As Japan bank scheme that groomed Kerala’s tribals nears end, experts feel they may return to ganja farming.
Tribal women in Attappadi are doing what the police and the excise departments could not. They band themselves and raid illicit liquor dens, where their men trade the day’s wages for packetfuls of colourless brew named instantaneously after the effect they make on the guzzler. They extend the resistance to the hamlets forcing men rethink before crawling home like a Snake or a Spiderman. At least 111 women groups from 187 hamlets have proved to be a weapon against liquor, drugs and violence against women.
Women empowerment is a byproduct of the Rs 219.31 crore afforestation programme that brought back 13% of green cover to this tribal belt. The Attappadi Wasteland Comprehensive Environmental Conservation Project, funded by Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and implemented by Attappadi Hills Area Development Society (Ahads), has been a life support for the 745-square-km area.
At the fag end of the scheme — Japanese funding ends on March 2010 — uncertainty looms over tribal hamlets. Many fear Attappadi would go back to the days of forest felling, ganja farming and liquor brewing. While a major chunk of the Rs176.90 crore loan was used for afforestation and water conservation, only Rs2.33 crore went for human resources development and Rs17.61 lakh for income generation activities.
“The scheme empowered tribesmen,” says Vinod Kumar Uniyal, project director of Ahads. “They decide how to spend the money in their hamlets. They set up a nine-member committee in each hamlet to implement works, bought raw materials collected cheques and cashed it.” The works, apart from creating over 5 crore man days, have made shy tribesmen into efficient managers.
“We do all the work,” says Kali, the chairman of the hamlet development committee in Sambarkode. They have built houses for 56 families and a community hall. “Previous government schemes were implemented through contractors, who siphoned off the funds. Now we know how to do it and we don’t let anyone trick us.” A people who never bothered to save a paisa now deal with lakhs of rupees.
A literacy drive has been another tool of empowerment. All women — and some men — gather around a solar lantern after the day’s work in 120 hamlets. “I can read newspapers and name boards. I don’t know what I have achieved but it made me smart,” says Maruthi as she writes in her notebook. The custom-made literacy programme draws from tribal culture.
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