OWN A SMALL PIECE OF LAND AND HOUSE AND BECOME A BOURGEOISIE IN KERALA

Kuttanad in Alapuzha District is the rice bowl of Kerala. Kuttanad has Holland for comparison. It is below sea level. Agriculture is the mainstay of  people here. Farmers toil hard for their livelihood. Paddy is cultivated extensively. It is a pleasure to walk through the paddy fields when the fields are green. The air is unpolluted. The oxygen rich air provides our lungs a satisfaction we get nowhere else. The scenic beauty invites us to revisit the locality and absorb nature’s bountiful gift to humanity again and again.

Water is essential for farming operations in Kuttanad.  The farmers welcome rains in Kuttanad as it blesses them with water. But the rains bring floods. The whole land mass becomes a sheet of water destroying all vegetation in its trail. Houses are flooded. People move on to relief camps when they can no longer stay in their dwellings.  Government steps into action. The flood affected is relocated to relief camps. They are fed by agencies of the Government. A majority continues to stay in their own houses that are flooded. Though it is fun for the children, the grown ups have a very hard time as the floods strike the rich and the poor alike. They find every thing washed off by the floods. The plants they have nurtured laboriously disappear into oblivion. They stare into the future with a vacant expression in their eyes. They know they would have to find plenty of hard cash to rebuild.

The Government steps in again. It provides special funds to the local bodies to distribute among the flood hit to restart their lives. People queue up at the local Panchayat Office first to obtain the blank forms and then again to submit the completed forms. The exalted officials take their own time to process the applications for distribution of the assistance the Government has graciously extended.

Like all the people in Kuttanad, Chacko had found himself at the receiving end when the floods came. He had 37 cents of land where he had his residence.  He had sold off his paddy field as he could no longer cultivate paddy economically. He had been employed in a private company till his retirement. As he received no pension from anywhere, he was surviving through income from his land. He had twenty coconut palms and the coconuts provided him the means of survival. He knew farming well and he had resorted to inter cropping on his plot. The products gave him an additional income. He never had much. He never complained.

This is a true story and Chacko is not an imagination. The only hitch is that Chacko cannot corroborate anywhere as he is history. The coconut palms had sustained him when he was alive. He had nurtured them well. The coconut palms bearing fruit were the envy of the neighbors and the passers by. He was well known in the locality as a successful coconut farmer. Procurers of the Central Coconut Research Facility at Krishnapuram, Kayamkulam were buying coconuts from him for raising quality seedlings at the farm. The Panchayat Officials had once invited Chacko to a function and had  honoured him with a Ponnada – Shawl – and a  cash award of Rs.500.00 recognizing him as the finest coconut farmer in the whole Panchayat.

The floods had washed off the plants - intercrops -  nurtured by Chacko. Like every one else he needed hard cash to restart his life. The eighty five year old gentleman had queued up at the Panchayat Office that was at quite a distance from his place to obtain and to submit the application for assistance from the Government.

The application did not find favour with the gentlemen who were doling out the Government's assistance.  Chacko learned to his dismay that he would not receive any thing as the highly politicized officials had rejected his application with the comment among themselves, “Chacko is a bourgeoisie and he cannot be extended any assistance from the Government. “

Chacko was devastated yet proud that 37 cents of land prone to flooding, a dilapidated house and 20 coconut palms had turned him a bourgeoisie.