Left high and dry in the Nilgiris Premium

More than 700 families, including Adivasis, were incentivised to leave the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in the Nilgiris as a part of a ‘golden handshake’ with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. But many of them complain of broken promises and abandonment, reports Rohan Premkumar 

On a hot afternoon in Cheppodu, an unhappy G. Maaran sits outside his mud house under a protruding thatched roof made of materials gathered from the forests. The old man owns a herd of goats, which stand bleating under a withered tree towering over his small house. Maaran used to live in Bennai, just a stone’s throw away, in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve of Tamil Nadu. Maaran says the Forest Department tried relocating him and other Adivasi families to areas outside the tiger reserve. But dissatisfied with what was promised to them, these families have moved from Bennai to Cheppodu, which is also in the reserve.

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Maaran is a member of the Kattunayakan tribe, an indigenous group who live in the forests of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Guldalur in the Nilgiris. The Kattunayakans, Irulas, Paniyas and Kurumbas were incentivised to leave the tiger reserve as a part of the ‘golden handshake’ agreement between the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and more than 700 families.

The agreement was formulated by the government after the Mountadden and Wayanadan Chetty communities obtained an order from the Madras High Court in 2007 seeking relocation away from the forest citing a lack of basic amenities. The Adivasis claim that the Chettys were inclined to relocate as they had no traditional ties to the forest, whereas the Adivasis do. They say they were either coerced into moving or misinformed about the benefits of relocation. The aim of the ‘golden handshake’ was to not just benefit the local communities inside the tiger reserve, but also aid conservation efforts.

The 701 families from 30 small hamlets were to be relocated in three phases, with each opting for a one-time payment of ₹10 lakh, or land and housing equivalent to the land they forfeited to the government. The first phase began in earnest only in 2017, a decade after the agreement. Till date, 569 families from the four Adivasi groups and the Mountadden and Wayanadan Chetty communities have been relocated, say officials from the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, while 132 families remain within the tiger reserve. A total of ₹66.19 crore has been sanctioned for the project.

Angry with the Department for “cheating them,” Maaran and 40 families from the Kattunayakan tribe from Bennai have once again built houses on the forest land. It is in this hut surrounded by goats that Maaran sits now.

“I thought I was being promised ₹10 lakh in cash, a house and land by the government. But in the end, I only got some money, not the full amount I was promised,” he says.