For long, Kerala has tried to outlive its image as the land of strikes, an exercise that has failed to yield any tangible results, as strikes keep happening, at the most inopportune of times, and affecting hitherto unchartered territory, like a virulent form of cancer.
For a state where the major form of entertainment is Malayalam film, the people have been at the receiving end of a strike that has paralysed the industry over the past couple of months. Then came what could’ve been construed as a strike call from a least expected quarter — the bureaucrats. Though the ‘mass leave for a day’ plan was shelved, following Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reading out the riot act to them, it was indeed ironical that the effort to forge a trade union kind of platform for protest was checkmated by a Left government. Result: the IAS officers could well play the reluctant brides in a marriage of convenience with their political counterparts while keeping the administration running.
It was a totally different form of protest that got the state education department to wake up from the poppy-laden sleep induced by self-financing institutions imparting professional education, mostly in the field of engineering, with scant respect for the rights of the students as enjoyed in regular college campuses. Sadly, it came at the cost of a young life snuffed out by way of suicide allegedly in protest against the harassment he faced in his college, from those who were expected to protect him.
As questions are now raised about unhealthy control of freedom in these new generation campuses, one would do well to remember the meekness with which a whole generation of parents bowed down and paid obeisance to a new kind of education system that pretty much wore its intent on the sleeve by laying down the diktat that students had to turn out in uniform, complete with neck-tie, waist-coat et al, as if they were once again being taken through the rigours of a lower primary school, nay a kindergarten.
Protests of a more basic nature, in fact one of an animal kind, became evident when an assortment of beasts started preying on human settlements, with a kind of frequency that made it evident that these were not ‘stray’ incidents. On the one hand you have population pressures and massive commercial possibilities forcing settlers and even poachers into forests. The flip side is the dearth of food and drying up of water bodies that are pushing animals into human settlements.
Kerala is now witnessing a wholly new variety of fight between animals and humans for dwelling space. The last week alone saw two persons being killed in two separate incidents of attack by elephants in Wayanad and Kannur respectively. To put this in perspective, the state government disbursed around `5.8 crore for 2015-16 as compensation to farmers and other affected sections and given the recent spike in the number of wild animal attacks and the ensuing destruction of crops, this figure can only rise in 2016-17.
Forest officers fear that this time around, the invasion of animals will be more severe as the forest regions are hit hard by shortage in rainfall and the prospect of a particularly blistering summer season very much a reality. Senior forest officers admit shrinking forest space and depleting levels in water bodies inside the forests are pushing animals to human settlements in search of water and food.
Worryingly, there is a new trend of wild animal attacks even during the rainy season as it was in June 2016 that Thirunelly in Wayand district witnessed a series of animal invasions, which resulted in a massive destruction of crops and property. Given this, one needs to look at the growing human presence in wildlife zones in the state. Add to that, poaching, for meat as well as skin, and the dismal picture is complete.
Surprisingly, successive governments have failed to come out with a carefully-crafted plan.
Though a clear distinction is made between privileged and under privileged encroachers to protect the interests of the tribals, the forest regions in the state are being brutally exploited by the land mafia, quarry owners and timber merchants.
It was on September 4, 2015 that the High Court asked the government to clear all encroachments which took place after 1977, within a year. According to forest department data, over 7289.34 hectares was held by illegal occupants mainly in Wayanad, Malappuram and Palakkad. In Idukki district alone, 1,450 hectares were illegally occupied by people.
In Wayanad, which is home to Kerala’s largest tribal settlement constituting 17.1 per cent of the district’s population, the natural forest is being replaced with teak plantations, construction fuelled by a tourism boom and overuse of pesticides and chemicals in farms, coffee and tea plantations.
Surely, the government needs to respond to the ‘protests’ by wild animals such as elephants with as much alacrity as it has done and keeps doing whenever the public raises its voice in protest. Because, that’s the only way animals will protest.
Tailpiece: It shouldn’t be forgotten that there has been a noticeable let-up in the incidence of stray dogs biting people, forcing trollers to make merry, with priceless rip-offs, including the one where a dog attributes the decision to go easy with biting people as a show of empathy for those hit by demonetisation.
Vinod Mathew
Resident Editor, Kerala.
vinodmathew@newindianexpress.com