Marayoor Issue

TRIBAL LAND STRUGGLE

AARYA MATHEW

 " Mowgli's been kicked out.

His jungle is now a tiger reserve.
But tourists are welcome. "

Tribal people from India's Kanha

Tiger Reserve- home of the jungle
book-have been illegally evicted in
the name of "conservation". But
tribal people are the best
conservationists and guardian of
the natural world.
 TRIBE
human group, whose members have common interests,
territory, language, social law and economic occupation. They
possess a distinct dialect and cultural traits.

They are products of different historical and social conditions.

They belong to different racial stocks and religious backgrounds
and speak different dialects.
 Scheduled Tribes in India are generally considered to be
‘Adivasis,’ meaning original inhabitants of the country

Scheduled Tribes often experience passive indifference in the

form of exclusion from educational opportunities, social
participation, and access to their own land.

 Although Scheduled Tribes are a minority,

they constitute about 8.2 % of the total
population in India or 85 million people in
absolute number.

The tribal population is an integral part of

India’s social fabric and
has the second largest concentration after
that of the African continent
 During the 1950s, there were several efforts in
Kerala to get rid of the Janmi-kudiyan land-
tenure system and to implement the equitable
distribution of land.

One of the key legislations the state had

undertaken to ensure land for the landless and to
end the feudal system was the.

" Kerala Land Reforms Act,

implemented in 1970. "
By this Act, the centuries-old Janmi-Kudiyan system was brought

to an end.

Fixation of ceiling on land holdings - That is an individual could only

possess 15 acres of land.

Plantations and private forests were exempted

The Act also gave proprietary rights to cultivating tenants and

protected the Kudikidappukars from eviction.

Piece of legislation was considered by many to be a revolutionary

However, the proper implementation of the
Act is another story.
According to the Act, the government was to
distribute surplus and revenue forest land to
Kerala’s landless poor.
In July 1975, Ms Gandhi announced a 20-point
programme which included the same.

To date, the Act has not been fully

implemented, resulting in many landless
people in the state.
 Allotment of member of an ST who made any
lands transfer of land to a non-ST between

the 1 Jan 1960 and the 24 Jan 1986 and

Kerala Scheduled Tribes where an application for restoration of
(Restriction of Transfer right this act has been filed, but the
of Lands and Restoration possession has not been restored to him
of Alienated Lands) Act,
and such transfer has been validated
1975

under the act shall be entitled to

assured restoration of all restoration of the equal extent of land
land lost by tribal people by way of allotment from the
in Kerala. Government

MARAYOOR ISSUE
 Alienation of land is a serious problem faced by the
scheduled tribes. The land is the mainstay of the tribals
and more than 90 per cent of them are dependent
on agriculture and allied activities.

Hence, the land is the only tangible asset of a

tribal community, and they are emotionally
attached to it.

 According to CK Janu, although

the Kerala State Government
decided to limit the individual
possession of land to 15 acres
during the Land Reforms in the
1960s, it led to the ghettoization
of the Adivasi communities, as
they were either pushed to the
reserves or to three cent plot
colonies.
Various land distribution schemes and programmes
that were meant to minimise landlessness among
the Adivasis and the Dalits did not actually relieve
them.
As far as the landlessness in Kerala is concerned, the
Dalits and the Adivasis form around 85 per cent of
the landless in the state.
 The state has been witnessing a steady
decline in food production and farming. Since
agricultural activity has hit a bottom low
the state is largely dependent on the
neighbouring states for its food requirements.
 As such, the Government of Kerala, instead of
bringing back the Adivasis and the Dalits to
agriculture and farming, has thrown them to
the fringes of the society and has reduced them
to living in colonies.
why various reforms and how it has impacted the Adivasis and the
Dalits

lack of will among the successive

governments.
huge gap in the introduction of the
policies and their actual effective
implementation.
Adivasi lands have been lost
Alienation of Adivasis from forest and
nature, and restriction on access to
forest produce have increased the
Adivasis’ dependence on other sources
of income and have forced them to
migrate to other places for work such as
casual labour etc.
After 48 days of struggle by the Adivasi-Dalit Samara Samithi,
the Kerala government agreed to assign around two hectares
of land in the estate areas of Sugandhagiri and Pookot to each
tribal family on October 16, 2001. In other areas, 0.4-2 hectares
of land were to be given, depending on availability.

 The chief minister inaugurated the

'rehabilitation programme' on
February 1, 2002, by assigning 0.6
hectares of land each to 242 families
in Marayoor village, and two hectares
each to 141 families in Kundalai village
of Idukki district.
A total of 575 families were given 526
hectares of land. A tribal
resettlement and development
mission was also constituted to
identify cultivable land and suggest
schemes to rehabilitate the tribals.

 But to date, around 22,780 families are

landless and some 32,131 families have
less than 0.4 hectares of land. For these
54,911 families, district collectors have
identified just 8,803 hectares of land for
distribution. Around 101,171 hectares are
needed on the whole.

 The main aim of social work is, to improve the

general social conditions, to make people self-
reliant/self-dependent/independent and
preparing communities to be self-reliant
As problems related to displacement are not at
the individual level and are at the mass level, in
the researcher’s point of view Community
Organisation, Social Work Research and
Social Action methods can be more useful as
compared to other methods which do not
mean that other methods are of less
importance.
Evicting tribal people
from their ancestral
land in the name of
'conservation' is not
only illegal and
destroys them, but it
also spells disaster
for the local
environment and
wildlife.
THANK
YOU
 REFERENCES
https://www.academia.edu/10348986/A_PRELIMINARY_REPORT_ON_THE_EXCAVATION_A
T_MARAYOOR_IDUKKI_DISTRICT_KERALA_2011_12_
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/dolmens-of-anchunadu-in-
peril/article65553427.ece
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/adivasi-agitation-remain-standing-land-rights-
crosses-150-days-state-remains-unmoved-22802
https://www.ritimo.org/The-Promised-Land-Adivasi-Land-Struggles-in-Kerala
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234673941.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marayur
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/land-is-not-less-12807
https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/give-land-to-tribals-at-the-earliest-high-
court-to-kerala-govt.htmL
http://sanhati.com/excerpted/12391/