Sunday, March 7, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Land Act did not help Dalits: critic

http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/07/stories/2010030752020300.htm

Kerala - Kalpetta

Land Act did not help Dalits: critic

A Correspondent

KALPETTA: K. Venu, social critic, has said that the land reforms Act
in Kerala did not help the marginalised sections of society, including
the tribal people and the Dalits.

Inaugurating a seminar on "Tribal people, their land and politics"
here on Saturday, Mr. Venu said that though the Act was able to
eradicate feudalism to an extent and liberate many tenants from
tenancy, the tribal people and the Dalits continued to face neglect in
being granted land. The reason for this was that many of them were not
tenants and hence did not come under the purview of the Act.

Mr. Venu said the successive governments did not take follow-up action
after the implementation of the Act. They could have helped these
marginalised people by finding surplus land and giving it to them, but
nobody cared about the basic issues of the tribal people and the
Dalits. The civil society and the governments became conscious of the
rights of the tribal people only after the Muthanga agitation.

He alleged that the political parties did not make any positive
attempts to solve the basic issues of the marginalised sections.
Finding surplus land possessed by private people in a time-bound
manner and distributing it among the tribal people were the only
possible ways to solve the issue. He said the basic problems of the
tribal people should be solved legally and the political parties
should have a policy to solve the problems of such marginalised
people.

'Untimely'

C.K. Janu, chairman, Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha, said the land
agitations launched under the aegis of the Communist Party of
India-Marxist (CPI-M) was untimely. Using the government machinery,
the party should find surplus land in the district and distribute it
to the tribal people. P.V. Rajagopal, National Land Reforms Committee
member and chairman, Ekatha Parishad, said the aspirations of the
middle class were wrongly considered the aspirations of India.
Cultural imperialism should not be imposed upon the tribal people. A
new cultural paradigm should be developed and the middle class should
press for the basic needs of the tribal people, he added.

C.K. Saseendran, CPI(M) district secretary, and M. Geethanandan,
leader, Rashtriya Mahasabha, spoke. The seminar was organised by the
Vartha Trust, a collective of journalists in the district.


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