Barely a hundred kilometres from where K R Narayanan began his journey to become the country’s first Dalit President, Dalits — even in thousands — can’t easily step out and vote on April 16. The exit from their 21-month-long settlement in Harrison Malayalam’s plantation is routinely blockaded by the rubber estate’s union activists, mainly of CITU. If they have to get out through the adjoining forest land, they will have to brave surprise encounters with patrolling gangs. Their big fear is that if they leave for polling en bloc, their meagre possessions could vanish. Worse, they may be stopped forever from returning to their newfound homeland — over which, to begin with, they have no legal rights.

Nearly 5,000 mobilised Dalit families from all over the state marched into the Chengara estate in August 2007 not to stay put. According to their leader Laha Gopalan, it was primarily to assert Dalit rights over suitable land anywhere in the state. In the first flush of the Achuthanandan-led Left Government, the famously crusading Chief Minister was expected to do a good turn. Instead, he chose to endorse his party that led a trade union assault on the encroachers. With the Congress eventually warming up to the anti-Left plank and the BJP eyeing first-time votes, their unions backed out (at least, officially) leaving the Left to take on the Dalits. There is a court order for eviction but “without bloodshed”. So both camps are waiting for a bloodless coup.

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