere 1.6% was actually allotted. It is no wonder that the tribal’s patience reached breaking point.

For nearly 50 years the adivasis have been demanding the return of the alienated land. But they were unable to evict the economically and politically powerful second and third generation settler farmers from their lands. In addition, the present UDF government, with powerful settler farmer interests represented in its Cabinet, have vehemently opposed the tribal demands.

On Jan.3,2003, 2,000 tribal activists and their families occupied the land in the wildlife sanctuary. They declared "self-rule" in the area, started cultivation "for a living" "because they had nowhere else to go" and restricted entry to the non-tribal people, including government officials, into the new settlement. They set up check posts to prevent the entry of non-tribal people into the tribal land. One of its leaders, Janu, stated: "We are the original inhabitants of the land and the forests. Now we have been aliena-ted in our own territory. This is cruel".

Then began ‘agitations’ against this so-called encroachment of forest land by a host of ‘environmental’ groups and the powerful settlers, backed by all the political parties. By Feb.17 these forces began to get more and more aggressive. On that day the tribals caught hold of 21 people, including forest officials, who were trying to set fire to the forest - a pretext to evict the so-called encroachers. All were captured and kept in tribal custody. After spending, what they claimed to be a harrowing night in tribal custody, they were released only after their demand to get the District Collector to personally record the statement of the hostages (regarding the fire) was accepted.

After this devious method to get the tribals evicted failed, under pressure from the local settlers, environmentalists and political parties, the police launched the Feb.19 attack.

The alienation of the 4 lakh tribals of Kerala over the past decades is nothing but a continuation of the British policy of seizing the forest from them and minting crores from its enormous wealth. Forest lands of Kerala have vast resources of sandlewood, cloves, cardamoms and other spices - either natural or cultivated - which are a source of massive wealth. Muthanga forests are supposed to be the largest habitat for elephants; with its tremendous source of illegal wealth through poached tusks. It is this powerful nexus between the forest mafia, ouside settlers and politicians (particularly of the ruling party and the CPM) who have been vehemently opposed to the marginalized tribals.

Lately this mafia combine have new-found friends, to give an ideological spin to their loot - the environmentalists. These fake environmentalists, who have been in the forefront of evicting nearly one lakh slumdweller families in the name of protecting the Borivili forests at Mumbai, who have led the campaign to evict over one lakh worker families and many small industrialists from Delhi, in the name of pollution - are once again in the forefront against the tribals of Kerala. Not surprisingly, they have been silent about the eucalyptus plantation (whose deep roots sap the entire groundwater of the area) in the Muthanga sanctuary, that supplies the raw material for Birla’s Gwalior Rayon factory, in spite of the ecological damage of such plantations. Anyhow, it is the tribals who are the best protectors of the forests, rather than the corrupt forest department officials and politicians, who mint crores in league with the forest mafia/settler combine.

But, as can be seen in all tribal belts the adivasis are the victims. Decades of peaceful agitation have born no results whatsoever. They have no alternative but to take to arms for their rights, as the entire system gets aligned against them. This latest massacre shows the inevitability of the tribals taking to this path for their salvation.

Panic-stricken that the tribals may now turn to the PW, all sorts of political riff-raff have entered the fray to try and dupe them. The CPM, who has been in power numerous times since the last three decades and has solidly sided with the settlers, now shows mock sympathy for the tribals. The RSS has planned big inroad into this region, with its plans to replace radicalization of the tribals with Sanskritisation. All the political parties and even dissidents within the Congress(I) now seek to make political capital out of the massacre. All these power-brokers seek to trade in tribal blood in exchange for votes.

But, the tribals of Wayanad have a glorious tradition, linked with the great Naxalbari history, and are bound to choose this path which is the only possible way to their salvation.

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