Dear Friends,
Please sign the petition “Justice for Chengara Protestors” and circulate the
message among your friends/contacts.
http://www.petitiononline.com/chengara/petition.html
As some of you already know, a land struggle was *launched on August 04,
2007*, by the landless people (mainly Dalits and Adivasis) at Chengara in
Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, India. They have been marginalised and
oppressed for generations.
They have claimed land in the Chengara estate, a rubber plantation, which
had been leased to the “Harrison Malayalam Plantation” by the government of
Kerala. The *land lease exhausted in 1996*. According to Laha Gopalan,
President of the SJVSV (Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi (SJVSV), leads
this struggle), the land deal (for 1048 hectares) itself was illegal. *The
company (“Harrison Malayalam Plantation”) has illegally occupied, excess
land to the tune of 6000 hectares.*
The landless people who have flocked there from all parts of Kerala demand
that this government land be redistributed to them. This has been part of a
long standing promise of the Government. Now there are *about 7,500
families, and more than 30,000 people in the estate, living in makeshift
arrangements*.
Since August 3, 2008 a road blockade has been going on, led by the united
front of *trade unions defending the right of 80 workers* in the occupied
Chengara plantation. The Trade Union Action Council is planning a march on
September 3, if these landless people are not evicted by then.
Human Rights Activists like Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy, C. R. Neelakandan,
Ajitha and many others have come in support of the struggle.
The landless adivasis have been oppressed and deprived of their rights for
generations which resulted in the 1975 legislation of The Kerala Scheduled
Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Lands and Restoration of Alienated Lands)
Act. But successive governments either left or right by their inaction
either purposefully or by lack of will has shirked of the responsibility of
implementing the legislation for the last 30 years.
Delhi Forum (delhiforum@gmail.com Web:
http://updatecollective.wordpress.com/
http://delhisolidaritygroup.wordpress.com/) has created an online petition,
to bring justice for Chengara Protestors.
http://www.petitiononline.com/chengara/petition.html
Please do sign this petition and circulate it widely amongst your friends
and other contacts.
You may visit the urls listed below, to know more about this struggle.
http://sanhati.com/articles/535/
http://kafila.org/2008/06/14/beyond-just-a-home-and-a-name/
http://www.indianchronicle.com/newsdetail.asp?s_id=101
http://www.keralanewstime.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=48
http://www.ambedkar.org/News/SRKerala.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1821/18210490.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8hu9KQBvNc
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely
Renni P. Mathunny
<rennipm@gmail.com>
Kerala has a population of about 4 % of the country. Projected population for 1st March 2008 is 3, 42, 32,000. We have land of 1.18% of India. The quantum of land 38863 sq. kms or 9 603 00000 cents cannot change.
Of this geographical area, 48% is mountainous or hilly. 12% is the coastal lowlands. The remaining 40% of midlands alone is suitable for human dwelling. That is to say, for 4% percent of the country’s population, only about 0. 45% of its land is available for living and surviving.
Calculating on 960300000 cents and 34232000 humans, individual share comes to 28 cents each. Permissible human usage-share is 40% of that total. Thus, each of us has a birthright to only 11 cents of the land area in Kerala. If you allow a further deduction of 30% to man-made infrastructure like roads, public grounds and buildings, other public utilities etc, a Keralite can claim or own to himself only 7 cents or so.
It is against this ground reality that Chengara orphans demand five acres of land suitable for agriculture and Rs.50,000 in cash for each landless family among them [The Hindu 04.06.2008].
I heard Laha Gopalan say many times on TV that the Chengara camp has people of all castes, and that it is only an agitation of people who do not have as much land as their birthright [they having only 4 to 10 cents] and the landless. This might mean that it is not an agitation of landless Dalits; or at least, not any longer. Laha Gopalan himself has by his own admission, only one hectare or 247 cents valued at Rs. 24, 70,000/-
In 3 years, 30% of the active population in Kerala would be non-Malayali or immigrant labour. The Chengara model would serve them well. TRESPASS, SQUAT, GRAB! We need not stop with land alone in the Chengara culture.
Harrisons Plantations is a company of the RP Goenka group. It is not a foreign company, as depicted by the activists and the media. From 2005, they have been selling off pieces of the Estates in Kerala to real estate companies. The land was not theirs; and their lease with the owners, the Kerala government, had run out. However, neither Left nor Right, or activist raised any voice against the fraud. http://www.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=169951
The Harrison’s Kodumon Estate land grab by Laha Gopalan and his group in 2006 and the Chengara land-grab of 2007 might thus have been some trick by some real estate group to force a cheap sale of the land. The huge funds spent in mobilising media and activist support could have come from that group. Alternately, it might have been a trick by RPG themselves to escape from Kerala without paying the rent to the government [they have reportedly not paid it for 20 years] and the employee benefits to the labour. After the lease ran out, RPG had availed a loan of Rs. 100 crores from the ICICI Bank on the security of the Estate, on which they had no rights at that point of time. The land grab might also have been to avert having to repay the Bank.
Comment by R.Sajan — September 21, 2008 @ 11:05 pm