Chengara struggle
These practices pushed the Adivasis and the Dalits into servitude, slavery, dispossession and displacement, which then compelled them to pawn their dignity and their human rights at the feet of a caste-based society.
[12] By the early 20th century, due to the impact of several social reformations, Kerala managed to get officially rid of untouchability and other malpractices which alienated the Dalits and Adivasis.
[16] The ceiling in Kerala varies with the size of the household and does not exceed 25 standard acres (10 ha), the maximum that the largest family could own.
By the new law, the tenants of the land (settled farmers, mostly upper and middle-caste citizens) became the owners and the laborers (Dalits and Adivasis) were left mostly landless.
This legal denial of ownership and access to land meant that they would never evolve as land-owning peasants despite their continued role in agrarian society.
In January 2007, as reaction of the broken promise, the United Struggle Front of the poor for Liberation (Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi, SJVSV) started the first attempt to reclaim land.
The struggle was led by the Dalit activist Laha Gopalan, a former government employee and a self-proclaimed Communist Party of India worker.
[27] It's important to note, that the struggle does not take place in the village Chengara, but in Harrisons Malayalam's Kumbazha estate more than three km distant.
The Dalits and Adivasis argue that the government promised to collect the land illegally possessed by plantation owners like Harrisons Malayalam Ltd. and pass it on to them.
[36] Once the lease was over, the land should have been automatically transferred back to the ‘original owner’ – in the absence of the feudal ruler, the Government of Kerala.
"Documents are not available even under Right to Information Act", says Tony Thomas of one Earth One Life, a civil society organization working for environmental protection.
[8] The Kerala High Court hold that the trespass is illegal and that the SJVSV has no right over the Chengara estate land and therefore ordered an eviction.
[38] Although the High Court ordered the eviction of the Dalits and Adivasis the official machinery could do little in this regard as the encroachers had declared their struggle as a "do-or die battle for land".
[40] In Chengara, a smooth eviction was impossible as Dalits and Adivasis were very determined, ready to die rather than renounce their legitimate claims.
As the eviction even with force didn't work along with the trade unions created a blockade which has culminated in the deliberate cutting off of food and other essential supplies to the protesters.
[9] As the result of this campaign, countless families with new-born babies and over 85-year-old men and women were denied not only of food and medicine but even drinking water.
[citation needed] In subsequent days, unlawful detention of people and violent intimidation by goons of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd. became frequent.
Human rights activists were violently prevented from entering the area in full view of the police and government officials.
[36] During the protest, lack of food, scarcity of water, absence of medical facilities and hostile weather conditions led to the death of 13 people.
"Somehow, the ruling class seems to be reluctant to consider indigenous people as citizens of this country," complained Sukumaran, a Dalit agitating in Chengara.
[45] The Left Democratic Front (LDF), led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM), sees the agitation as illegal, but emphasized that the government is going ahead with its program to allot land to the landless in the state.
[10] Gopalan told the magazine Frontline that he was being forced to stop the agitation "temporarily" and accept an unsatisfactory resolution package "drawn out jointly by the government and the opposition against the interests of Dalits" and "under threat of violent reprisals from CPI(M) cadre" if he did otherwise.
[18] He did this under the pressure of fear of another Nandigram, where a violent intervention of 4’000 policemen in March 2007 in West Bengal left 14 dead and 70 injured amongst the local population who were demonstrating against their expropriation for a special economic zone.
[48] At a joint press conference following the announcement of the package in the presence of opposition leader Oommen Chandy (who played a key role in formulating the settlement), the Chief Minister of Kerala said it was difficult to find the necessary land in Kerala even to implement the package that was being offered and there was no way the government could fulfil the SJVSV's demand for more.
[49] According to the current Chief Minister of Kerala the previous ruling "LDF government failed to fulfill the sprit of the settlement entered into with the agitators".
[49] According to Laha Gopalan, except a few families who were given land in Malappuram, Ernakulam and Kollam districts, the rest were cheated by the government and were forced to return to Chengara.
Some isolated incidents reported from various districts, which came to the notice of revenue authorities since 2004, led to an operation to verify the legitimacy of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd.
The government had constituted the special team headed by Mr. Rajamanikyam following a Kerala High Court on 28 February to take over all the unauthorised landholdings, if any, of HML in the State.
However, despite the eviction notice, the latest news available in English state that the high court has asked the special officer to maintain the status quo till 20 January 2015 on the basis of the petition submitted by Harissons Malayalam Ltd.[67] There are no further developments (as of June 2015).
[68] Renowned writer and environmentalist Arundhati Roy termed Kerala's Chengara land agitation in which almost 30’000 adults and children have forcefully occupied a sprawling plantation property, as "the most revolutionary struggle that is going on in India.
