Introduction

This article attempts to explicate some loopholes in the much proclaimed Kerala Model of Development, which displays increased growth of the social sector, despite indications of low economic development. The marginalised and vulnerable in the state, especially Dalits and Adivasis (tribals) are thrown out of the spotlight of development, even today, in Kerala. They fight for their ancestral land to live. The land reform measures adopted by the successive governments in Kerala neglected Dalits and Adivasis. The chapter engages with the Chengara land struggle by Dalits and Adivasis in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala. Their demand for a second land reform focussed on the marginalised and vulnerable is the central theme problematised here.

Kerala is a unique State in several respects, especially for its outstanding performances in social indicators. The giant strides of social development climbed by Kerala in the past few decades are nationally and even internationally acclaimed by planners, administrators and development agencies. The achievements, such as a near hundred percent literacy, comparatively higher life expectancy, low infant and maternal mortality, success in land reforms, model public distribution system etc., in the midst of low economic development, makes Kerala’s development path a miracle. This has gained the state the distinction of being a successful model, often celebrated publicly as the “Kerala Model of Development”. It is often referred to as an example for other countries to follow. There are arguments that, it is often posit, that the essence of Kerala Model lies in following the principle that more than the quantity of income of a country, its distribution and wise utilization that contributes to the quality of life. However, maintaining justice in distribution and following a fair and inclusive approach in development by incorporating all segments of society is a challenge. However while engaging in-depth about the distribution of land among the Adivasis and Dalit peoples in the state, both inequalities and injustices was evident. The exclusion of the Dalits, who constitute 9.1 percent of the state’s total population, the Adivasis, who constitute 1.45 percent (Census 2011), and the fishermen community, from the success story of Kerala’s development, has gone relatively invisible. The much proclaimed land reforms did not fundamentally change their status from labourers to landowning farmers. Even by the end of the land reforms era, governments did not exhibit any commitment to distributing the michha bhoomi (surplus land) to these landless. More recently, scholars have drawn attention to the landlessness of Dalits and Adivasis that has rendered large segments of these social groups incapable of participating in the developmental process, and to the land struggles that have ensued as a result over the past decades.

Land is always a controversial topic in India. In Kerala too, land is power as elsewhere in the country. But it becomes all the more precious here, when the density of population is 859 per square kilometers[1] (Census 2011). Vast tracts of agricultural land have been converted into residential areas. Industry, infrastructure development and tourism also demand their share. Often multinationals and corporate giants come into the field. In this battle for land, the real owners i.e. the Adivasis and Dalits, are displaced of the field reducing them into a state of helplessness. They are often treated as encroachers in their own land, and their struggles are deemed as illegal. Government, political parties and even civil society fail to recognise or accept the inheritance of the lands in the possession of others. Their fights for identity and justice often results in violence and in some cases brutal repression from the part of the authorities.

This paper is about a famous, unique and unparalleled land struggle by the landless Adivasis and Dalits in Chengara near Konni in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala. There, they demanded land to live and labour on it. In the light of the Chengara Land Struggle (Chengara Bhoo Samaram) and other similar agitations across Kerala by the Adivasis and Dalits for recapturing their own lands, the call for a second land reform is posit in this article.

Land Reforms in Kerala – Who Gained?

A serious and sincere effort to implement land reforms was made in Kerala by both the political fronts that have ruled the State. The Left Front pioneered the Agrarian Relation Bill 1957. The United Front passed the Kerala Land Reforms Act 1963. Later in 1969 the Left Front made suitable amendments and finally the United Front implemented it with effect from 1^st of January 1976. The Act abolished landlordism and other types of tenancy systems. The “Land to the Tiller” policy was carried out with a lot of enthusiasm. Landless labourers in the Panchayath areas were conferred 0.10 acres (10 cents) of land and those in the Municipal areas 0.03 acres (three cents) of land. This egalitarian measure is considered as one of the highlights of the Kerala Model of Development.

However, the much proclaimed land reforms in Kerala failed to address some crucial issues and thus suffer from the following four major weaknesses: (a) it left out the vast masses of landless workers, who were mostly socially disadvantaged castes and communities i.e. the Adivasi and Dalits (b) it excluded the plantation sector and thus left untouched, the landlessness of the plantation workers (c) the ceiling reforms turned out to be severely inadequate and (d) in the absence of common land system and water-management, the fragmentation of rice fields had adverse effects on the production and environment (Rammohan 2008).

The records on land distribution in the year 1857 show that three percent of Pulayas (Dalits), four percent Other Backward Communities (OBCs), seven percent Nairs and five percent Christians in the princely state of Travancore[2] were landowners. In comparison to this, with the modern land reforms (in Kerala state), the situation has only got worse for the Dalits (Kochu 2008). According to Sivanandan (1993), the land reform survey in 1966-67 identified 0.11 million acres of land as available michha bhoomi, the kind of land suitable for distribution. But the land declared as michha bhoomi in 1978 was only 1.5 lakh acres; while only 1.32 lakh acres were ordered by the government to be retrieved for distribution. By 1989, only 92,338 acres of land was taken over by the government in which 24,333 acres were distributed among scheduled castes (Scs), and a meager 5,052 acres were distributed to the scheduled tribes (STs). The Tenancy Reforms Act passed in 1970, specifically meant for providing land to the landless, benefited a few, but a large majority were allotted few cents in the so-called “colonies” designed for them. Even with the creation of these ‘one-lakh colonies’, quite a few Dalits, Adivasis and fishermen were still left out – a systemic process of marginalization that has only been aggravated in current times (Sreerekha 2010).

The law only covers tenants, which therefore excluded Dalits and Adivasis; who were not allowed to be tenants under Kerala’s context of caste and cultural hierarchy with strong oppressive segregation of these communities. In the case of Kerala’s Dalits, although they were integral to agrarian production, they were prevented from owning land in the traditional caste society. This situation did not change in any substantial manner with the introduction of land reforms. These reforms made former tenants – mostly upper and middle-caste citizens – land owners, as they could prove their status as tenants by presenting rent receipts. Dalit labourers did not possess these rent receipts.

Whether from a class perspective or from a (community) identity perspective, it is undeniably the biggest failure of the reform process. So much so, that  decades after the reforms, a good majority of the Dalits and Adivasis in the state persist with being landless. There is an increasing number of people living in colonies. It is calculated that there are a total of 12,500 Dalit and 4,082 Adivasi colonies, perpetuating the landlessness. Based on a study by Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) during 2004-05, Sunny Kapikkad points out that upper castes in Kerala own four times and Christians own five times more land than the Dalits. As per the land owned per family, the Upper Castes had 1.05 acres, Christians 1.26 acres, Muslims 0.77 acres, the OBCs 0.63 acres and Dalits only 0.27 acres (Kapikkad 2008). The total area of land that Dalits could own under the rules of land reforms varied from 0.098 acres in villages to 0.049 acres in urban areas. This legal denial of ownership and access to land meant that Dalits would never evolve to being land-owning peasants despite their continued role in agrarian society.

Even decades after completing the land reforms in Kerala, the position of Dalits and Adivasis remain unchanged. Table 1.1 shows the details of surplus land distributed to individual Dalits and Adivasis by the government under the Land Reforms Act as on September 2010. The statistics proves that the much proclaimed land reforms benefit only a meager two percent of Dalits and 2.21 percent of Adivasis[3] in the form of getting surplus land from the government. The per individual land distributed to them are also meagre and limited for livelihood (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1: Surplus Land Distributed under Kerala Land Reforms Act

(as on September 2010)

Sl. No.	Individual Beneficiaries	Number	Extent (in acres)	Average Extent (in acres)
1	SC	60938	24920.055	0.41
2	ST	10732	8879.398	0.83
3	Others (OBCs)	98347	39109.282	0.39
Total		170017	72908.737	0.42

Source: Tabulated based on Commissionerate of Land Revenue Data Base

Since 1980, intergenerational fragmentation of Dalits’ tiny plots of land gave way to autonomous movements demanding cultivable lands to landless Dalits, thereby coming into direct confrontation with established political parties. The Communist parties, specifically, that were behind the historic programme of land reforms felt threatened by the gradual development of these autonomous movements that demanded the reopening of the “settled problem” of land reforms in Kerala.

The Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Land and Restoration of Alienated Lands) Act, passed in 1975 made it obligatory for the Government of Kerala to restore alienated lands to Adivasis who had lost out due to the in-migration of peasant communities from other parts of Kerala, who had access to better agricultural technologies, capital and organizational skills. These new settlers had a different conception of land, that was directly related to property and ownership, a concept that Adivasis had not yet acquired. In 1988, Nalla Thampi, a social activist, filed a formal petition in the High Court of Kerala demanding that the state government implement the long overdue rule passed by Parliament. The court directed the Government to restore to the Adivasis the lands that were alienated from them. Due to the political clout of the land’s occupants, however, as well as a series of litigations, the restoration of land to the Adivasis never materialized.

Genesis of Movements

Dalit and Adivasi activists from various parts of Kerala, such as C K Janu from Wayanad, M Geethanandan from Kannur, Sunny M Kapikkad, and M D Thomas from Kottayam led the movement in 2000 to demand land for the landless Adivasis and Dalits in Kerala. With the formation of the Adivasi Gotra Maha Sabha (AGMS) which translates as the Grand Council of Adivasis, movements developed to occupy excess lands held by the Department of Forests and big plantation corporations as well as lands under government control which were meant to be redistributed among landless people.

These mobilizations, which began in the late 1990s, were new to Kerala’s polity as they were organized by Dalit and Adivasi activists and not controlled by political parties. This is a major difference from other regions of India, such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, where Maoists had armed Adivasis in their struggles against exploitation and oppression (Mohan 2011). The mobilizations in Kerala, however, were aimed at securing the rights of Adivasis to claim their alienated lands as well as enabling Dalits to acquire lands from communist themselves.

It was in 2001 under the leadership of the AGMS and the Adivasi-Dalit Samara Samithi (the Adivasi-Dalit Resistance Movement), that the Adivasis and Dalits undertook a struggle for land in Muthanga, a non-descript forest region of Wayanad district in Kerala. They united to reclaim their alienated land and other resources under the democratic framework of the country, while attempting to dialogue with the state at all levels. Instead of looking into their genuine demands, the government however adopted delaying tactics.

Becoming acutely aware of the lack of political will of the government to address the issue of land alienation, over 1,100 Adivasi-Dalit families occupied some 5,000 acres of cleared forests of Muthanga range in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary on 4^th January 2003. On 17^th February 2003, 21 persons (mostly forest department officials and police along with hired labourers) were caught red-handed in the act of setting fire to the forest, by the Adivasis and Dalits themselves. The fire was part of a conspiracy hatch to manufacture an excuse to assault the people who were demanding their constitutional rights. Two days after this episode, a large group of police and forest officials entered the Muthanga range where the Adivasis and Dalits had gathered, and fired haphazardly, unleashing a reign of terror. The bloody confrontation ended in the death of 10 people- including the aged, women and children. The government and the police claimed that only five people were killed in the incident. Instead of a political and administrative resolution to the age-old Adivasi and Dalit claim for land, the state government resorted to violent and brutal measures, which led to the annihilation of helpless. In the aftermath of the event, the police hunted down C K Janu and M Geethanandan, the leaders of the movement.

Though the Muthanga land struggle seems to have fizzled out, the determination and fortitude of the Adivasis and Dalits to regain resources is not diluted. A wide support from the part of the OBC and fishermen communities to the agitators is an important fact to be noticed. In Muthanga, the fishermen community firmly stood behind the Adivasis and Dalits for justice. This was the sign of a unification of the age-old marginalized and the downtrodden in the society for equal justice and rights. Another important aspect noticed was the strong support from the part of the youths in these protests. Educated youths in the new era are not at all ready to tolerate the age-old humiliations and oppressions their ancestors faced and are mobilising and confronting these atrocities.

Following these mobilization, the AGMS held other confrontations in the village of Aralam (in Kannur district) that had a large population of the Adivasi community of Paniyar. Another popular attempt in the similar fashion was initiated under the leadership of the Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi (SJVSV) (the United Struggle Front of the Marginalized) in January 2007 in the Kumbazha estate of the Harrison Plantations management. The struggle was called-off after getting assurance from the state government that their demands would be looked into and the needful would be done. However, seeing that there was no sign of any positive move from the state government, the SJVSV moved into another struggle by occupying new lands.

Chengara Land Struggle

Chengara land struggle is the second phase of the Kumbazha struggle for land by the Adivasis and Dalits. It was started on 4^th August 2007 and led by a Dalit activist, Laha Gopalan. The agitators comprising of about 300 Dalit, Adivasi and OBC families who have been working in the Harrison Malayalam estate[4] for ages, moved into the estate and ‘reclaimed’ the land. They pitched up thatched sheds and started living there. In the initial phase, they occupied about 125 acres of land, but now they are reclaiming the whole estate (about 6,000 acres), which is spread out across seven hills. The agitator’s number swelled by the day and at one time, there were as many as 7,500 families, involving 29,000 odd people from different parts, majority of them being Dalits. In an unprecedented move in Kerala’s history, the Dalit landless demanded five acres of land for cultivation and र50,000 as financial assistance per family from the government. The demand was later reduced to one acre of land.

Once owned by Harrisons & Crossfields of Liverpool, the plantation is now in the hands of R P Goenka Group. Most of the land is under lease from the government and the allegation of the agitators is that the company is in possession of much more land than the actual extent under the lease. ‘If the company can encroach and get away with it, we too are justified in doing the same’ has been the refrain of those who settled there. This led to confrontations with the state government, political parties, and trade unions. The government thought of it as illegal occupation while the trade unions felt that the occupiers were denying the legitimate rights of the workers of the plantations.

SJVSV has opted for the land take-over as a strategy, remembering the tradition of the great leaders Ayyankali, a courageous dalit leader whose mission was to ensure liberation of Dalits from various forms of slavery, and also Ambedkar. Raising the names of Ayyankali and Ambedkar as sources of inspiration, the struggle is a political challenge to the mainstream political left parties. There is a widespread popular belief in Kerala that the official ‘left’ was the sole forces which ensured rights to Dalits, including land rights. Such misrepresentations are now globalized through some academic works as well.

The protesters of Chengara are the people left-out in the once lauded land reforms of Kerala. They call for “land to live and labour on”. By tradition and practice, they have the creative potential to lead a highly productive life in relation to land and nature. But, they do not posses adequate land to manifest this potential. The mainstream society of Kerala either ignores this struggle or pretends that nothing serious has  happened except for a bit of law and order problem. Some even perceive this as a violent and militant struggle, thereby indirectly even indicating that they are supported by ‘Naxals’. So goes the behavior of the media too.

The Background of the Struggle

Long ago, the then feudal ruler gave a 35-year lease of the estate to the Kandathill Varghese family, one of the most prominent families in Kerala and the publisher of Malayala Manorama, the largest daily of Kerala and even among the regional papers of South Asia. The lease was however terminated earlier and given to Harrison Malayalam Ltd. for 99 years i.e. till 2006. Once the lease was over, the land should have been automatically transferred to the ‘original owners’. In the absence of the feudal ruler, this ‘original owner’ would have been the the government of Kerala. Instead of taking control of the land, the government conceded the plea of Harrison Ltd. to fell the rubber trees, by which the company would earn millions of rupees. Furthermore, the critics of the government’s move argue that the lease money was not paid since 1996.

The Harrison Malayalam Ltd. moreover has about 33 estates like the Chengara estate in Kerala alone. People are citing several irregularities in such lease agreements. For instance, in Chengara itself, the actual amount of land agreed upon by the feudal ruler and the Harrison Malayalam Ltd was 2,589.653 acres. But it is reported that the company has at least 6,000 acres of land under its custody, both legally leased and illegally occupied.

On one hand, local, national and multi-national companies have access to vast tracts of land and other resources. They thus appropriate huge amounts of money and much power, and can influence or even buy governments as well as the elite and opinion-makers. On the other hand, though toiling day and night, the poor and the marginalized, are not able to eke out a living. They often go to bed hungry or half-starved. Women are the worst affected by this economic deprivation. Being driven to poverty and misery, the poor and the marginalized find it very difficult to raise their voice against the ‘legal’ appropriation of resources by the rich and powerful.

It is in these backgrounds that the marginalized and vulnerable section of people in Kerala resorted to reclaiming resources. During the last six years, Chengara in Kerala had become the symbol of a silent war for land. Unlike in Singur or in Nandigram, Chengara has not been a struggle against eviction, instead it was the fight of those who toiled in land, but never possessed any cultivable land, asserting their rights to own sustainable land in a society that professes equality and fraternity, by encroaching land. Their popular demands were:

1. SCs and STs, Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims should be immediately given homestead land for housing and agricultural land for cultivation for a decent livelihood. The land title should be given in the joint name of the women and men participants in households.
2. The lease agreement made with Harrison Malayalam and other similar private estate owners should be cancelled forth with and those lands are to be assigned to the Dalits and Adivasis and also other sections of marginalized.
3. The poor and landless families given land should be subsidized with interest free loan without any collateral security for housing and agricultural activities like land development, irrigation, purchase of agricultural appliance, seed etc.
4. SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 should be implemented strictly by the state government to protect the communities from the practices of untouchability and caste discrimination in all spheres.
5. The surplus land in the state of Kerala should be identified by implementing the Land Ceiling Act and the same be distributed to the landless Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalized communities.

Limited Victory

After 790 days, on 5^th October 2009, the struggle was ‘settled’ at a discussion convened by the Chief Minister with the leaders of the SJVSV, which spearheaded the agitation. Leader of the Opposition also participated in the talks. One thousand four hundred and thirty two (1,432) families out of the 1,738 families who had started living on the rubber plantation of Harrisons were to get land and financial assistance to build houses, as part of the settlement, and the land was to be made available to the beneficiaries within three months. The Chengara Package in a nutshell is shown below (see Table 1.2).

Table 1.2: Chengara Package- Land and Financial Offers to Agitators

Sl. No.	Category of Agitators	Number of Families	Land Offer per Family (in acres)	Total Land (in acres)	Financial Offer per Family (in र)	Total Amount (in र)
1	ST	27	1	27	1,25,000	33,75,000
2	SC	832	0.25	208	1,00,000	8,32,00,000
3	Others	48	0.25	12	75,000	36,00,000
4	Rest who own land up to 0.05 acres (five cents)	525	0.25	131.25	75,000	3,93,75000
Totals		1,432	NA	378.25	NA	12,95,50,000

Source: Tabulated on the basis of SJVSV data base

Apart from the pervasive poverty, the challenges and sufferings of struggle might certainly have persuaded the leadership to accept the package. So when the agreement was reached, SJVSV leader Laha Gopalan admitted that he had been forced to make this compromise. A few of the occupants welcomed the agreement and accepted the offer. But many refused to move out of the site because they were skeptical of the agreement being implemented in full once the struggle was called off. Five years later now, the hundreds of families who remain are experiencing a reasonably “peaceful” time. Though the overall number of occupants has declined to around 1,500 families. Those who remain continue to carry on the struggle with hard work and incomparable will (Sreerekha 2012).

Many families who left after the agreement in 2009 with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government have tried to return to the site. Some were stopped or arrested. Of the many who were offered pattas (title deeds) for land by the government, more than half did not receive them. Those who were willing to leave after getting the pattas were sent to disparate and distant places such as Periya, Keezhanthur, Nilambur, and Attappadi. There were a number of complaints regarding the land distributed without proper documents and facilities. According to Laha Gopalan, except a few families who were given land in Malappuram, Ernakulam and Kollam districts, the rest were cheated by the government and were forced to return to Chengara. Those who returned expressed deep regret for having trusted the government. A few stayed wherever they got new land and were hesitant to return because others at the site of the struggle had already warned them of this fate. Those who have 0.06 acres (six cents) of land have been denied land under the package. Still, there is a general apprehension that what has been promised by the government will not be delivered within three months.

Among the many attempts to reach a compromise, a new agreement was proposed in August 2011 by the present United Democratic Front (UDF) government. The UDF has promised to look into the complaints on the distribution of uninhabitable land and promised to distribute 0.25 acres each to 1,000 more families living at the site of the struggle. If its promise of support is to become reality, the UDF government should grant the people in Chengara, a legal right to their land, followed by documents like ration cards and voter identity cards, along with access to electricity and water.

One of the positives of this settlement is the undertaking by the government to complete the survey of the estate within three months. If the survey results prove the allegation of encroachment, it is bound to produce a chain reaction, and all plantations in the state will have to be surveyed. The plea of the government is that it does not have enough land to meet the demands of the landless. But the real picture will emerge only after a comprehensive survey of Kerala. “Bhoomikeralam” a project of the Kerala government to conduct the re-survey of the state with financial assistance from the central government has been launched in August 2008. The immediate task under the program, was the survey of land that could be distributed to the tribals among the land in possession of Harrison Malayalam Plantations Ltd. But nothing has been done as yet.

The Chengara land struggle has been an acid test for CPI(M), which leads the LDF (Left Democratic Front) who was in power in Kerala at that time. The party, which has traditionally approached issues from the ‘class’ perspective rather than the ‘caste’ angle, and have seen a steady erosion of support from the Dalit communities over the years, had tried to stay partially quiet in the early days of the struggle.

Recent Chengara agitation and other similar land struggles in Kerala unveil some truths. It is usually believed that caste hardly exists in Kerala. The proponents of this myth state that due to modern education and reform movements, caste discrimination is a thing of the past. The Chengara struggle has shown that caste and ethnicity are living realities in Kerala. Whether in ordinary conversation or in academic discourse, it is assumed that Dalits and Adivasis do not really exist in the state. Yet, the truth is that not only caste and ethnicity are integral parts of Kerala society, economy and polity, but that the living conditions of the Dalits and Adivasis are extremely deplorable, like their counterparts in the rest of the country (Louis, 2008).

Call for a Second Land Reform

The case of Chengara’s landless Dalits and Adivasis underlines the obligation to address the issue of land reforms once again. What the government need to focus in the second reform should be the caste and community aspects which were overlooked during the first one.

Although certain leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) even openly expressed their interest in a second land reform that would benefit Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalized social groups, they had to take back the agenda due to opposition from the party. Fearing the erosion of their support bases, no political party was willing to do anything that would destabilize the status quo in land ownership. Except for a few dissenters on both the Left and the Right, it seems to have been in all parties’ interests to view the land question in Kerala as solved once and for all.

Strong political will is required to take necessary steps that would lead to a second land reform in Kerala which will benefit the Dalits, Adivasis and the marginalized. Chengara land struggle and other similar agitations indicate the strong support and unification of the age-old downtrodden for a common goal. Given the market asymmetries in land distribution and the intensifying struggles by the landless Dalits and Adivasis, the ploy of ‘absolute scarcity’ may no longer work. Indeed, it is possible to make land available without disturbing the small and middle holders. Plantations could be restructured for their present workers and the landless Dalits and Adivasis so that they acquire at least some degree of social and economic mobility. The time to do these is now; before Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and airports, hotels and resorts, malls and multiplex swallow up the last bits of space.

Conclusion

The recent land struggles that go on in Kerala in Chengara and in some other parts are definitively a symbol of people’s awakening to deeper consciousness of their relation with land and nature and its politics. They are symptomatic of the land struggles in Mudigonda Kammam (Andra Pradesh), Sonbhadra (Uttar Pradesh), Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), Orissa and in other parts of India. There are land struggles trying to possess the same and then land struggles to affirm the right over land, not prepared to yield their land to the corporations as was the case of Singur and Nandigram.

Land, which was the life-blood of the Dalit and Adivasis, was plucked away from them. Precious land resources are in the hands of corporations like Harrisons and real estate mafias. It is no more a life-providing, nature given resource, but a commodity to make profit. The communities near to the natural resources like land and water are realizing that they have to regain ownership of the natural resources their ancestors collectively owned. They have to posses the life-producing and life-sustaining resources. The present trend is leading to a negation of a just life of humans and nature. Unless they retrieve the land, the future of human and nature are at stake.

Land struggles of such kinds represent a new era of peoples awakening. They point to a bright horizon where we see people asserting their right to life; to create and preserve life. The Chengara land struggle of the SJVSV, as observed requires a fundamental alteration in worldview around the twin notion of peoples and land. Moreover tremendous political will and meticulously planned action are required for solving the land-inequities of Kerala.

References

1. Kapikkad, Sunny (2008): “Vibhavadhikaram Neridunna Dalit Prashnangal”. In Kerala Bhooparishkaranam; Dalit Paksha Vimarshanavum Vibhavadhikara Prashnagalum (Kerala Land Reforms: A Dalit Critique and Issues of Resource Ownership), a report published by Chengara Bhoosamara Aykyadardya Samiti, pp. 10-24.
2. Kochu, K K (2008): “Bhooparishkaranavum Dalitukalum” (Land Reforms and Dalits). In Keraleeyam, Issue No 5, May, pp. 32.
3. Louis, Prakash (2008): “Land Struggles of Dalits in Kerala”. In Integral Liberation, Vol. 12, No. 4.
4. Mohan, Sanal (2011): “Land Struggles in Contemporary Kerala”. In Business Line, September.
5. Rammohan, K T (2008): “Caste and Landlessness in Kerala: Signals From Chengara”. In Economic and Political Weekly, No. 37, pp. 14-16.
6. Sivanandan, P (1993): “Sampathika Purogathiyum Samoohya Samanwayavum” (Economic Development and Social Integration). In J J Pallath (ed.), Dalit Vimochanam; Samasyayum Sameekshayum (Dalit Liberation; Problems and Perspectives), Samskriti Study Series, No 1.
7. Sreerekaha, M S (2010): “Challenges before Kerala’s Landless: The Story of Aralam Farm”. In Economic and Political Weekly, May 22, Vol. XLV, No.21, pp. 55-62.
8. Sreerekha, M S (2012): “‘Illegal Land, Illegal People’s’- The Chengara Land Struggle in Kerala”. In Economic and Political Weekly, July 28, Vol. XLVII, No. 30, pp. 21-24.

[1]     Density of population in India is only 382 per square kilometer area. Kerala ranks as one of the highly dense States in India.

[2] The state of Kerala was formed in the year 1956 by merging the erstwhile princely states of Travancore and Cochin and also the Malabar region from the Madras presidency.

[3]     As per the 2011 Census the total population of Dalits is 30,39,573 and Adivasis is 4,84,839.

[4]     It is also called as Laha estate and operated by Harrison Malayalam Plantations Ltd.

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