Encroachers Vs employees: Kerala estate standoff takes a new turn

Pathanamthitta, September 4: A 143-hectare rubber plantation in central Kerala has witnessed a year-long agitation which now threatens to erupt.

Around 3,000 Dalits, led by a group of organizations and fringe political outfits, encroached a part of an estate owned by the RPG Group’s Harrisons Malayalam Plantations Limited in Chengara, Pathanamthitta, on August 3, 2007. They came from different parts of Kerala, erected huts and started living on the estate land.

A year later, they are still there.

“We occupied the RPG estate to pressurise (the government) on our demand for land. If the Government is willing to give us land for residential and farming purpose, we are ready to vacate the estate,” says Laha Gopalan, president of the joint action forum for the agitation.

With the government not ready to concede to the demands, they erected makeshift huts and tried to make the estate a self-reliant village, putting up counters for essential commodities. Many students got enrolled in the nearby schools, while men and women went for odd jobs in the neighbourhood.

Police teams that rushed to the estate with the court order to clear the estate of encroachers were greeted by suicide squads. The V S Achuthanandan government did not want to take any risk. In 2003, when the then state government tried to evict tribal encroachers from Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary, one policeman was hacked to death and a tribal killed in firing.

Attempts to sort out the issue haven’t succeeded as the agitators have stuck to their demand of 5 acres for each encroacher.

Things reached a flashpoint on August 4, 2008, when the agitation completed a year. Estate employees, who have been rendered jobless after the encroachment, gathered to surround the settlement. Employees, affiliated to all political parties, blocked roads leading to the settlement.

The blockade began to hurt. The agitators were left with no food and struggled with diseases. After a week of pressure from social organizations, the estate employees eased the blockade but on Wednesday, they marched to the estate again to evict the encroachers. Police stopped their march.

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