The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : No end in sight to this farmer’s woes

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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

No end in sight to this farmer’s woes

C. Gouridasan Nair

Even court orders and Cabinet decision failed to move the authorities

Mathai Chacko had raised the issue in Assembly in 2005
VS got the Cabinet to decide in favour of the farmer

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If destiny had willed otherwise, Kanhirathinal George of Mananthavady in Wayanad would now be living a happy man, tending the pepper vines and coffee plants in his 12-acre plot and playing with his grandchildren. But that was not to be. His dreams of a peaceful life in the land his brother Jose had bought in 1967 and sold to him in 1972 turned sour and have remained so ever since following takeover of the land by the Forest Department during the dark days of Emergency. That happened in 1976. Three decades later, in April 2007, the State Cabinet decided to return the land to George treating the takeover as another ‘Emergency excess’. But George’s struggle to get his land back remains inconclusive.

George is now sick and his battle with the officialdom is being fought by his son-in-law James, who has little formal education, has put the Right to Information Act to effective use to ferret out from the maze of government records enough documents to support George’s claim to the land. George himself had taken up his case with the Forest Tribunal, Kozhikode, in 1978 and on November 6 that year, the Tribunal had issued a verdict stating that George was the rightful owner of the ‘Jenmam’ land in question. The government went in appeal against the order and, in 1982, the Kerala High Court ordered reconsideration of the case.

The Tribunal ordered provision of 75 cents each from the two pieces of land that he claimed, but the order never got implemented.

George did not also benefit from the subsequent policy-decision of the government to give up to 4.5 acres of land to settler farmers who had land in their possession prior to January 1, 1977. He produced all the documents before the authorities, but the Forest Department objected to it. Even two orders of the High Court in his favour could not move the authorities. In 1998, the High Court ordered a joint verification by the Revenue and Forest departments and ordered transfer of 9.5 acres of land to George, but the local village officer refused to accept his tax payments.

An ailing George almost gave up his fight, but James took up the challenge and has by now secured enough documentary evidence to show that the Forest Department had no claim on the land in the first place.

Two persons who came to the family’s aid was the late CPI(M) leader Mathai Chacko, who raised the issue in the Assembly repeatedly in early 2005. When the Forest and Registration departments began giving contradictory replies to the MLA’s questions, George and family launched an indefinite fast before the Wayanad District Collectorate on September 5, 2005. Among those who called on them was the then Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, who kept his word and got the Cabinet to decide in George’s favour, though without much success.

In between, present CPI(M) MLA P. Krishnaprasad had taken the baton from Mathai Chacko and began pursuing George’s case with the government. He even led Karshaka Sanghom activists into the disputed piece of land defying Forest authorities’ objections to cultivate the land, only to face the wrath of the authorities. The Forest Department’s stand is that the land can be handed over to George only with the clearance of the Union government. George’s battle continues with little hope of an end anytime soon.

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