The Unnatural death of Nanjappan

Nanjappan a Govt. employ was found dead in the forest today(14-03-09). There are a very few Tribe people in Government jobs at Attappadi. Nanjappan was Head Clark in R.T.O. office at Palakkad and due to become Joint R.T.O. next month. He owned a house and a bit of land near Palakkad. Some who were interested in that house approached him to sell it. Since he refused to sell it and they made life impossible for him in that house, he left for his village fearing for his life and after three days found missing and now found his body in the forest. Police say that he committed suicide. But his relatives say that he would never commit suicide.
The interesting feature is that in Attappadi Tribe people are never get killed according to the Police. Either they commit suicide or die of over consuming alcohol or drugs. Always they register these deaths under the category of “unnatural death”. Thus we have one more unnatural death at Attappadi

BHAVANI - The life line of Attappadi

The River Bhavani is the life line of Attappadi. This river consists of three rivers they are Bhavani, Shiruvani and Kodengarapallam. This is the one of the three rivers in Kerala which flows eastward. Bhavani is the only water source at Attappadi. Before deforestation the river was full even during summer. But since deforestation reduced the forest cover from 85% to 23% there is hardly any water during summer. Now Attappadi is already experiencing drought. After the forest fire the Tribal settlements around these area are without water. Water sources have dried up with forest fire. Now Attappadi is looking forward to drought hit days.

Attappadi Burns

The forest in Attappadi was burning for last full week. Some anti social has put fire on it. They say that there is a nexus between forest guards and illicit liquor lobby. So when when there is a raid or quarrel between forest guard and some one fires the forest to take revenge on the forest department. What is astonishing is that not a culprit is booked so far though this is a regular feature and every year forest cover disappears so fast. This year there were two major fires. One destroyed over 500Hector forest (official report) and the second one was much bigger and engulfed wider area it should be around 2000 Hectors. No official reporting has come. The second fire is not even reported in the media, where as a fire which damaged 04 hectors of forest elsewhere was reported with prominence, this major fire went unnoticed. Since Attappadi is under developed area and tribe people are not able to pressurize the Government and they are not a political force, nobody cares for all these people or their environment. The tribe people are not organized to stop such happenings. The forest department does not have effective machinery to prevent fire or to put out when it happens. The first fire stopped burning itself after four days as if it was tired of doing so. After a weeks continuous burning a rain by grace put out the second fire.
The people who are responsible for these crimes are not booked so far and it looks that the department is not very much interested in it.

AADI

Attappadi Adivasi Developmental Initiatives is a concern of Kerala Jesuit Society.
The aim of it is the overall development of Adivasis (Tribes) in Attappadi. AADI engages in different works to fulfill it.
Higher Education – This is an area where we give special focus. Now there are many Tribal youth who have finished schooling and who do not know how to procced for higher education. Though there are a lot of Govt. schemes and financial support, most of the time they are not made use of by the Adivasis only because they do not know the procedure. So we give information and guide them in this field and accompany them through out the course.
We also guide them to choose courses which have higher scope in getting good jobs.
Non-Formal Technical Training – The youth between the age of 16 to 30 are school drop outs and illiterate or neoliterate and hold no certificate or skill they cannot go out in search of job when they have no job in Attappadi. Thus it some times will result in starvation and other social problems. So we have started technical training in the Tribal settlements. Thus the youth after their regular work attend theses classes and acquire a skill. As an experiment we have started Electrician course. There are 42 students attending the same. Now many have started to work in the near by villages as electricians and seven of them have got job as Electricians in Ernakulam, Kerala. They draw a starting salary of Rs.4500/- (Four thousand and Five hundred only) and accommodation.
The third area is organizing women and making them more productive and self relaent. We are in the process of training women in banana fiber extraction and production of articles using banana fiber. Also we will soon start training on tailoring, mushroom cultivation rabbit rearing,etc. to enhance the income. Women can work part time or any other free time for these works.

What is special to our approach is that we are going to the tribal settlements with training which they seem to appreciate well. The response to the programmes are very encouraging. We are looking forward to further expansion to more settlements with more programmes.