Muthanga eviction was a bid to crush Adivasi movement: Activist Geethanandan
The 2003 Muthanga land agitation remains one of the most significant chapters in Kerala’s Adivasi rights movement. The land struggle, which culminated in a violent confrontation inside the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary in Wayanad, resulted in the deaths of police constable K.V. Vinod and Adivasi community member Yogi (Jogi). More than two decades later, the political and legal ramifications continue to resonate.
Last month, a court in Kalpetta acquitted all those accused in the murder case of constable Vinod. However, it sentenced social activist and State coordinator of the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha (AGMS), M. Geethanandan, and three others to five years of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to murder another police officer. Geethanandan, who was granted bail after the Kerala High Court suspended his sentence, spoke to The Hindu about the struggle, the long legal battle, and the challenges facing tribal communities.
Asked about the significance of the case after 23 years of legal proceedings, Geethanandan acknowledged a positive aspect: the court referred to the Adivasis and described the Muthanga agitation as part of their struggle for freedom. However, he argued that the prolonged trial failed to address the broader social, historical, and political context of the agitation.
Geethanandan recalled that the 2003 stir was the culmination of a two-decade-long Adivasi struggle. Earlier negotiations with the then United Democratic Front (UDF) government, led by Chief Minister A.K. Antony, resulted in an agreement and a rehabilitation package in 2001 to provide land to landless Adivasis through the Tribal Resettlement and Development Mission. When the agreement was not properly implemented, he said, the Adivasis launched the Muthanga land occupation as a form of protest.
Following the agitation, land was distributed to several Adivasi families under the package, and the programme for providing land to the landless continues. But Geethanandan contends that this broader context and the long-standing struggle for land were not adequately addressed in the trial. Instead, the case was largely treated as a criminal matter against those who participated in the protest, leaving the wider social and political dimensions unaddressed.
On the police action during the eviction, Geethanandan alleged that the suppression of the Muthanga agitation was a “horrific form of persecution” of a vulnerable and unarmed community. He claimed the entire State machinery, particularly the police, was mobilised to crush the movement, while misleading police accounts and sections of the media helped isolate the Adivasis and obscure the violence. The majority of protesters belonged to some of the most marginalised indigenous communities, he noted.
Geethanandan described the police operation as marked by indiscriminate violence and brutality, including against women and children, several of whom sustained severe injuries. He asserted that the police used disproportionate force, including revolvers and rifles, against people who could easily have been arrested. While he declined to say whether then Chief Minister A.K. Antony personally ordered the action, he maintained that the State machinery clearly acted to ensure the movement was rooted out.
He also pointed to the response of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which, acting on a complaint by social activist Nirmala Deshpande, ordered a detailed independent inquiry, preferably by the CBI. However, the State also handed over six criminal cases against protesters to the CBI, even though the activists had not sought such a probe. This, in his view, made an independent inquiry impossible.
The Muthanga case remains a deeply contested chapter in Kerala’s history. While the courts have delivered verdicts on individual criminal charges, the larger questions of land rights, state power, and the treatment of indigenous communities continue to provoke debate.
