Their Tulu and Kannada, though fluent, carry traces of Tamilian accent, quickly giving away their origins.
Though ration cards, voter ID cards and children’s birth certificates show them as residents of Karnataka, for thousands of rubber plantation labourers in Dakshina Kannada, getting community certificate and BPL card is a struggle to prove their identity.
After the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact, 926 families were brought from Sri Lanka and absorbed by the Karnataka Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) as workers on its rubber plantations across Puttur and Sulia taluks.
However, little has changed since, say many from Itturu, Perlambadi and Bellare colonies in the district.
“It’s like we have been left in the middle of nowhere to fend for ourselves,” says Rajarathnam, a resident of Itturu. There is no piped water in the colony, power supply is erratic, while education and healthcare facilities are accessed through a forest trail that stretched for miles.
Estimating the number of those brought to the District to be around 20,000, Satish Kumar, a local leader of the repatriated community in Puttur, says the number could have doubled now. “Many generations ago, our forefathers were taken from Tamil Nadu to work on rubber plantations in Sri Lanka. We were always regarded as outsiders there as our passports and documents showed us to be Indians. Repatriation should have given us our rights back, but we are still considered aliens here.”
Many generations continue to live and work on the plantations, with the cycle being sustained by stringent rules of the KFDC. Rules dictate that only two members of the family can work as permanent workers and they are given Rs.186 per day. Others can only be enrolled as temporary workers at Rs.140. Salary is given only in cash, most don’t have bank accounts or savings, and many do not take even a day off as that would mean loss of wages.
Ramar, a resident of Perlambadi colony in Puttur taluk, says with the KFDC allotting houses only to families whose members are enrolled as permanent plantation workers, many parents force their children to work on the plantations only to retain the house.
It is a common sight to see even graduates working as rubber tappers, says K. Deivakumar of Bellare.
District Commissioner N.S. Channappa Gowda says: “We have decided to from a committee to find a solution to this and ensure they are brought to the mainstream.”
