Kerala’s Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha on Thursday called off its 162-day-old indefinite ‘standing stir’ at the gates of the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram after the Government accepted all its demands.
Celebrations broke out at the Secretariat gates with Adivasis performing dances with drum beats accompaniment as Mahasabha leader M Geethanandan read out a copy of the minutes of the Government decision to honour all the 16 demands they had put forward. The Adivasis ended their agitation formally with a Gothra Pooja.
The decision to call the stir off was taken on Wednesday itself after the State Cabinet decided to accept the demands of the Adivasis. The Mahasabha had been raising the demands concerned with the basic needs of the tribespeople including land to live on and cultivate for the past one decade.
As per the formula worked out between the Mahasabha and the Government, 7,693 hectare of vested forest land would be allotted to the Adivasis and the provision of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) would be implemented in areas where 100 per cent of the population is constituted by Adivasis.
The Government would allot one acre of land each to the 447 Adivasi families who were evicted following the 2003 Muthanga agitation. Each of these families would be given a financial assistance of Rs 2,50,000 for constructing houses. Mahasabha leader CK Janu said that the decisions taken by the Government over the issue were “revolutionary”.
The Government also decided to allot an amount of Rs 1,00,000 each to the children who had gone to prison following the police firing on agitating Adivasis in Muthanga in February, 2003.