The Chairperson of the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha, C.K. Janu, alleged that the land rights agitation led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is aimed at hijacking the tribal land stirs and at scuttling the land distribution schemes already being implemented by the State government.
She said at a press conference that no one would get a piece of land as a result of this stir. “The Left parties have never tried to bring in any legislation to provide agricultural land to adivasi and dalit groups while they were in power. Even during the land reforms in the 1970s, these groups were ignored. The long line of protests from Muthanga to Chengara was a result of this. The CPI (M)’s stir will enable plantation owners to renew the leases on illegally acquired lands. This is just an attempt to mislead adivasis and use them as a vote bank,” said Ms. Janu.
She also dismissed the Left’s claims that the State government had distributed land to her and other adivasis.
‘No title deeds’
“The Left government gave us worthless ‘possession certificates’ instead of title deeds. As per the Forest Rights Act, we were supposed to be given title deeds. But we were misled by the State government,” she said.
The Bhooparishkarana Samithi convenor M. Geethanandan said the UDF government’s ‘Zero landless Kerala’ project to distribute land to adivasis would only lead to their colonisation.
“As per current official calculations, there are 2,32,000 landless families, to whom three cents of land each is supposed to be given as per the project. But the actual number is much more than this. This project is just a continuation of similar programmes implemented by both the fronts a few decades ago, and it will only lead to increased colonisation of adivasis. Even the Left is silent on this issue,” he said.
