Fear And Loathing In Kerala

(Published in Fountain Ink-February 2013)

The state has been awash with outsiders for the last 20 years or so, a fact that moves the Malayalee to paranoid fantasies about what they will do to his beloved land. So far, all that these workers from the east have done is ensure that the natives continue to avoid hard labour.

***

Why should we allow them here?

“Who are these people? Why are they here?”

On Sundays, Gandhi Bazar, a market place in Perumbavoor, a satellite town of Kochi, speaks in the tongues of India’s east—Bengali, Assamese and Oriya. An old man who runs a roadside shop outside the Bazar examines the swelling crowd and its languages and wonders if his hometown will turn into a Bangladesh before he dies.

Along with many others in the town, Bangladesh has become a legitimised expletive in his vocabulary, a word that connotes a society of coarse and uncouth criminals that desecrates Kerala’s alleged cultural sanctity. The society in question here is termed in Malayalam as Anya Samsthana Thozhilalikal—Labourers From Other States; a 2-3 million strong community comprising people mainly from West Bengal, Assam and Odisha employed in the thriving construction sector, quarrying, hotels, rubber and tea estates and in factories of various kinds—plywood, chemical, metal etc. “Why should we allow them here?” the old man asks, a question posed in slightly different terms in a recent movie titled Ee Adutha Kalath (In Recent Times) which was both a critical and commercial success: “Who are these people? Why are they here?”

Raihan, 22, from Jalpaiguri district in Bengal and one of “those people”—or Bhayee, as the locals call them—smiles at the question. He has heard it umpteen times. Aware of the pointlessness of providing an answer—“What answer will satisfy them in any case?”—he shoots back another question: “Malayalees have been going to the Gulf for decades now. What will they feel if they were to face these questions there?”

Of medium height and stocky build, Raihan has a stubble and a thin moustache. His uncle and a couple of his neighbours came to Kerala in the first half of the last decade. Since then, he too had been planning the same. The recent developments in the state, especially local hostility, has not deterred new migrants. “We don’t have any other option back home”, he says. But though he is happy with the money he is making, he plans to go back one day and get married to his lover. "How long can we allow ourselves to be called criminals?" 

It was on a Sunday that Raihan, five years ago, came to Perumbavoor as part of a group of 12 from his district. Like lakhs of others from their region he too had decided to catch the train to Kerala and make a living there. Though there is also a formal recruiting system for migrant labourers, Raihan and his friends decided to come on their own, safe in the knowledge that once they reached Perumbavoor, landing a job would not be difficult.

“Though their performance in the work places can be termed satisfactory, the fact that the migrant labourer community provides space to criminals, Maoists, terrorists, drug dealers and thieves has spread paranoia among the people. They are also involved in counterfeit currency distribution. The pollution they are responsible and the subsequent health problems that spread in the society is also a cause of major concern.”
-Janmabhumi

“I had Rs3,000 when I got on the Guwahati Express. But people from my part of the world have been going to Kerala for years now, so I was least worried. Not even the fact that I knew no language other than Bengali bothered me.” Raihan got down at Aluva, near Ernakulam, and walked to the bus stand. To the conductor he showed a piece of paper on which was written: “Gandhi Bazar, Perumbavoor”. When he landed in the bazar, he was “shocked” to see so many of his own people. “I did not miss my home one bit when I first came here. There were Bengalis everywhere. People were selling Bengali beedis, Bengali sweets, Bengali clothes. The speakers in the bigger shops played Bengali film songs and Oriya bhajans. All the advertisements were in Oriya or Bengali. A Bengali film was playing in Jyothi theatre, just outside the market. Though we all knew about this place, it still was difficult to believe the first time I saw it.”

One of the thousands of labourers at the market that day told Raihan to come next day around 7 a.m. He was also offered a room to stay. “The camaraderie was touching. Maybe it is because we know we will have to look after ourselves in a different state. We have no unions or organisation working for our welfare, so we make sure that those who come here for the first time are not left stranded.”

What is a manic market on Sunday turns into an even more manic pick-up point for labourers on weekdays. Agents, middlemen and contractors come in trucks and hire labourers for construction sites, quarrying units and plywood factories. “I got work the next morning,” says Raihan. “I was taken to a plywood factory. I was paid Rs300 a day then. Now I earn about Rs500.”

Raihan still lives in the same room—inside a labour camp consisting of six ramshackle sheds that houses around a hundred—he was first offered. On Sundays he sets up a small makeshift shop in the bazar to sell samosas and Bengali sweets—roshagulla and goja. He says he has no reason to be unhappy, but that has not prevented him from thinking about going back.

“The fact that the migrant labourers are perpetrators of social disharmony and a threat to the state’s security is viewed by many with concern. Recently, an intelligence report that said thieves from Bengal come to Kerala in droves had become news. In the last few months, some Bangladeshis who did not have any documents with them were arrested from Kottayam.”
-Manorama Online, December 10, 2012

“I get good money here compared to what I would get back home. I can send money to my parents and also save a little for my future. But all that is irrelevant if I have to constantly live under suspicion. People in Kerala believe we are a criminalised society. In the five years that I have been here, this notion has become progressively stronger. Beyond a point it is hard to live in that sort of a community, no matter how good the money.”

The rise of migrant labour in Kerala in the last two decades is a direct consequence of a combination of the massive urbanisation that the state has witnessed since the Nineties and the shortage of local labour. Around the mid-Nineties, Kochi witnessed an unprecedented growth in the construction sector and a corresponding demand for labour. Earlier, labourers from outside Kerala came mainly from Tamil Nadu, but in this period they started leaving the state on account of better wages and better working conditions back home.

As Malayalees have traditionally avoided semi-skilled jobs in industry, the demand for labour was met by workers from the poverty-stricken east. Though there are no official statistics, it is estimated that 20-30 lakh labourers are employed in the state.

According to human rights activist and economics professor Sukhendu Sarkar, the massive flow of labourers from West Bengal, a state that has seen three decades of CPI(M) governance, is an indicator of the abject political realities of the state.

“Various investigative agencies have given warnings about the counterfeit notes circulated by the Maoist terrorists in the state. These notes which rival authentic notes reach the country via Bangladesh. Based on this, the financial transactions of north Indian workers are being monitored by intelligence. After discovering the spread of terrorist organisations in the state, their sources of income have been under surveillance. They get funds from Pakistan via Gulf countries.”
-Mathrubhumi,
October 16, 2010

“There is retardation in every sector in Bengal. The farming sector has collapsed. Unemployment, debts and starvation are on a rampage; as a consequence, suicides too. Most of those who toil on the soil do not own land. Control is in the hands of a minority of big players and real estate mafia. Since most development projects are centred on cities, villages are devoid of even basic facilities. This is what brings about this exodus to Kerala.”

Initially the labourers were employed in construction, but gradually other industries—plywood, chemical, hotel etc—also joined in. They work 10-12 hours a day, and are paid considerably less than their few Malayalee counterparts get. “If I had been a Malayalee, I would have earned much more than I am earning now,” says Raihan. “But even now, we wouldn’t be able to earn this much back home. As for working hours, we don’t have a say and don’t raise too much of a hue and cry about it. We have come here to make money and it really does not matter if we work for eight hours or 12 hours a day.”

What worries Raihan more are the many ways in which even their legitimate wages are taken away from them. The modes usually adopted by local contractors include obtaining the documents of the labourers or issuing their payment on a weekly or monthly basis instead of a daily basis.

A plywood factory owner in Perumbavoor says, “Supposing these people were to leave me one day, how will I find replacements? I take orders for work based on the strength of my workforce. If I give them the full payment, they might leave just like that because there are so many options for them. That means I will have to keep some of their money with me.”

Accommodation is usually provided by the factory owners in blocks of tiny, squalid rooms, each room occupied by seven or eight men. The room in which Raihan lives is occupied by eight people. There is a tiny television set and an induction stove. Mobile phones and chargers lie in various corners. There are no beds; everyone sleeps on the floor.

“A survey carried out by the health department of Kerala found that many migrant labourers are carriers of deadly diseases like HIV, malaria, dengue, hepatitis-B, hepatitis-C etc.… Recent incidents prove that Kerala will have to pay a big price for the largesse it offers to migrant labourers. Kerala has accepted more migrant labourers than it can contain. Social scientists warn of grave consequences if the uncontrolled flow of these labourers is not kept under check.”
-Kalakoumudi August 13, 2012

The locals, including the contractors, plot a direct correlation between the unhygienic circumstances in which they live and their “criminal tendencies”. “They don’t care about anything else but money. They want to come to Kerala, live in the dirtiest of ways, commit a burglary and then leave,” says Joseph Babu, a contractor. Most of the labour camps are old and dilapidated, and some have collapsed. Five years ago, a building near Ernakulam Boat Jetty came crashing down, and two labourers from Odisha were killed. Thirty men from the same village were staying under one roof.

Shabir, a construction worker, says, “We don’t really bother too much as the money we make here is our only driving force. If I am back home, even if I earn around Rs300 orRs400 a day, I might spend five or six hundred. Here I am particular about cutting down expenditure and sending at least Rs6,000 or Rs7,000 every three or four months.” Neither the administration nor the job providers ensure that the regulations in the 1979 Interstate Migrant Workman (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act are followed. Till date, there are no organisations to represent the migrants. As they are not part of the vote bank, the extremely powerful labour unions of Kerala do no not consider it necessary to include them.

Raihan recounts an incident when he and his friends could not even campaign for the compensation of a worker who had died at a worksite. “I can imagine the furore if a Malayalee had been killed. We approached all the trade unions here, but not one was willing to take up our case.”

Bizarrely, in the shopping complex opposite Gandhi Bazar there is a shop that sells fancy jewellery under a board that reads: Migrant Welfare Society Board. “This building was rented by an SBI officer last year. But this so-called welfare society has never been operational. What we have heards is that the society was just a pretext for obtaining a personal loan.”

Last year, the government started a welfare scheme for migrant labour, which providesRs25,000 for each labourer for health care. A sum of Rs3,000 is provided for the education of their children, compensation of Rs50,000 in case of accident-death, Rs15,000 in cases of natural death. An additional Rs15,000 is provided for transporting the body home. But on account of a fear that they will be stuck in one particular field, most labourers avoid the scheme. The failure to grant compensation in case of accident deaths is also a major deterrent.

Mythri Prasad, PhD scholar at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, who is working on the subject of migrant labourers writes: “Social protection has not been extended to migrant workers. For example, the construction workers’ welfare board, which operates through trade unions, does not consider migrant construction workers in its schemes for social protection. This lack of inclusion becomes institutionalised as only unionised workers are considered for welfare benefits.

“Social protection policy thus has to be evaluated keeping in mind the historical context and the political actions and struggles that shaped it. The highly influential mainstream trade unions in Kerala have not made any attempt to unionise migrant workers or to examine the implications of migration for local labour. Union membership also throws up interesting questions on the formation of class consciousness in Kerala, which perhaps recognises only a Malayali as a thozhilali (worker). The ethnic bias of welfare systems comes to the forefront when welfare systems come in contact with migrant populations.

“The highly unionised Malayalee construction workers in the district (Ernakulam) are recruited through trade unions in a system known as ‘site pidikkal’ (capturing the site). Unions negotiate with the builder regarding the number of workers, wages and the amount of work. Hiring Malayalee construction workers is done either through unions or through contractors; Malayalee construction workers do not stand in markets or intersections waiting to be picked up. Various trade unions affiliated to political parties have organised Malayalee construction workers since the 1980s.

“However, the unions do not give membership to migrant workers and have not attempted to organise them. In the plywood industry, migrant workers have replaced local Malayalee male workers, and women workers from neighbouring districts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However, this replacement has happened gradually as new units sprang up and existing ones increased in scale. Malayalee workers in the plywood industry have remained largely non-unionised.”

“Security issues related to the presence of a huge floating migrant population have been highlighted once again with the Aluva police stumbling upon a network of criminals during an investigation into a burglary case. The inability of police to track the movement of this floating population has once again raised serious questions on security.
“It has also been brought to the notice of police that some of the migrant labourers tried to spend currency notes of bigger denominations like Rs1,000 at provision stores, a clear indication about the presence of counterfeit currency. There were earlier instances of fake notes printed across the border being smuggled into Assam and West Bengal and dispensed through migrant labourers on the move. With neither the police nor the Department of Labour having any information about the migrant labourers, engaged mostly in construction sector, it has become easy for criminals to use as a cover for their activities.
-The Hindu,
December 8, 2012

The study of the Perumbavoor Sunday market also demonstrates that social protection does not just relate to policy but is continuously claimed and accessed through contestation. In the absence of such struggles, social protection can bypass migrants, even in the presence of the most progressive policies and welfare systems in practice. Migration in Perumbavoor, especially its unsettled nature, prevents the development of a rights-based trade union. This is not merely about an all too easily attributed informality, but is embedded in the varied and multiple relationships forged in the market.

The trade unions of Malayalee workers constitute “the local”, which is at times hostile and discriminatory. The working class is a category which is broken up at the local level when it comes into contact with ethnicity, gender or caste. The ability of migrants to negotiate the local is seriously undermined by local power structures and is affected by the intersection of different identities and other social divisions within class. These factors are also crucial in attaining social protection and welfare.

The unions say the floating nature of migrants, their non-presence in a vote bank democracy, and their unorganised nature are the main reasons why unions do not take up their cause. But a major step has been announced by AITUC which on January 16 said the first trade union for migrant labourers would come into existence on January 26, called Migrant Workers Union. According to organising secretary Baby Thomas, the base will be Ernakulam district and it will expand from there. Ahmed Sharif, a labourer from Bihar, is in charge of organising workers at the grassroots level.

According to human rights activist and journalist R K Bijuraj, the description of the migrant labourer community as a criminalised society by the mainstream media has to be seen along with the blacking out it does of the various acts of human rights violations committed against the community.

“Malayalam mainstream media is run for the middle-class—usually Catholic and upper caste—and as such it is the insecurities and the fantasies of this section that the media manipulates to perfection. The placing of migrant labourers as criminals is easily marketable news in this space. Also, they never question police sources or even make an effort to verify them. What we get to see and read in the media are amplified versions of the police story, carefully designed to pander to its middle/upper class and upper caste viewership.”

On May 7, 2012, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Kerala home minister, announced that migrant workers would be required to register at the police stations when they arrived for work. This would enable the police to identify whether the labourers had any links with terrorist groups. Similar profiling had been attempted earlier, too, especially in Ernakulam district.

In 2009, police in Perumbavoor had issued an order according to which migrant workers were to carry a police clearance card from their village of origin certifying that they had no criminal history. This led to many workers leaving the town as it was beyond their means to obtain such a card.

The move was welcomed by the mainstream media as a positive step in curbing the “terror” spread by labourers. Manushyavakasha Prasthanam, a human rights organisation, submitted a memorandum to the chief minister which is yet to elicit a response.

According to Mythri Prasad, the media was least bothered about the human rights violations involved: “We (Manushyavakasha Prasthanam along with Dalit activist Meena Kandasami) had also done a press meet in Ernakulam last year against the registration. The response of journalists was appalling. They were unashamedly xenophobic and racist. It was astonishing to see the poverty of our journalists. They just didn’t understand the idea of human rights.”

But police have a different story to tell. Perumbavoor Sub-Inspector Bijoy Chandran says registration is meant to protect the interests of the labourers and not to profile them.

“The labourers are constantly exploited in their work places. If they are registered, exploitation can be avoided.” The SI blames the contractors and the factory owners for refusing to co-operate in making the scheme successful. The fact that the migrant labourer community has a “floating characteristic” does not make things easier. “The labourers do not stick to one workplace. If they are offered even slightly bigger amount, they will move immediately. As a result, the factory owners are also apprehensive about granting them their legitimate benefits.” As for the allegations of Maoist and terrorist connections, Bijoy Chandran says though the possibility that they may sneak into the labour camps cannot be discarded, the media is guilty of presenting distorted versions of the reality.

“A lot of criminals also come with the thousands of migrant labourers that come to Kerala. These include terrorists and recruiting agents for terrorists, and those wanted in their home states for extremist activities. In the last few years, there have been many reported cases of burglary and rape in which these labourers have a direct link.
“It is in this context that the recent incident where three Assamese labourers were arrested for suspected ULFA
connections needs to be analysed. Pictures of ULFA commander-in- chief Paresh Barua and visuals of ULFA parades were found in their mobile phones. ….The inefficiency of state police and labour department to tackle the menace of these migrant labourers will transform Kerala into a terrorist region. Its consequences will be fatal.”
-Mangalam,
November 30, 2012

“The media is clearly sensationalising the issue by portraying the community as a society of criminals. Less than two per cent of migrant labourers are involved in crime. They are very co-operative, and in cases where they feel suspicious about something or someone, they promptly inform us. We also have a well oiled network, coordinating the functions of direct police surveillance, mafti police and intelligence sources.” The police are also planning to set up a virtual employment exchange for labourers. The project is to be executed with the help of NGOs. “Since the labourers don’t have unionised structures working for the welfare, this project has been envisioned to make them self sufficient.”

During his five years in Perumbavoor, Raihan has lost count of the number of times when he’s been stopped by the police and asked for an ID card. “Are we not Indians? Why are we the only ones who have to prove our identity? Do Malayalee labourers working in other parts of the country get treated like this? It is as if these people can do anything with us and still get away. Raiding our camps on the pretext of investigating a crime is an all too common sight here.”

Raihan acknowledges that crimes involving migrant labourers do take place. But he points out that the crime rate has drastically increased in the state in the past decade and to single out one community is unacceptable. In fact, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures comparing incidents of crime with the population of a state, Kerala is the state most affected by crime and Kochi the most dangerous city. Figures compiled till 2010 show that Kerala has a crime rate (number of reported crime per 100,000 residents) of 424.1, more than double the national average of 187.6.

“Are all the crimes in Kerala committed by us?” asks Raihan. “You must remember that there are a lot of migrant labourers in this state. Almost 20 lakh to 30 lakh already and every week thousands more are coming. It is only natural that there will be crimes in a society as large as that. But citing those singular incidents as evidence of a criminalised society is a worrying trend. Are we responsible for all the crime in Kerala?”

His roommate Najimuddin echoes this feeling: “We know we are treated with suspicion, but what can we do if there are a couple of miscreants? Every time we come across suspicious circumstances we inform the police. Recently we suspected that a drug dealer had sneaked in among us. Upon informing the police, this person was caught with brown sugar in his bag.” Shabir’s response is categorical. “When there are so many people it is easy for Maoists and terrorists to sneak through. But we never protect them.”

Raihan’s worries had already turned real in an earlier incident at a labour camp in Alappuzha district when a mob of incensed locals vandalised the living space of the labourers. Around 25 labourers were hospitalised in the assault, provoked by a mobile phone stolen from a nearby shop. Without even the flimsiest evidence, they branded one of the labourers as a thief and then attacked the community on that pretext. The phone was never found, the investigation did not proceed any further, and no case was registered against the mob that indulged in destruction. In a similar incident, a labour camp in Kottayam district was smashed on the pretext of protesting against three truckloads of food waste the labourers allegedly dumped on a public road. The incident is said to be a consequence of a long-standing feud between two labour contractors, though the official investigation promptly blamed the labourers.

As the evening’s dusty yellow settles over Gandhi Bazar, Raihan shuts his shop. He buys a bundle of his favourite Bengali beedis, exchanges pleasantries and small talk with a couple of older labourers, and lighting the beedi walks to the shop selling mobile phones and recharge coupons.

(Almost all local shop owners testify that the migrant labourer community is the pillar of the region’s economy. “They spend a lot of money here itself unlike the Tamil labourers of old. They cannot live without mobile phones and Hans (A beedi brand),” says Hamid, a shop owner.) Raihan recharges for Rs999. “I have a lover back home”, he giggles, “and I love to talk anyway.”

On his way back home, he stops at SBI ATM and withdraws Rs10,000. It is the amount he sends home every three months. “These days I use the bank. I have an account. Earlier, I sent money using our own networks.” The networks he refers to are a group of people among the labourers themselves who do transfers for a commission of hundred per thousand rupees. “In Kerala you have this thing called blade companies, no? These are things that come up in every society; not just ours.”

“There are complaints that workers from other states go on a rampage in Gandhi Bazar complex near Kolancheri junction at Perumbavoor town. This complex has become a place where workers from the town and nearby areas come on Sundays and in the evenings. There are some fifty shops in the complex. The shop owners have complained to the authorities regarding the problems created by other-state workers, but to no avail. There are complaints that liquor and drugs are sold here under the cover of pavement trade. Another complaint is that these workers urinate and defecate in these premises. The Gandhi Bazar merchant’s society has demanded that the authorities take steps to resolve the problem.”
-Mathrubhumi,
February 1, 2010

Raihan prefers to sleep early on Sundays, especially on days when business has been good. “These Sundays are the only days we are alive. I am lucky to have a market like this.” After five years he speaks Malayalam in his own unique accent that has an alluring texture of folk music. He has made friends with the locals with whom he sometimes discusses politics. “I get to hear the news. And sometimes, when the news is about one of us, it really shatters me. Like the suicide of Bullesh Rao.”

Bullesh was 30 when he committed suicide in September, 2012. Like Raihan, he too hailed from Jalpaiguri district in Bengal, worked in the construction sector at Chengannoor. While travelling with a couple of his friends on train, he fell down and was severely injured. It was around midnight and Bullesh, body drenched in blood, went from door to door seeking help. Not a door opened. Bullesh then went into a nearby Bhajana Math and, without seeking anyone’s assistance, hanged himself. “It could be an end that I might have too”, says Raihan. He knows that Kerala, like Bengal, is a state that has a propensity to produce martyrs merely for the sake of celebrating them.

A Tiger Hunted

(Published in Fountain Ink-January,2013) 

Ek Tha Tiger and this is the story of how he was murdered. Since tigers are not known to interact with human media, the story is devoid of a decisive perspective.

***

Jean Paul Sartre would have culled an existential hero out of him. He was a gypsy by compulsion. Throughout the ten years of his life, he never managed to establish a territory of his own, always driven out by his stronger peers. With a total length of 246 cm, he was considerably undersized. He had relatively small genitals. One of his canines was missing, two were broken. His lungs, for all intents and purposes, were dysfunctional—infected to a degree of seventy percent with paragonimus. He could not chase his prey; he could not roar. For the last nine days of his life he was starving; the post mortem could only find an alimentary canal full of tapeworms. His identity was fiercely debated; some said he was somebody else; some said he was a she. He was a victim of the rumour mill, of an unscientifically carried out census, of a vote bank democracy that bayed for his blood. When the bullet shot that claimed him pierced through his debile body, all he could do was wag his tail thrice.

NHT-243 must have had a sense for bad timing. In the second week of November 2012, when he first ventured out into the fringes of human habitat, a society that was simmering with paranoia and animosity about the rumoured conversion of its home ground into a tiger reserve had found a perfect specimen to shower their ire upon. A tiger census report that came out in February 2012, had reported the presence of 78 tigers—67 adults and 11 cubs—in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WSS), spread over 344 sq.km and consisting of four ranges—Sulthan Bathery, Kurichiyat, Tholpetti and Muthanga. The census was seen in the context of the Western Ghats Expert Ecology Panel (WGEEP) report submitted by Dr. Madhav Gadgil committee which proposed WSS to be made an Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ).

Rumours about a possible tiger reserve that first started doing the rounds when a ban was imposed in 2010 on the night traffic through the Bandipur National Park on the Kollegal-Kozhikode National Highway 212 and the Mananthavady-Bavali-Mysore State highway, now tipped into a frenzied propaganda. People feared that their right to a normal life would be taken away from them; that they would now have to paint their houses green; that they cannot switch their lights on after eight in the night; that they cannot use the road once the dusk falls. Their fears were aggravated when, in July 2012, the adjacent Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu was closed following a Supreme Court directive.

Wayanad plunged into a crisis. Land prices nosedived; commerce and trade were badly hit—a prominent gold and diamond retail jewellery chain that had planned to open a branch in Sulthan Bathery shifted its operations to Kalpetta which lies outside Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. The Syro-Malabar Church’s diocese in Wayanad at Mananthavady organized protests against the ‘tiger scare’. (Wayanad, which once upon a time was a tribal area, has a substantial population of Christian farmers who had migrated to the district from central Kerala in the first half of last century and who have now become a major political force; the encroachment of the forest land by these farmers is attributed to be one of the key reasons for the shrinking of the region’s forest area.)  CPI (M), whose image had taken a beating following the sensational TP Chandrashekharan murder, wasted no time in identifying the issue of tiger reserve in Wayanad as a springboard to regain its lost political ground. Flex boards sprang up in Sulthan Bathery with the image of a tiger-man: the body of a tiger to which was fixed the face of MI Shanavas, the Congress Member of Parliament from the constituency of Wayanad. ‘Are you an MP of human beings or are you an MP of tigers’ was the question put forward to this peculiar creature.

***

The credibility of the census report which triggered this furious delirium has since been questioned by many, including wildlife experts. Tiger density is estimated to be usually around 8-10 tigers per 100 sq.km. If the census report is to be believed, the tiger density in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary is approximately 22 tigers per 100 sq.km. Rubbishing the report as “ridiculously unscientific”, a senior official at Periyar Tiger Reserve who requested anonymity says: “Wayanad is just a part of the home range—the Melanad Mysore Tiger Landscape (MMTL) spanning Nagarhole (643 sq.km) and Bandipur (874 sq.km) tiger reserves in Karnataka, Mudumalai (320 sq.km) tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (344 sq.km)—of 78 tigers. For the tiger, the whole stretch is one single forest; it doesn’t understand state borders.” The erroneous report is said to be a consequence of conducting the census during summer when tigers from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu come to Wayanad—an evergreen forest—for water. According to Dr. Ullas Karanth, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society-India, Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bangalore, such “improbably high tiger densities and numbers reported from Wayanad is an outcome of incompetent technical analysis of photo capture data from some ad hoc camera trapping.”   
      

When several cases of predation on domestic cattle by a tiger were reported from the village of Begur, outside Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, after November 11, 2012, speculations were rife that a tiger had been released in Wayanad as part of a larger conspiracy to convert WSS into a tiger reserve. Some even floated outlandish propositions, according to one of which the tiger was abandoned by a circus company. 

***

On November 14^th, NHT-243 was box trapped by the Kerala Forest Department in the village of Akkapara in the Periya territorial forest range of the North Wayanad Division. There was a deep wound on his nose and based on the protruding vertebra and pelvic bones it was concluded that the ‘rogue’ captive was emaciated. At this stage, the forest department had said that the predator was a female and it was confirmed by Wildlife Conservation Society-India, Centre for Wildlife Studies. “Although we had at the time identified it as a female, it was a mistake because we had at the time the picture of only one flank of the animal”, says Dr. Ullas Karanth.

Upon getting news about the capture of the tiger, people prepared to vent their wrath on the animal. Forest Department officials were mobbed and told not to release the animal anywhere in Wayanad. The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of CPI (M), as part of their protests against the tiger reserve, decided to ‘blockade the tiger’ at Sulthan Bathery. The Forest department vehicle carrying the tiger veered away from the highway and took a short cut through the Kurichiyat range, and released the tiger in the Dottakulasi forest area in Kerala-Karnataka border. This region was considered to be a suitable habitat as it has a good prey base and is away from human habitat. But according to some Adivasis, the tiger was released not too far from Golur, a settlement inside the forest. (There are around 110 settlements inside Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, of which around 20 are in the core area. These settlements are home to around 2600 families.) The forest officials were detained on their way back by the irate mob. A couple of media persons and an environmentalist who had accompanied the forest department officials too were assaulted. On November 15, 2012, the day after NHT-243 was captured and released, Wayanad witnessed one of the most ferocious hartals in its history. Old timers say they cannot recall a similar instance when life in the district had reached such a standstill. 

The forest department was disparaged by conservationists and environmental activists for its gross mismanagement of the issue. N Badusha, president of the Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi (Wayanad Nature Conservation Committee) points out that the tiger was not given sedation. The department’s failure to treat the tiger’s injury also came under criticism. According to Dr. Karanth, given the tiger’s advanced age, his emaciated condition, and the seriousness of the injuries he had suffered, he should have been held in permanent captivity, or if that was not an option, euthanized professionally. “Releasing it would pose a risk to itself, to other tigers that it would try to evict, and potentially to humans and livestock. We do not recommend the release of old and injured animals, and even younger dispersal age animals can be released only if there is habitat with sufficient wild prey and tiger numbers below carrying capacity set by prey. Unfortunately, there are practically no such areas available. In all other cases, the released animal will be killed or will evict a resident tiger, thus increasing conflicts and problems.”

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Too weak to hunt, or perhaps forced out by another tiger, NHT-243 returned to human habitat two days later. His efforts in the early hours of the dawn to capture a cow belonging to Kunjan, a resident of the Pambankolli settlement in Naykatti at Noolpuzha panchayat—not far from Golur where the Adivasis say the tiger was released­—proved to be futile. The cow, though severely injured, was not killed. The hungry tiger returned in the evening and killed a goat and a cow belonging to Kunchu, a resident of the Plakkavu settlement in the same panchayat. The next day, the people took the carcasses and blockaded the highway, demanding the tiger to be killed. During the protests, bamboo groves were set on fire, forest officials were attacked, and the newly built forest department quarters was stoned. “Neither the forest department nor the district administration took any necessary steps to ensure protection for us. The tiger was attacking the cattle; what would have happened if it started attacking human beings? How could we be sure that the tiger was not a man-eater?”, asks Asees, an auto driver staying at Naykatti. “Taking the carcasses and blockading the highway was a desperate step to draw attention to the gravity of the issue”.

But according to wildlife experts and conservationists, the crisis would not have exacerbated if the carcasses were left to the tiger and not taken to the highway. P.M. Suresh, retired Assistant Conservator of Forests who now runs a bakery in Sulthan Bathery, indicts the forest department for its failure to put its foot down and prevent the mob from taking away the tiger’s kill. “You cannot expect the mob to act responsibly. It is the duty of the administrators to ensure that the right steps are taken when a crisis is encountered. You cannot feed a tiger; it will eat only what it has captured. If it could have been ensured that the kill was left to the tiger, the forest department could have easily tranquilized the tiger before the situation deteriorated.”

Though the Forest Department officials do not refute the technical validity of the retired ACF’s argument, they defend themselves by counter-arguing that the state of affairs had gone out of their hands. An official at the Sulthan Bathery range who requested anonymity says that the situation had become one of law and order, and as such the department had its hands tied. “The mob was controlled by goons and it was up to the district administration to help us out by keeping the mob under control.” He also points out that the low guard strength of the department—there are, for instance, only 8 guards in the Bathery Range when the requirement is 16—is a significant impediment to the department’s successful operations in critical circumstances. According to O.P. Kaler, the Chief Conservator of Forests (Palakkad Division) who oversees the sanctuary, “there was very little the forest department could have done as the mob had become extremely incensed. They were anti-forest department and anti-tiger. Their interactions with the department had become a case of your-tiger-and-our-life situation.”

The mode and nature of the protests—in some ways it was also like a festival, says Asees— led many wildlife activists to suspect that the powerful land and resort mafia in the region was exploiting the public outrage against the ‘problem’ tiger to pre-empt a tiger reserve in the region. It is estimated that around 100 hotels and resorts have been built in Wayanad in the last five years alone. Denying the allegations, Shobhan Kumar, president of the action council formed by the villagers, says that people from all walks of life and with different political views had come together for a common cause. “You cannot imagine the kind of fear that we were living with. The cattle were lifted by the tiger from thickly populated human habitats. The protests were a spontaneous expression of the public’s anger. In the process, some anti-socials might also have sneaked in. But that happens in every mass protest.” Taking a dig at the conservationists, he says that it is easy to romanticize as long as you are not bitten, in this case literally, by reality. “N. Badusha is a close friend of mine and I respect him a lot for what he has done. But, really, how far can you go? He says that it is wrong to say that the tiger ‘attacked’ the cattle, that we don’t say we ‘attacked’ a hen when we want to eat chicken. I wonder whether he would have said the same if cattle were his only source of livelihood and if a tiger had killed them.”

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Meanwhile, frantic to feed his hunger, NHT-243 kept pouncing on more cattle though he could take away his kill on only two occasions despite killing around twenty in a span of two weeks. Two cows and two goats were killed—from three different houses—on the night of November 20^th alone. People of Naykatti panchayat, where the tiger was on the prowl, endured sleepless, fearful nights; from temples and churches, loudspeakers blared out warnings against venturing out. Occasionally, they peeped through their windows, as much with fear as with hope.

In a desperate bid to save its face and to pacify the public, the forest department claimed that the present tiger was different from the one that was earlier released in the Dottakulasi forest area in Kerala-Karnataka border. News reports in the Hindu dated 23-11-2012 quote forest officials attributing the kills from November 17 to the presence of a different tiger. On 24-11-2012, Malayala Manorama carried a photograph of the alleged ‘second problem tiger.’ The claim, however, fell flat on ground zero when Wildlife Conservation Society-India, Centre for Wildlife Studies identified the second tiger as a male named Brahma that is currently held in Mysore zoo. Brahma was a problem tiger which was trapped in Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary’s fringes as far back as 5-4-2008.

As the panic peaked and the protests took a far more violent turn—“We will burn the forests. We will poison the lakes”—political parties too joined and started leading the chorus that called for the blood of NHT-243. “People are our primary concern”, said CPI (M) district Secretary C.K. Saseendran. “A tiger reserve is a cause of worry because it would involve relocation of tens of thousands of people”. I. C. Balakrishnan, Congress M.L.A representing the constituency of Sulthan Bathery lashed out against his own government. Addressing the huge gathering of protestors, M.I. Shanavas, Wayanad MP, proclaimed that the tiger will be killed. “There is no question of a tiger reserve in Wayanad. The propaganda is baseless. I am for the rights of the people than for the rights of animals. People’s lives have to be protected at any cost”  

On November 30, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy came down to Wayanad, and after a meeting with officials of various departments, representatives of local bodies, and parties, said that the government has no plan to set up a tiger reserve in Wayanad. He visited the three villages where NHT-243 had been roaming, and assured the action committee that the search operations for the tiger would continue till the animal was caught. After declaring that the government had decided to withdraw all cases registered against those in connection with the protests, the Chief Minister sensationally announced that he would personally take responsibility to protect the official who kills the tiger. “The policy of the government is to protect the wildlife, but it would not be at the cost of human lives.”

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In the meantime, the hunt for NHT-243 was being carried out on a wartime basis. A team of hundred, led by O.P. Kaler, furiously combed the jungles for the slinky tiger. A special task force from Mudumalai tiger reserve and an army of kumki elephants too joined the operation. On November 21, V Gopinath, Chief Wild Life Warden, ordered capturing of the tiger “by any means”. “Tranquilizers, traps and all other means to capture it alive will be tried before the last option—shooting—is attempted,” he said. (According to the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, the Chief Wild Life Warden is the only person designated to order the killing of a wild animal.)  Throughout its operations, the team was accompanied by a large mob. “It was a complete failure of law and order”, says N Badusha. “What would have happened if the tiger turned aggressive to the mob?” On November 22, the tiger was thrice spotted in Narikkolli, but since he was moving, he could not be tranquilized. The task was made even tougher by the lush undergrowth in the forest.

By the end of November, NHT-243 had moved from Naykatti to the adjacent panchayat Moolankave. On the morning of December 2, he was found in a private coffee estate at Thelampatta, and was subsequently cornered. At around 7.30, the veterinary surgeons of the team fired a ketamine (tranquilizer) shot at the tiger. As television channels flashed the news, people started flocking to the estate. The tiger had by now slinked into the estate. Chaos reigned as the search continued. The police could do nothing to prevent the mob from entering the estate. Around an hour later, the tiger was spotted again. When the second ketamine shot was administered, he threatened to pounce, upon which one of the team members, C.R.Joseph shot him dead. “I had no other option”, he says. “If I had not killed it, it would have killed me. Or else the mob would have killed the tiger anyway.” According to a senior official of the team, the killing could certainly have been avoided if the police had managed the mob better or if 144 was declared. “Ketamine shots take a while to have an effect. But the animal can be managed during this time. If not for the mob, we could have certainly tranquilized it.”

For a tiger that had terrorized a region for almost a month, his end was bereft of any theatre. There was no spectacular last-ditch fightback. All it took was one bullet, and the death was instant. According to eye witnesses, he merely wagged his tail thrice. NHT-243 had his last meal on November 23, 2012, nine days before his death.

Post Script:

The investigation done by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on the killing of NHT-243 has implicated the officials. NTCA has recommended to the state government to take punitive action against the officials for ordering the hunting down of an animal enlisted in the Schedule 1 of the National Wildlife Act of 1972. The Congress and the CPI (M) have since the incident reiterated that a tiger reserve would not be welcome in Wayanad. Mar Joseph Porunnedam, bishop of Mananthavady diocese of Syro Malabar Church issued a pastoral letter on December 4 which said that “the people of the Wayanad district, which constitute the majority of the areas under the diocese, are living in fear of the tiger. The noble cause of environment protection is getting diverted and has drifted away from the ultimate aim of protecting human beings, due to the vested interests of certain sections. This will lead to violence and chaos.” On December 13, a petition was filed in the Kerala High Court seeking a CBI probe into the killing. On December 14, the Kerala High Court sought an explanation from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on the petition.

 

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