CPM cadre ‘liberate’ villages from
agitating landless tribals by burning down their shelters. The reason?
The tourism lobby wants the land.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya may be a happy man now. The West Bengal
chief minister’s Nandigram version of Marxian socialism is gaining
ground even in the remote villages of Kerala’s Idukki district, where
CPM State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s comrades are engaged in a battle
to protect the land mafia and the illegitimate interests of tourism
entrepreneurs. Facing the assault are poor tribals, who are being
kicked out of land they’ve occupied for centuries.
While the CPM’s new-found acquisitiveness vis-à-vis tribal land
has been exposed in Chinnakanal and Anayirankal villages, located close
to the hill station of Munnar, the party’s neoliberal leaders Pinarayi
Vijayan, TM Thomas Issac and MA Baby have unleashed their local
hooligans in an all-out bid to capture the Idukki unit. Idukki was
until recently a citadel of Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, who had
initiated stern measures to evict big land encroachers. But the
encroachers proved to be powerful enough to win over both the CPI and
the CPM in the area, and Achuthanandan has lost his grip over his
stronghold as a result.
A thousand-strong CPM brigade virtually invaded 53 acres of government
land in Chinnakanal in end-November and forcibly removed about 160
families of landless tribals who had set up their huts there some
months ago, following a government assurance that they would get land
in the area. Their huts were reduced to ashes and red party flags were
hoisted over the remains, signalling the “liberation” of the land. As
the hapless Adivasis took shelter under a huge rock nearby, the CPM men
completed the “anti-encroachment” drive by building their own sheds on
the property.
Though the eviction of the Adivasis was limited only to Anayirangal and
Pappathichola villages on the first day, the next day the CPM lumpens
took control of almost all the revenue land under the Chinnakkanal
village panchayat by hoisting red flags. The exercise on the second day
was carried out by about 2,000 cadre. The Adivasis are now in a
difficult situation as they have nowhere to go after losing their
newly-constructed huts to the Communist onslaught. The CPM men are
still guarding their “liberated territory” even as the police and
district administration turn a blind eye.
The tribal families, who had pitched tents on 1,500 acres allotted to
Hindustan Newsprint Limited years ago for a eucalyptus plantation at
Chinnakkanal, were caught unawares as the CPM cadre staged their
takeover operation. The newsprint company was not using the land
anymore and the entire stretch had, in fact, originally belonged to the
tribals.
The tribals had earned the CPM’s wrath ever since they threatened to
recover the land and not leave until the government honoured its
promise to distribute the land to lanless Adivasi families. Tribal
families had occupied the land under the banner of the Adivasi
Punaradhivasa Samrakshana Samithy (the Tribal Rehabilitation Protection
Committee).
“It is a Nandigram in the making. Who empowered these CPM men to evict
Adivasis from land earmarked to be distributed to them? Why are they
not allowing the judiciary and their own government to implement the
rule of the land? It is a clear case of the party using muscle power to
encroach on public land and prepare it for transfer to the land
mafia,’’ says noted tribal leader CK Janu.
Though CPI leader and state Revenue Minister KP Rajendran responded
soon after the CPM action in Chinnakanal, saying all encroachers would
be expelled immediately irrespective of party affiliations and that
orders to this effect had been issued to the district administration,
no action against the CPM land-grabbers has been taken so far. KM
Ramanandan, head of the special task force for evicting the
land-grabbers in Munnar, held an all-party meeting on the issue but
this too produced no results.
ACCORDING TO agitating tribals and social workers in the region, the
CPM is determined not to allow transfer of the land in Chinnakanal to
the Adivasis. “This can lead to a Muthanga-like situation if the
authorities do not take stern action immediately,” says Ponnambalam, a
landless Adivasi who is spearheading the resistance against the CPM in
Chinnakanal. Muthanga had seen the worst-ever police action against
Adivasis in the history of Kerala when Adivasis in the northern Wayanad
district had put up huts in the forest after the AK Antony-led UDF
government failed to distribute land to them as promised. An Adivasi
and a policeman were killed in the police action in February 2003, and
several tribals injured. Those Adivasis are yet to get their promised
land.
“The aim of the Marxists is to prove that the Adivasis are not entitled
to the land. As they are in power, they can easily provide false papers
to support their claim and use force to expel us from our land. Once
this is done, they can freeze distribution of this land and hand it
over to the land mafia,” Ponnambalam says.
he revenue minister told TEHELKA that all the agitating Adivasis would
be given land and that all encroachers would be expelled irrespective
of the colour of the hoisted flags (the Marxists allege that even
Congressmen have hoisted flags there). But this would not be easy in
the prevailing circumstances in Chinnakkanal panchayat. Observers say
that even if a temporary withdrawal of the CPM cadre takes place,
awarding of land to Adivasis will not be smooth. “The CPM has already
put forward the argument that only 21 of the 120 Adivasis who put up
sheds are entitled to the land. It will be easy for the CPM to call for
a review of the offer letters issued to the Adivasis, which in turn
would ensure a delay sufficient for carrying out the party agenda,”
says TC Rajesh, a journalist from the region.
The tribals had been provoked to put up shelters on the land because of
a deal struck between the Chief Minister AK Antony and tribal leader CK
Janu some years ago. At a grand function, Antony had distributed
title-deeds to 798 tribal families but only 540 of them got the land in
Chinnakanal. The rest found the land allotted to them under occupation
of big land sharks.
“These poor people had waited for more than five years for their land.
The government has forced them to resort to direct action,” says tribal
solidarity leader CP Shaji.
Local CPM leaders allege that the Congress and the CPI have instigated
the tribals to occupy the land so they could grab it themselves once
the dust settles.
However, the district collector has already sent a report to the
government saying that most of the government land in Chinnakanal is
under the illegal possession of CPM leaders. The collector has also
confirmed that a lobby of tourism resort promoters, which has on its
side a former district collector, is behind the push to usurp tribal
land.
“The village is a prime tourism spot which shares its border with the
Mathikettan national park and the hill station of Munnar. The land in
dispute is also close to the picturesque Anayirankal dam. The real
estate mafia feels it can be developed to fetch large profits,” says
Rajesh.
http://kashaji.blogspot.com/2007/12/now-cpm-grabs-land-in-kerala.html
Copyright @ Tehelka.
