The lackadaisical attitude on the part of the Kozhikode-based Kerala Institute for Research, Training, and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Kirtads) in deciding the tribal status of the Eravala community of Kollangode and Elavanchery in the district has landed the members of the community in a difficult situation.
At a high-level meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday in the backdrop of a two-month-old indefinite strike by the community members in Kollangode, the Kirtads representatives sought two more months to decide on the status. The government agency said it needed more time as it had to record the statements of Eravalas who had migrated to other parts of the State and those who had married members of other communities.
According to community members and various tribal organisations, Kirtads has already spent 45 days to study the issue as per a directive of the SC/ST Department. At the time of entrusting the agency with the study, it had been directed to submit the report to the Chittur tahsildar within two months.
Irate over the negligence, the Pattika Varga Mahasabha has decided to intensify the ongoing stir in front of the Kollangode village office. The forum has also sought the involvement of independent anthropologists to conduct a study and collect documents from the Thottam, Maruthi, Puthanpadam, Mathur, Chathambara, Kodukupara, Vengapara, and Kalleripotta colonies occupied by the community members for generations.
Resolution passed
Last week, the Kollangode grama panchayat passed a resolution seeking to restore the tribal status to the community.
It was following a report by Kirtads in 2008 that the Revenue Department stopped issuing community certificate to the Eravala families, resulting in denial of educational concessions, grants, and job reservation to the community members.
Mahasabha leader M.C. Velayudhan says a report prepared by the Chittur tahsildar on the socio-economic status of the Eravala families of the Kollangode-Elavanchery region had already recommended an anthropological study involving experts.
Known also as Villu Vedans, the Eravalas are present only in Chittur taluk and some parts of Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. In the neighbouring State, they enjoy Scheduled Tribe status. They are traditionally hunters, and alienation from the forest environments has pushed them to beggary. Roughly translated, the term Eravala means professional beggars.
Landless
“Our villages had been surrounded by forests. But the forest cover was lost over the years and large-scale occupation by outsiders has made us landless,” says community member S. Marimuthu.
As per the 1991 census, the population of the Eravalars is 3,139 in Kerala and 2,525 in Tamil Nadu. In the absence of cultivable land, most of the community members are working as manual labourers in farmlands.
