Karnataka   

They are a harassed lot

For safety: Dwellings of the tribal people at Kodange haadi in Nagarahole forest area.

KODANGE HAADI (NAGARAHOLE FOREST AREA): It is difficult to reach this tribal settlement, which is deep inside the Nagarahole forest area.

Trekking a km of rough forest terrain and climbing a small hillock will get you to Kodange, which is between Titimati and Naalkeri panchayat limits of Virajpet taluk.

Dwellings on tree-tops are the speciality of Kodange, a picturesque hamlet. There are also bamboo huts on land.

Close to 40 families in Kodange Haadi, who live under constant threat from rogue elephants, stay in their huts during daytime and spend the night on tree-top dwellings.

According to J.R. Chandra (39), a member of Nalkere Gram Panchayat, seven houses have been destroyed and a few persons injured in elephant attacks in the past one year. “They have built temporary bamboo dwellings on tree-tops to save themselves from elephants,” he says.

These bamboo dwellings are large enough to accommodate a family of four or six. The tribal people live in these dwellings after sundown.

Explaining their problems, Radha (29) says that rogue elephants enter their habitat, consume food and destroy their crop, besides injuring them.

What is surprising is that despite living in harmony with wild animals for generations, the tribal people are now feeling scared of elephants.

The tribal people do not fear the elephants that are a part of the Nagarahole forest, but are scared of the rogue elephants, which were captured elsewhere and released in this part of the forest.

“We have lived here for generations and never had problems from elephants. But forest officials are releasing rogue elephants,” Radha says.

However, forest officials refute the claims of the tribal people. They say that elephants started entering human habitats because of the shrinkage of their habitat and that tribal people are not accepting the solution offered by the department to dig trenches around their habitation.

Tribal people allege that forest officials have foisted cases to harass them.

“Cases have been registered against us for killing elephants using arrows,” says Kaala (38), while maintaining that the charges are false.

“Forest officials are not prepared to get coffee planters, who have encroached upon the forest area, shifted and are hell-bent on pushing us out. We were living in our jamma (land), which is deep inside the forest, till recently. After being forced to leave that place, we are now living here,”

The gram panchayat had sanctioned a borewell, but forest officials forcibly got the work stopped, says Chandra showing a half-sunk borewell.

“We have voting rights, and we exercised our franchise in the recent Assembly elections. We have ration cards and the Government has sanctioned an anganwadi too. But the administration is refusing to sanction us title deeds, and it is constantly harassing us with a view to pushing us out of forest area,” regretted Chandra.

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