The hill district of Idukki appears to be heading for another bout of agitations against the backdrop of the Supreme Court declaring one km around protected forests as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZ).
The Highrange Samrakshana Samiti (HSS), an umbrella organisation of the Church formed to protect the rights of farmers, has announced its decision to launch a series agitations if the government is not taking steps to over rule the order through an amendment to land rules.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has announced a district-level hartal on Friday. The United Democratic Front (UDF) has announced a hartal on June 16.
While the LDF and the UDF blame each other for not taking any initiative for the cause of farmers, the HSS, which successfully launched a series of agitations in 2015, warns that the order will have far-reaching impact on farmers, who are already victims of wild animal raids.
According to Fr. Sebastian Kochupurackal, HSS general convener, the government owes the responsibility to protect the life and property of people. The order should immediately be nullified through an amendment to the rules in the Assembly. The State government should pressurise the Centre on the Western Ghats issue, which hangs like a sword of Damocles over farmers.
The HSS had fielded it’s candidate in the 2016 Lok Sabha elections and won with the support of the LDF in the traditionally UDF bastion. Though it had won considerable number of seats in the local body elections held later, it withdrew from the electoral scene and remained a pressure group for protecting the farmers’ cause in Idukki.
With a sizeable farming community in the district, both the LDF and UDF are keen on taking up their cause. While the LDF blames the former United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre led by the Congress for bringing the Western Ghats report, which sowed the seeds of the apex court order, the UDF blames the LDF for its apathy towards the issue leading to the ESZ order.
UDF district chairman S. Ashokan says the issue brought to light the double standards of the LDF. Though the LDF government convened an all-party meeting in 2019 and decided to amend the land rules, no decision had been taken even after it got a second term. The hartal is to protest the inaction of the LDF government, he says.
How the new order will affect the high range farmers is not clear as a large number of human habitations, towns, and farmlands come in the one km area of notified forests. Four national parks, three wildlife sanctuaries, including the Periyar Tiger Reserve, are in Idukki.
The vast stretch of the eastern side of the Western Ghats also comes under the district. The ESZ order is also bound to have a significant role in the protection of the environment of the Western Ghats as it is notified on the United Nations Heritage list.
