Kanjirathinal George and Jose, in the early 1960s, did exactly what was a trend among fellow farmers in downstate Kerala: migrating to upstate Malabar in quest of better survival and possible prosperity.
Northward they moved, and the two brothers purchased 12 acres of fertile land in red-soil Wayanad district — at hilly Kanjiramkadu of Mananthavadi Taluk. It was a Janmam Patta-category plot the British had conferred to Kuttanadan Cardamom Plantations.
Nurturing big dreams, the brothers started working in the farmland — with added help from George’s wife, Ealikkutti, Together they tamed the rugged stretch and began growing crops, overcoming the challenges of irrigating what’s primarily a jungle. Over a dozen years, they began to reap good harvests. Ealikkutti, meanwhile, gave birth to three children. The family seemed to have peacefully settled in life.
Then came a bolt from the blue. Just into the second half of the 1970s, the nation plunged into a critical phase: the government declared a state of Emergency. The law of the land went for a six. The free-for-all situation had its effect on the Kanjirathinal brothers too.
In 1976, eyeing on their timber-rich farm, a coterie in the forest department armed themselves with manipulated documents and declared the brothers’ 12-acre land as “vested forest”. This, when the plot looked very much like a classical farm what with arecanut palms, coffee plants, rows of tapioca and yam, cashew-nut trees and pepper vines among others, besides, of course, coconut palms.
The family got a reprieve in two years’ time as the Forest Tribunal of Kozhikode declared in 1978 that the authorities’ move was illegal. It recognised the right of the farmer over his land.
A miffed forest department filed an appeal at the high court, dragging the farmers into another tricky round of legal wrangle. “From there started our agonising and endless persecution,” recalls George, sitting alone today in front of his dilapidated hut. “Those days, there were no regular buses to reach Kozhikode. The nearest motorable road was a ten-km walk away. I’d leave Ealikkutti and our three children at home — all in my quest for justice. I kept meeting lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, clerks in courts…. For days, I ate next to nothing.”
But the forest officials were “shrewd and smart”. George claims they tampered with records, maps and sketches — “not only of forest offices, but also at revenue offices”.
The original deed of George vanished from the revenue offices. Predictably, the court verdict went against him in 1978, directing the tribunal to reconsider the case. Soon, the tribunal dubbed the brothers as “encroachers”, and allotted 75 cents of land to them.
Unable to withstand the tragedy, Jose left Wayanad. George stayed on, but pinned no hope in the judiciary. “For a penniless farmer, it’s a Herculean task to fight such a case any further,” he adds. George tried to find his grievances redressed through some minor links he had with politicians, but in vain. In one case, the high court directed the state government to consider George’s claims.
He approached chief ministers over a period of time when they belonged to two different political fronts of the state, but kept losing. Meanwhile, shady characters approached George and offered him to buy what was his own land — for a “throwaway price”.
In 1991, George and his family suffered yet another shock, courtesy a mysterious ex parte verdict by the high court in the case. “We didn’t file any appeal. Till date, we are ignorant about who appeared for us as counsel,” says George.
Meanwhile help came to him: George’s son-in-law, James, joined the battle. The matter was soon taken up at the state Assembly. Late comrade Mathayi Chacko, MLA, was the first to invite the attention of the Kerala legislators on to the injustice.
On his death bed, Chacko handed over the flame of the struggle to P Krishnaprasad, who was the leader of All India Kissan Sabha, the CPI(M)’s farmers’ arm. With its support, George started a hunger strike in front of the Wayanad Collectorate in 2005.
VS Achuthanandan, then the leader of the opposition, visited the family, expressing solidarity to the agitation. The next year, when Achuthanandan became the chief minister, George sensed an end to his agony. Bogged down by a thick morass of bureaucracy, George is still landless.
In 2007, Achuthanandan’s LDF government decided to accept long-pending land tax from George after George’s plot was inspected by the district collector, the chief conservator of forests, conservator of forests and divisional forest officer. Their judgment: what is notified as ‘Vested Forest Land’ is “different” and “far off” from the plot of George as per the “original” documents. Niveditha P Haran, principal secretary (revenue), was deputed to study the case hearing both sides. Her report said the forest department “failed to produce even a single evidence to claim the land”.
At this, George and James filed an application under the Right to Information Act. Under that legislation, James, a daily-wage labourer with countless illnesses, unearthed dozens of documents — some of them dating back even to the colonial era. What the documents exposed were massive corrections and tampering of documents, maps and sketches.
Chimes in James: “To fish out the original documents from the heaps of records scattered in various forest offices alone, I spent a lot. Amid telling evidences, you can’t now leave it midway.”
George is an old man now. In his rented hut, Ealikkutti died last year — after 32 years of fight to win justice for her partner. Treesa, their younger daughter, is yet to marry. Now there’s again a case in the court. In 2007, when the government ordered to accept land tax from the farmer, an environmental organisation
approached the court and managed to get the order stayed. The stay was later vacated. Some bosses of the forest department say George’s is a “jungle-like farm”! A tenacious George says he will continue with his struggle. “I’ll fight till my end. I’ll win, finally”.
