Kerala - Kottayam   

Dalit organisations join hands

KOTTAYAM: Various Dalit organisations have decided to join hands in an effort to add muscle to the ongoing land agitation by the Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi in Pathanamthitta district.

A new forum, Land Agitation Campaign Committee, was formed at a joint meeting of the leaders of National Dalit Liberation Front (NDLF), Dalit Vimochana Sanghatana (DVS) and the Dalit Democratic Movement (DDM) here on Sunday.

K.K.S. Das is chairman and K.K. Moni general convener of the committee. The committee will launch the campaign with a dharna and a public meeting here on Saturday.

The committee called upon the government to resume the leased land whose lease period had expired and also those leased lands which had been unauthorisedly sold when under lease. This land should be distributed among the landless.

They also wanted the government to bring a comprehensive land reform Bill which would ensure land to the ‘puramboke’ dwellers, residents of the SC/ST and ‘lakshamveedu’ colonies, landless Dalit Christians, fishermen, and adivasi people.

They also wanted the authorities to bring the plantations under land ceiling regulations and also steps to put an end to absentee landlordism. The leaders said that a sharp polarisation on the basis of land ownership was emerging in the State and called upon the working class, the Left and class organisations to come forward in support of the struggle going on at the Harrison Malayalam Plantation at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district.

They called upon the Chief Minister and the State and district administrations to take steps to ensure that there would not be any bloodshed or highhandedness against the agitating adivasis.

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