Tamil Nadu: A vote against corruption

Jayalalitha’s challenge lies in taking ahead the development and welfare schemes of DMK government with corruption-free administration.

New Delhi:

J Jayalalitha’s landslide victory in Tamil Nadu assembly election should be mainly attributed to a major scheme of her rival DMK government.

During his tenure DMK patron Karunanidhi made sure that every household in the state possesses a television set. The ‘idiot box’ was given free of cost to the families in the slums, dalit-colonies and tribal-belts, including the ones who didn’t even have electricity connection at their house.

Now the same TVs spread the news of 2G scam from village to village in the state- the picture of DMK minister A Raja being dragged to jail and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi being forced to courts.

Until the 2G scam erupted, Jayalalitha and her party AIADMK had never had the prospect of even giving a good fight in the election. The only question heard in the Tamil Nadu politics was about who will be the successor of Karunanidhi- whether anna (elder brother) Azhagiri or thambi (younger brother) Stalin?

With new industries, high-ways and beautifications (Beautiful Chennai- a project worth crores), Tamil Nadu was shining under the DMK rule. A clamouring rural Tamil Nadu was put into silence with freebies of free TVs, free bicycles, rupees-one-a-kg-rice etc. The state had become second in the raw of states with the maximum number of SEZs in the country. The kind of development brought by the DMK government in the state was unprecedented. The opening of a new state-of-the-art assembly complex and the grand Tamil Conference had instilled pride and hope in the minds of average Tamilians.

But, with 2G, Tamil Nadu was awakened into something which they had realized before but never tried to put in momentum- the autocracy of the first family. The youth and the first-time voters, who are believed to have contributed largely to the unprecedented poll percentage in the election this time, took the ire forward and reduced the DMK and its allies to a mere share of 31 seats while shouldering AIADMK and allies with 203 seats. DMK couldn’t even score the number of seats achieved by 2006 formed DMDK, led by actor Vijayakant.

Jayalalitha, however, is not seen as corrupt-free. But, given the scale of DMK’s corruption, she is seen as less-dangerous at this moment. Her life being a single woman might have had a psychological impact among the voters to assert this point. Her challenge, therefore, lies in taking ahead the development and welfare schemes of the DMK government with corruption-free administration.

Mysteries behind Tamil Nadu’s growing number of police encounter killings

 See the original post on my personal website

Last updated on April 9, 2010

When Veerappan, the notorious forest brigand, and his three associates were gunned down by police in the dark hours of October 18, 2004, there was popular support for the police action. Yet in the following years there has been some discontent in the civil society over the alarming increase in the number of encounter killings by the police. Since the Veerappan encounter, about 40 cases of encounter killings have been reported in the State. And in 2010 alone, five such cases - four men got killed in February and one in March – were reported in the media.

Are these genuine encounters as the police claim - opening fire in self-defence when criminals fire at them? Or, are these the cases of custodial deaths being disguised as encounter deaths? Or, is it a new strategy of police to gun down criminals in extra judicial executions to maintain “law and order”?

The victim-families’ versions of the ‘story’ raise serious doubts about the claim of encounter killings. In an investigation conducted by this reporter, top police officers in the State and the high officials in the State Human Rights Commission either evaded the questions about the loopholes in the police version or simply refused to respond. 

There is no magisterial inquiry held in any of these cases abided by the National Human Rights Commission’s revised guidelines on encounter deaths in December, 2003. It had ordered to have ‘the next of kin of the deceased to be invariably associated in the inquiry.’ 

Natarajan’s case

Natarajan, 23, was allegedly shot dead in the early hours of March 26 near the Padunelli check-post in Kancheepuram district, about 100 kilometres from Chennai. The police claimed that Natarajan tried to attack them with lethal weapons and hurled petrol bombs damaging a jeep while trying to stop the motorcycle he was riding. They opened fire in self-defence and shot him dead.

However, Natarajan’s mother, Bhamavati, and sister, Vanaja, are suspicious about this police-version. They said that Natarajan was released from jail in 2008. “After that he had been living in his room at Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (which is a few kilometres away from their house at BRN Garden, Broadway, Chennai). There was no case pending against him and he had even visited us just three days before his death, on March 23,” said Natarajan’s sister.

“I had spoken to my son over phone even in the night before he got killed,” asserted Natarajan’s mother. “He had called me on phone at around 9 O’clock that night and had told me that he was calling from his room at Thiru Vi Ka Nagar. Nothing was apprehensive in his voice. But the next morning we saw on TV at 7 O’clock that police have killed my son in an encounter. It said that he was killed in Kancheepuram at 3 O’ clock in the morning. But, I see no possibility of him going to Kancheepuram that night after talking to me a few hours ago,” she added.

Though the family had rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital in Kancheepuram, they were not allowed to see the body till the RDO came to the hospital and gave them permission. “Post-mortem was already conducted before we reached the hospital,” said Vanaja. “There were marks of bullets on the hip, right-arm and on both left and right sides of the chest. One bullet was penetrated through the stomach. Also there was a circle of stab marks on the stomach. He was badly hit on his mouth. If it was an encounter, how come there was this kind of torture on his body? Suspecting the claim of the encounter, we insisted on conducting the post-mortem again. The police had not taken our signature for the first post-mortem. However, they refused to conduct it again,” she said.

“Initially we refused to take the body until another post-mortem is done. But the police threatened to dump the body here if we didn’t receive it. They offered us money and gave Rs. 50,000 to Natarajan’s father. Finally, we couldn’t stand the threat and we had to receive and bury the body without a second post-mortem,” said Bhamavati.

‘Dindigul’ Pandi and Guduvancheri Velu

A month before Natarajan’s death, the police had shot dead two men in the outskirts of Chennai in a chilling encounter story which made headlines in the local media and created a furore in the city. 

Pandi alias ‘Dindigul’ Pandi (42), and his associate Guduvancheri Velu (34) were allegedly at shot dead at Neelankarai on February 8.

According to the police, a police party had chased the vehicle in which Pandi and Velu were traveling and before they could stop the vehicle and apprehend the two, the duo allegedly opened fire from country-made pistol and threw explosives and tried to attack with an ‘aruval’. In self-defence, yet again the police opened fire which killed the two.

The kin of the victims are however emphatic that it was a fake encounter killing. Pandi’s nephew, Elangovan (18), and cousin brothers, Vaidya Nathan (45) and S. Vijay (26), re-visited the encounter spot at 10th Avenue, Sea Shore town, Neelankari with this reporter and explained the loopholes in the police version. 

“This was clearly a staged encounter,” said Elangovan. “Pandi and Velu were arrested at around 9 O’clock in the night before their death from their temporary bungalow in Erode. They were five people living in that bungalow during those days. Kattai Raja, Pandi’s associate, had witnessed this arrest as he was there on the spot. Raja could manage to escape from the police. However, now he is in the Vellore jail. It is mysterious that what circumstances led the police to kill them the very next day of their arrest,” he said.

Though the incident occurred in the broad daylight there is no single witness to the whole drama of encounter. Elangovan showed how impossible is it for a Tata Sumo car to take a U-turn from the right side, as the police claimed, and block the Scorpio car they were chasing. “See the narrowness of this road in its right side, do you think that it is possible at all for the Tata Sumo of the police to overtake the Scorpio Pandi and Velu said to have travelled from the right side of this road?” asked Elangovan. “If it did cross from the right, then it would have clashed with the Scorpio and there should have been bigger damage to the Scorpio than the police had shown,” he added 

“Besides that, importantly, the corpse of Pandi had smelled of a strong decay, when his mother and family saw it in the hospital mortuary on February 9. This indicated that Pandi had been dead for longer than the police reported time of death of February 8 at 3 p.m,” pointed out Vaidya Nathan. “Later, when the family wanted to bury Pandi’s body near the tomb of his brother, the police didn’t allow us for that. They compelled us to cremate the body, instead. Also, it was suspicious of them for unnecessarily hastening the cremation. They got the cremation ground at Arumbakkam opened at 10:30 in the night which otherwise closes at 6 in the evening. They, also, didn’t allow us to take the body for homage to Pandi’s sister’s house on the way to the cremation ground,” he added.

“We suspect it to be a custodial death which the police staged as an encounter killing. Pandi’s mother has filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking a judicial inquiry of custodial death of Pandi. We hope truth will come out one day,” said Vijay. 

Other Cases

Besides the cases which made headlines, human rights organizations have documented a few other cases of encounter killings. 

Gopi, who was killed on november 16, 2008, was in custody on the day of his death.  ‘Two days before his death he had called his mother and sister and had told that he was in police custody,’ the petition stated. He had told them that even god can’t save him then; that he was going to be killed by the police. Gopi’s mother, pappathi, and sister, Poornima, had explained this in an interview to the daily, Malai Malar, three days after his death.

In the case of Vellai Ravi who was killed along with his associate Gunasekharan on August 1, 2008, was acquitted of all charges in the cases against him by a special court in 2003. The super intent of police had sent a verification report to his family in 2009 certifying that according to the Bellari District Police records Guna was not involved in any criminal cases from January 1, 1995 until his death.

Manal Medu Sankar was killed in an encounter on February 6, 2007, while being taken by police to Madhurai from a hearing in Nagai. He was killed by police despite of his father’s petition in the Supreme Court apprehending his son’s murder by police and the subsequent order by the Court that Sankar be given police protection. 

Similarly, on April 1, 2008 at 12.30 AM, Mithun Chakravarthi was arrested in Chennai and Mithun’s mother sent a telegram to several authorities on 2.4.2008 at 11:50 am, including SHRC, District Collector of Thanjavur, and Chief Justice of Madras High Court that a fake encounter was being planned against her son. Despite all these, Mithun Chakravarthi was shot dead by police the very next day.

Public Interest Litigation

The spate of encounter killings did evoke a response from human rights organizations. Besides a few press releases issued to condemn the fake encounter killings and demanding probe into them, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the Madras High Court. The petitioner, Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director of People’s Watch, a human rights organisaton, sought a judicial commission headed by a retired High Court judge to probe the ‘encounter deaths’ in the State

The court documents relating to the case, which was accessed by this reporter, documented cases of encounter deaths in the State. The petitioner said that the orgainsation has been monitoring encounter killings in the State since the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued its revised guidelines to the state governments on encounter killings. 

“As per the NHRC guideline, every case of ‘encounter’ death requires registration of FIR as murder. The onus of proof is on the police to prove that the killing occurred in self-defence during the course of trial or investigation. However, the police do not register FIR against the concerned police officer in such cases in the State. Moreover, it is seen that they are going to the extend of naming peple and getting them shot, which clearly shows these are not the cases of shooting for self defence,” said Mr. Tiphange. He also questioned the police and the government for giving gallantry awards to the police officers who conducted encounter killing before they prove the claim of the encounter. “It violates the NHRC guideline,” he said. 

The petition illustrates case studies of suspected fake encounters. It said that there were excess torture and abuse on the body of Marimuthu who was killed on January 13, 2007. Skin was missing and torn on his arms and legs. There were severe burns on his arms and thighs and singes on his beard. Also, there was blood on his mouth and the flesh on his cheek was torn. The report states that all these things had no explanation by the police. Marimuthu’s parents had deposed before the RDO that his was a planned murder.

Similar response from Police and Human Rights Commission 

Both National and State Human Rights Commissions are included as respondents in the petition filed by People’s Watch. “Human Rights Commissions have not taken any suo moto action against the State and the police department for not following its own guidelines,” said Mr. Thiphange. However, when approached by this reporter, officers in the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission refused to talk anything on encounter killings.

Though the Tamil Nadu Director General of police Letika Saran agreed for an interview, she however refused to discuss any individual case. She denied the allegations of any staged encounter deaths. She further said, “The complaint against the police has been referred to the executive magistrate for inquiry. Wherever the inquiry brings out faults of police, prosecution action will be taken (against those officers).”

Meanwhile, a signature campaign has been launched by the Committee Against Fake Encounters in Chennai. “Already 50,000 signatures have been collected, we will collect total one lakh signatures for the campaign,” said A. Marx, president of the committee.

In 2009, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had found that the killing of Suresh alias Sura of Vyasarpadi was a fake encounter by the police. It took almost seven years for NHRC to find the truth and order the State government to pay a relief of Rs. 3 lakh to the family of the victim.

We don’t want money but we want to know the truth, how Pandi was killed?” said Dindigul Pandi’s nephew, Elangovan. Natarajan’s mother, Bhamavati said it in tears, “If my son had done anything wrong, put him in jail.” She didn’t ask to kill those who killed her son. “Find the murderers of my son and put them in jail,” she pleaded as she keeps faith in the judicial system. If the police of the State do not believe in the judicial system, they can learn from this mother who is bereaved of her son killed extra judicially.

Scars of rehabilitation

Chennai is fast becoming beautiful. But who is paying the price ?

Last updated on 10 February

originally published in ACJ NEWSLINE 

    Chennai: Arun Kumar (name changed), a Std 10 student at MCC Higher Secondary School was not too sure he wanted his photograph taken. Eating on the pavement with his family, he implored:  “Please sir, please don’t take my photo. If other students of my school see me like this, then I won’t be able to go to school again.” Arun Kumar is one of the many school going children who were evicted from the slums in the city. Their families had been living in there for a long while, and had been relocated (‘rehabilitated,’ being the official term) to an area where they had not wanted to go.

    He was still in his school uniform on the pavement of the Choolaimedu Bridge across the River Cooum at dusk. His mother, Arul Mani, was insisting that he finish his meal so that they could return to the Semmanchery slum rehabilitation centre where they were put up. “Though our houses have been demolished and though we have been relocated at Semmanchery, we still live here most of our time. If someone is going for a ‘court stay’ on the eviction, I will be the first to join them,” said an angry Arul Mani.

    The rehabilitation centre is about 40 kms away from their earlier house in Jyotiyammal Nagar. Arun’s school starts at 8:30 in the morning and from Semmanchery, he can never manage to reach school on time. “I get scolded by my teacher everyday for this. The principal asked me to take a TC and leave the school if I repeatedly arrived late,” complained Arun. “My school was only 1km away from my house. I reach the new house very late in the night. So my mother chooses to serve me dinner on the pavement near our old house and we return home together after that.”

    Jyotiyammal Nagar and Mukastaling Nagar, situated along the bank of the River Cooum on both sides of the Choolaimedu Bridge, were home for about 3,000 and 2,000 families respectively. Three months ago, both the slums were demolished in the name of the “Cooum Cleaning” project.

    As a consequence, small makeshift tents of the homeless families came up on the pavements on both sides of the Choolaimedu Bridge. Families from Jyotiyammal Nagar had occupied the left side pavement of the bridge and those from Mukastaling Nagar the right side. “We are 20 families living here on the bridge. Other families who didn’t get houses at the rehabilitation centre stayed in rented huts in the nearby colonies. Families, relegated to the pavement, are the ones who can’t afford the rent amount,” Rajkumar, an auto-driver living in one of those tents with his family had told on my last visit on December 23, last year.

    Now the bridge has been cleared of those plastic tents. But some families including old men, women and school going children, still live there. They belonged to the group left out of the rehabilitation process for not having identification proofs.

    “Some 20 days ago police destroyed all the tents and asked us to leave the pavements. But we had no other place to go. And nobody here knows where the others have gone,” said one man living there. They were denied new houses as they had lost their ration cards when the river had reached their huts during the last monsoon.

    The Choolaimedu Bridge group and the people lingering in makeshift huts is a precursor to the larger issues involved in the slum eviction-rehabilitation processes in the city. The whole idea of singara (beautiful) Chennai, a term coined by M.K Stalin while he was the Mayor of the city, has affected more than one lakh families living in slums. The slum rehabilitation centres in the city constructed by the State Slum Clearance Board have no proper facilities for water, electricity or medical coverage. Since the rehabilitation centres are far away from the places where they used to live, the squatters find it difficult to find jobs in such new areas. Students suffer the worst as they have to travel a long distance to reach their school from their new homes.

    Meghanathan, a young man from Jyotiyammal Nagar recalled how Deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin had talked on TV so passionately about singara Chennai. “He (Stalin) said that there won’t be any more huts in the city which look so odd. He also said that all of those huts will be cleared off within some more years,” said Meghanathan. “The City will become beautiful but we are the scars,” he added heaving a sigh.

Let’s set all these slums on fire

Chennai slums are under the threat of frequent fire accidents. Where does the fire break out from? Travelling through the Chennai slums...

Chennai, February 4: One month passed after the calendar turned and a new decade began. The year that passed left no sign of hope for Chennai’s slum-dwellers. The year 2009 instilled a new fear in their minds; of fire breaking out from unknown sources which reduces their huts, and lives, to ashes.

According to the register of Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services (data from January 2009 up to December 2009 for the Chennai city alone, collected from the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services Control Room, Egmore, Chennai), of 263 cases of fire accidents (out of which some were in fishermen’s settlements) in slums, 691 huts were destroyed which caused a loss of over Rs. 50 lakhs. There is no information on the number of deaths except that in the cases of “accidents” at Sheela Nagar, Madippakkam where three of a four-member family were burnt to death and at Mandapam road, Kiruppakkam where a 12-year-old girl died.

The register has no record of five deaths in the accident at JJ Nagar, Korukkuppettai or the case of one death at Ponnusami Nagar, Perambur; both of which were reported by the media. Also it is mentioned only as “so many huts” for the number of huts destroyed in the cases of major accidents at JJ Nagar, Ponnusami Nagar, Adambakkam, Tachinamkutham, SS Nagar and many where. In the register it is shown only 75 huts been destroyed in SS Nagar, Vyasarpadi, where there were media reports showing it to be more than 200 huts. The estimate of loss of properties is way off the actual loss.

There is no separate register for the fire accidents in slums or any focused attention to the unprecedented increase in the number of such cases. An additional reading of the increasing number of huts demolished or families evacuated from the slums in the city brings the missing parts to form the full canvas of the issue. The politics of negligence in this case is clearly the politics of eviction and extinction.

Sirumbai (55), who lives in Gandhi Nagar, Perungudi had lost her hut in a fire accident at the colony on September 23. She is the only bread-winner in her four-member family. After the hut got destroyed by the fire she has managed to get another hut for rent in the same colony. “It will cost a minimum of Rs. 30,000 to build a new hut. Where can I get that much amount?” she grieved. All 50 families who lost their huts and other properties got only Rs.2,000 each as compensation by the government.

Panjali, another woman in the same colony, says that her younger brother was severely injured and lost his leg by the fire and it took more than Rs. 15,000 for his medical expenses. Those like Panjali’s family who had been staying in rented huts were not paid the compensation. “We don’t have anything, not even a hut. But we have not been given anything,” said Panjali.

Pazhaniyamma, a puttu (steam cake) vendor who lives in Awaipuram lost her hut by a fire accident in their colony on May 25 which burnt more than 200 huts in the area. She got a loan of rupees one lakh from a local money lender with a high interest rate to rebuild her hut.  She says mockingly, “The compensation amount was sufficient only for five days’ food for the family.”

The families who lost their huts also lost their valuable documents including ration cards. Therefore, they are unable to buy the one-rupee-a-kilo rice from the local PDS ration shop. “We have applied for new ration cards just days after the accident. But months after, the authority pays no attention to it.”- says one of the victims.

The loss of ration card and other certificates leaves no proof for their identity or existence. Most of the slums which caught major fire accidents were listed to be evacuated by the government for various ‘developmental’ purposes such as bridges, fly-over, road widening and so on.

The slum in Shenoy Nagar was listed to be evacuated for a flyover to be constructed on the site along the Cooem river. The fire broke out here on the same day that the authorities fixed as the deadline for the families there to vacate the huts. “None of us still know the source of fire which broke out at around 4 O’clock in the evening,” said Pazhaniyamma from the place. Anushya (47), who has been living in the colony for over 27 years said, “They (officials) had come here three days before the accident and threatened us to vacate the place in three days. It was on a Saturday they had come here and the fire had broken out exactly three days after, on Monday”

A boy from the colony showed me the deserted river bank where numerous huts stood before they were razed to the ground. Only five-six families have managed to rebuild their huts there by taking loans from local money lenders. Those who could not afford to it have moved to rented huts in the nearby colonies. Srinivasan from the colony said, “Even if they (the government) construct the fly-over here, we won’t get any new houses (at the rehabilitation centre or else where) since they are not demolishing our huts. They would say that our huts are not destroyed by them. It seems that the fire was a boon to them.”

A fact finding team of concerned citizens had found that in MGR Nagar, Nandambakkam authorities had placed boards at the accident site days after the mishap saying not to rebuild houses there. They had created fences there in order to prevent the victims enter the site again. “After the accidents, the victims at many places were forcibly displaced to other places where they were not willing to go,” said A Marx, the state organiser of the People’s Union for Human Rights and one of the members of the fact-finding team.

Santi, a flower seller, who lives in Perungudi showed the interiors of her small hut behind the railway station here. A single room and a kitchen roofed by coconut leaves, there live Santi with her husband and sister. One has to bow head inside the hut not to hit on the ceiling. There is little space left for anything as their belongings swell out from their positions. The kitchen is enmeshed with electricity wires leaving a high possibility for short-circuit. The kerosene stove is placed at a platform just one metre below the roof. A tiny lamp was still flaming before a small Pillaiyarar idol placed at an arrangement for prayers in a corner of the room.

A George, a fire officer in the city says that there are incidents when rats take these kinds of small lamps to the roof of the huts which causes fire accidents in slums. Does Santi know that even the rat is a part of this society which looks down upon slums and murmurs, “Let’s set all these slums on fire?”

** Postscript: Pazhaniyamma, a victim of the fire accident at Shenoy Nagar, said that she and her family are ready to go to any where else if the government is asking them to vacate the colony. She said that they simply can’t survive such fire accidents which take along every thing they have. But eviction-rehabilitation process is yet another story.

In ‘Kanavu’, dreams take shape

‘Kanavu’, a creative school for tribal children in a remote village called Chengode in Wayanad was conceived by K.J. Baby, a well known Malayalam littérateur and playwright, way back in 1994. It is now an institution run by his former students.Tracking its dream-run during the last two years under the new administration.                                                            - Photo: PT Thufail

Manantawady, January 10: Nearly seven years after, once again I travelled up the dream mountain to meet the children of dream (Kanavu). The creative school for the tribal children in a village called Changode was a dream weaved and fulfilled by the famous Malayalam literateaure and playwright KJ Baby. As an eighth standard student, it was these students here whom I had looked upon most enviously when I was taken to Kanavu as part of a camp organised by Civic Chandran, an ex-naxal, thinker and a poet. And it was here I realised the true meaning of education.

Years later, Kanavu (means dream) has not changed much, except that the wooden bridge across the small river behind the school is now concrete. The foot prints of deer still remained on the banks of the river as if it has survived the age. Chathi, Leela, Chipran and the other students there had grown up. I could hardly remember their names, but I tried to trace the memory of their visages, at least. The patron of the school Baby Mama, as he was called affectionately, is no longer with the school. As he had promised them, two years ago he had handed over the complete administration of Kanavu to its elder students, though he and his wife Sherley, who lived most of their life with these children, occasionally visit them and offer them advice and support.

“It felt as if the father was leaving home when Baby Mama told us that the time had come for us to run Kanavu,” recollected Leela, a student at Kanavu who now holds key responsibilities in the new administration. “It was also his dream to see Kanavu being run by its own students so that it survived after him. We are trying our level best to live up to his expectations,” she said.

The elders here, all of whom in their twenties, have taken up different responsibilities to handle. Leela takes care of public relations and guests. Food and kitchen management is the responsibility of Ammini. Chathi and Suresh are the programme coordinators. Santhosh looks after the small children while Mankulu is in-charge of the library and Saji holds the post of the advisory councilor.

“We had a hard time after the departure of Baby Mama in mid-2007,” said Chathi, another student here. “Finance was the biggest problem. Even when Baby Mama was with Kanavu, we never took donations from outsiders except when we felt their contribution was sincere and unconditional. For months, under our new administration, we ran short of funds. There was a shortage of people for our stage performances. Some of them left the school, some went away for further studies and some left after marriage. We could not afford to take any more new students in Kanavu.” he added.

The students in Kanavu have their own paddy, tapioca and vegetable farm for food. They also rear cattle in the backyard. However, since its inception, the major revenue for Kanavu has been drawn from their stage performances in various places.

Music, dance, agriculture,Kalaripayattu the martial art form of Kerala, pottery, tailoring and handicrafts were introduced in Kanavu by Baby as part of their education and curriculum. Baby believed that when one identified with rhythm, songs, proverbs and the soil, then they discovered their very selves. He wanted to create a group who loved each other and reached out to their next generation. Into their songs they filled the history of their land, the struggle for survival, the guerilla fights against the seafarers who invaded their forests, the passion and their virtue. Through their traditional dances to the tune of the thudi, a traditional musical instrument, they learnt to respect their culture and the self.

The students at Kanavu are taught to speak fluently in multiple languages; the different dialects of the adivasi communities which comprise Adiya, Paniya, Kuruma, Kurichya, Katunaikar and others, Malayalam and even English and in some cases, Hindi. They are no less than any other student of the state’s formal education system in terms of their knowledge of Mathematics, Science or the Social sciences. The children of Kanavu had the great opportunities of watching international films and even to work for the creation of a film of their own.

Kanavu has never followed a syllabus like the formal education system, and it still doesn’t. Those who are willing to pursue formal education have the choice of attending the open schools. Kanavu gives necessary assistance to such students.

Today there are 35 students in total. Unlike in the past, now the children are sent to the nearby school. “When Baby Mama was here we had teachers coming in who were his friends,” explained Chathi. But, now they are tutored by the elders after school. Thus the typical Kanavu days are restricted to Saturdays and Sundays for the children. The elders still follow the old Kanavu routine. The day begins with kalarippayattu, followed by cleaning of the school and its premises, breakfast, agricultural work in the field, handicrafts class and dance and music in the evening. Classes are conducted for the younger ones at night. Every day, before going to bed, plans are made for the next day.

Towards the end of last year, all the members of the Kanavu family, including those who left the school for further studies and for a family life, had a reunion at the school. In the meeting a broad plan of Kanavu activities were charted out for the year ahead. In the same month, they were booked for stage performances in cities outside the state, like Mumbai and Chennai. This year, they are on a new mission to get more such bookings. Also they have decided to conduct study camps for children including those of non-tribals.

They are not building castles in the air. In Kanavu dreams are becoming realities.

Poem OEDIPUS COMPLEX

Freud laughs from nowhere
I got trembled in my mother’s lap
Threw up, and I screamed:
“You bastard, what’s your business here?”
A giant Freudian shape
Stepped down to the darkness of the courtyard
Again on the stoop of my house
Mom went on running her fingers through my hair
Soon a war-horse stormed in to the battle field
Crushing the light hairs over my chest
I got a glimpse of the king Oedipus on it
Raising the sparking sword in his hand
That night before going to the bed
I burnt all the Freudian ghosts in the shelves
Yet while wooing the goddess of sleep
Freud again laughed from nowhere
Laughing louder like a heavy thunderbolt
Electrifying my body from the toe to the skull
Many times it stumbled my sleep
Each time I was startled
That the blanket smelled of my father’s blood

Poem GENEROSITY

I’ve never banged at;
Not even knocked!
Just loafed around;
And sometimes tried to peep in!
Yet she opened it for me;
The doors of her heart!
Where there was no room for me!!