As dusk draws near in a teak forest at Panthapra, near the Thattekkad bird sanctuary in Ernakulam, oil lamps start twinkling in the narrow, mud-caked porches of the bamboo huts of the Mannans, a tribal community who live here.
For any passer-by, there could not be a more quainter sight of a community at peace with the forest they live in. However, the stories the lamps tell are not of warmth, but woe.
“We have been living without electricity since May now,” says 41-year-old Kuttan Gopalan, the moopan or chieftain of the settlement. “We even pay ₹10 in the nearest shops a few kilometres away to charge our phones.”
“Wells here no longer have water in them, we have to depend on the stream nearby,” says Babu Chandran, Kuttan’s neighbour.
But their worries run far deeper than just the lack of water or electricity. The group of 67 tribal families (both Mannan and Muthuvan tribes) gave up their farmlands at Varyam, hemmed in by the Kuttampuzha reserve forest around 45 km away, to resettle in an area without disturbance from wildlife. But despite having just received their promised land after a decade-long wait, their travails are far from over.
Their decision to move from their native village of Varyam was voluntary, says Kuttan. It was getting virtually impossible to farm plantain, rubber, and cardamom owing to crop raids by wild boar, elephants, and sambar. “So we moved to nearby Kandampara in 2007 and waited for alternative land to be allotted to us,” says Kuttan. “We were to be given land at Chullipoovan, but it fell through. That’s when we came here to Panthapra in 2013.”
Land had not been allotted to them at Panthapra yet, but availing of electricity connections for their bamboo-and-mud huts, the 67 families began living together beside the Kuttampuzha-Mamalakkandam road at Panthapra. For four years now, they have been surviving by doing odd jobs in nearby villages and towns and sometimes extracting small forest produce such as honey for sustenance, as their tribesmen ran from pillar to post to get their land settlements through.
Their joy at finally receiving their promised two acres in May this year, however, was short-lived. Their newly-allotted plots are part of State-owned lush teak plantations, which will have to be felled for the community to begin farming.
“We will not receive our land documents unless the Forest Department gives permission to clear this land. And until then, we cannot migrate our existing electricity connections to our new huts. Paying the basic electricity charges of the existing connections may seem negligible to others, but to most of us who have no steady jobs or income, it is a big deal,” says the Mannan chieftain Kuttan. “Farming is also not an option; none of our crops will grow under the shade of these teak trees.”
“Major farming” is not possible under the current circumstances, agrees G. Anil Kumar, Tribal Development Officer (Scheduled Tribe Development Department) at Muvattupuzha.
“Currently, electricity is also a problem,” he admits, with the community having to pay basic charges for electricity that they do not even use. “However, this is being coordinated with the Kuttampuzha panchayat and will be sorted soon,” he adds, saying that a high-level meeting with the Tribal, Revenue, and Forest Ministers conducted recently will help solve the problems immediately. “As part of the Tribal Resettlement Development Mission, a rehabilitation scheme worth approximately ₹4.5 crore — which will include construction of houses, a community hall, roads and also water and electricity connections — has been approved,” says Kumar. Resettlement land has also been set aside in the same area for around 65 Mannan and Muthuvan families who are still at Varyam, in the event of their relocation.
Mired in bureaucracy
However, these are dependent on clearance from the Forest Department. About 12,000 of the 22,000 native and teak trees in the approximately 160 acres allotted to the tribes will need to be logged, says Rajesh Ravindran, Chief Conservator of Forests (Central Circle) of the Forest Department.
“We need the Central government’s permission to cut them,” says Ravindran. “We are currently working on a micro-plan to get this in place. There is no government order to hand over the land to the families yet, but this should come soon.”
As part of this micro-plan, the formation of a Vana Samrakshana Samithi (VSS) — a village-level body formed by the Forest Department that helps protect the forest and manages the extraction of non-wood forest produce to ensure livelihood options for tribes — has just been initiated at Panthapra. The tribesfolk are hopeful that this will ease their difficulties a little.
“None of us have steady jobs. We do menial work for others and get paid peanuts. This will change when we have a VSS; many of us will receive jobs and we can sell our forest produce,” says Kuttan. However, in what may be a shocker to the community, the clause for extraction of forest produce may not to be part of the current micro-plan, says Ravindran. “The micro-plan is being mooted for managing the area in which they are settled in. Resource extraction will have to be seen separately.”
Though the micro-plan is to be ready latest by mid-November, no one knows when the families will be given their due. A further delay could make a community that willingly relocated from forest areas regret their decision.
“They say that we have to wait for 36 years more for the trees to be cut down,” weeps grey-haired Mannan Raju Gopalan, his tall lanky frame shaking uncontrollably. “I am more than 60 years old, I may not even live to see this happen. We had so much in Varyam, I had a 15-acre-farm. Now, we are waiting for our rights like the hornbill that waits for the rain in summer. When will we be free of this?”
