| During
the Maharajas' days in what is contemporary Kerala,
large tracts of land had been handed over on long leases
to private ''entrepreneurs'' for developing plantations.
The exact records of which bits of land were so handed
over are not available now; they probably were never
available even then. What is more, the private ''entrepreneurs''
have over the years encroached upon government land
that lay close to what was handed over to them, or even
lay inside the tracts handed over to them. As a result
there are a number of large plantations in Kerala today,
where the plantation owners' claims on the land they
assert as belonging to them are utterly dubious. And
because of the vexed legal status of these lands, the
land reform legislation in Kerala as enacted till now
has kept such lands, which are under the control of
plantation-owners, out of the purview of the land-ceiling
provisions.
The actual land covered by plantation crops moreover
is only a fraction of the land under the control of
the plantation owners, though even here the exact amount
of land covered by plantation crops is not known. Kerala
therefore is afflicted by two quite distinct problems:
first, a huge amount of land is occupied by a few plantation
owners, who have deliberately and willfully flouted
the conditions under which the land was made available
to them, namely that they should grow plantation crops
on them; and second, no record of how much they actually
have lease-titles over, how much they actually cultivate,
and how much they just occupy without cultivating, exists.
Since, notwithstanding the thorough-going land reforms,
there is still some residual landlessness and houselessness
in the state, a Study-Group appointed by the State Planning
Board under the last LDF government, had made a novel
suggestion. It had suggested arriving at the land under
cultivation in big plantations by taking the actual
employment on the pay-roll of such plantations, and
using a ''norm'', depending on the crop being cultivated,
to make an indirect estimate of the land actually used;
it had then recommended that the entire remaining land,
i.e. the excess of the land under the control of the
plantation-owners and what they are so estimated to
cultivate, should be taken away from them and distributed
among the landless, houseless poor, or used for some
other worthwhile social purpose by the government. While
this suggestion merits serious discussion, it certainly
underscored the fact that huge amounts of land in the
state were illegitimately occupied by a few big plantations,
not fulfilling the original purpose, of growing plantation
crops, for which it was leased to them by the Maharajas.
The plantation-owners however want to use this illegitimately
occupied land to build resorts, hotels and other such
real estate projects; and the Congress-led UDF government
has all along been supportive of their desire. Indeed
in 2005, the then UDF government had passed a legislation
permitting them to use up to five percent of the land
under their control for such other purposes, including
growing other crops (e.g. medicinal crops) and, of course,
real estate projects. But before Presidential assent
could be obtained for this piece of legislation, the
UDF lost the State Assembly election in 2006 and an
LDF government came to power. The LDF government requested
the President to withhold assent to this legislation;
and indeed Presidential assent was withheld throughout
the tenure of the LDF government.
But the proposal for converting the land under the control
of the existing plantation owners for building hotels
and tourist resorts never really died; and the argument
was often advanced even during the LDF tenure that such
projects would cross-subsidize the operation of the
plantations, so that the losses being made on the crop-production
side could be more than made up by these means. This
argument would be put forward by central ministers on
visits to the state (e.g. the then Commerce Minister
Jairam Ramesh in an official interaction with the CM);
and on more than one occasion by the Deputy Chairman
of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia,
when the Kerala government delegation led by the CM
came to discuss Annual Plan proposals with the Planning
Commission. But each time it was pointed out by the
LDF government that since the land under the control
of the plantation-owners was not legitimately theirs,
both because it contained substantial encroachments
on government land in addition to what the Maharajas
had leased to them, and also because, by not utilizing
all the land under their control for the purpose for
which they occupied it at all, they had violated the
original contract with the Maharajas, allowing such
five percent use for other purposes would ipso facto
legitimize their illegitimate land-occupation.
The matter had rested there until recently, when the
2005 enactment has received belated Presidential assent!
This of course would not have happened if pressure had
not been applied by the UDF government on the Centre
to make it happen. What it means however is scandalous:
it means doubly rewarding the big plantation owners,
first by legitimizing their illegal occupations, both
of the land they have encroached upon, and of the land
they occupy but do not use for the purpose for which
they are supposed to occupy it; and second by converting
these illegal occupations into a bonanza by building
hotels, tourist resorts and other real estate projects
on them.
Environmentalists have pointed out in addition that
given Kerala's fragile ecology, such constructions on
land that is necessarily at a height will have serious
deleterious consequences by obstructing water flow.
The UDF government of course claims that no new construction
will be undertaken and that tourists will be only allowed
to stay in the houses and buildings that already exist
on the plantations; but this is simply untrue. If that
was the only objective then there was no need for specific
legislation allowing the use of up to five percent of
plantation land for other purposes including tourism.
Besides, as already mentioned, the Central government
and the Planning Commission have always been pressing
the Kerala government to open up plantation land for
tourism and for building hotels for the purpose; so,
it is not just a matter of allowing a few stray tourists
to stay overnight in existing plantation buildings.
The other argument of the UDF government, namely that
this would help the workers, who would otherwise be
thrown out of work because of the closure of plantations
which are making unsustainable losses, is equally specious.
If up to five percent of plantation land is to used
for the cultivation of other crops in order to protect
the interests of the workers, then, to ensure that the
plantation-owners do not misuse this provision, the
plantation should itself be taken over by the government
to be run either as a public sector unit or as a cooperative
of the workers.
This has an additional advantage. In plantations run
by co-operatives, certain types of MGNREGS operations
are allowed, which would enable the workers to obtain
central government funds, and thereby either to supplement
their existing incomes through additional MGNREGS activities,
or to off-load some of the costs associated with plantation
work to the MGNREGS. There are already excellent examples
within Kerala itself of such extremely innovative ways
of making plantations viable by bringing them into the
cooperative sector and making use of MGNREGS support.
In such a case, even the need to convert five percent
of plantation land for other purposes for making the
plantation viable, would not arise. And even if such
conversion has to take place, in addition to MGNREGS
support, then at least it would be ensured, through
a take-over of plantations from existing owners and
their operation as co-operatives, that the beneficiaries
are the workers themselves, and not a bunch of plantation-owning
monopoly capitalists, whose entire history has been
one of defrauding the government to amass land illegally.
Chief Minister Oomen Chandy has claimed that the legislation
to allow the conversion of five percent of plantation
land for other purposes has the unanimous support of
the Plantation Labour Committee which has trade union
representatives on it, but this is totally untrue. No
trade union has supported the enactment of this legislation;
and the LDF government's opposition to it had evoked
no protests whatsoever from any trade union organization
of any complexion.
Given the extremely adverse land-man ratio in Kerala
on the one hand, and the thousands of acres of plantation
land lying idle on the other, and that too in the hilly
region of the state, plantation land constitutes prime
property, and is being eyed by the real estate mafia
in the state. The UDF government is playing into the
hands of this mafia.
There are already ecological guidelines in place in
the state against construction on the hills. This makes
the mafia's task that much more difficult. But if in
the name of ''making plantations viable'', ''defending
the jobs and livelihoods of the plantation workers'',
and ''overcoming the losses being incurred by the plantations'',
thousands of acres of hill-tracts could be converted
into valuable real estate or given over to highly profitable
hotel business, then the mafia would have succeeded
in its nefarious objective.
The proposed change is not just a minor matter. Kerala
has had a trajectory of egalitarian development which
is a beacon for the country as a whole and which has
attracted world-wide attention and admiration. An important
part of this trajectory is the extensive land reforms
undertaken in the state. The extension of these reforms
to the plantation sector has been under serious discussion
in the state for some time now. What the UDF law does
is to eliminate any scope for such an extension of land
reforms, to legitimize the land holdings of the big
plantation owners, to open up huge tracts of land for
the operation of the real estate mafia, and to thwart
any possibility of using the surplus land at the disposal
of the big plantation-owners for settling the remaining
houseless and landless households of the state. In short
it marks a complete change in the trajectory of Kerala's
development, from one of egalitarianism to one oriented
towards benefiting a handful of plantation and real
estate owners.
*
This article was originally published in the ''People's
Democracy'' 19th August 2012.
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