What is the true story of the recently released film 'Pada'? Who is Ayyankalippada?
പട The film 'Pada' is based on the events that led to the capture of the then Collector WR Reddy in his chambers at the Palakkad Collectorate on October 4, 1996, 25 years ago.
Kallara Babu, Ajayan Mannoor, Kanhangad Ramesan and Vilayodi Sivankutty were the four persons who took the collector hostage. Their demand was to repeal the Tribal Land Amendment Act passed by the then cabinet.
In 1996, the then Nayanar government amended the Adivasi Land Act of 1975 to provide for the confiscation of encroached lands and the return of adivasi lands to them. However, the Nayanar government changed the year 1971 to 1986 and amended the law to allow land to be given elsewhere in lieu of tribal encroached land. Only Gowriamma opposed the amendment. Gowriamma then criticized it as the most reactionary bill since the formation of Kerala.
Four youths went to the Palakkad Collectorate to protest against the amendment and took the Collector hostage. Earlier, it was reported that the People's War Group in Andhra Pradesh had taken the collector hostage. It was reported that the group had guns, bombs and dynamites in their hands.
The Ayyankali troops had been observing Palakkad and the Collectorate for two weeks.
The Ayyankali activists entered the room of Collector WR Reddy under the guise of environmental activists. Several days before this, the team went to the Collector's office and searched for him.
The group took the opportunity after the Collector arrived at the office on October 4th. The sepoy informed the collector that environmental activists had come to see him and had come before. Following this he was allowed to enter the Collector's room. As soon as he entered the collector's room, Ramesan pointed his gun at his head. With this, the collector and all the employees of the collectorate panicked. Then all the people in the collector's chamber were thrown out and the door was slammed shut. Ajay Mannoor's firecracker exploded in the toilet as the police prepared to attack him with a gun outside. The blast shook the collectorate. With this the Collector's office came under the complete control of the Ayyankali army. Shivankutty tied the collector to the chair. Suddenly, the group took the collector hostage and tied him to a chair.
The main demands of the captives were to withdraw from the government's move to amend the Tribal Land Act and to inform how the Central and Kerala Tribal Funds are being utilized. He then contacted the Chief Secretary, the mediator and the Asianet News team in Kozhikode from the landline at the Collector's office. Meanwhile, the Collector was asked to call his wife and call the Chief Secretary to put pressure on the government for a discussion. Veerachandra Menon, a prominent criminal lawyer, was the mediator.
As soon as the news came out, people flocked to the Palakkad Collectorate. The news reached the national level.
The group arrived with the possibility of being killed or the strike lasting for days. They kept food, water and vitamin C pills in their bags to keep them going if the strike continued. The food consisted of cashews, dates, bread, biscuits and fruits. The group that ate these also gave it to the collector. He was not ready to accept at first but was lovingly compelled to eat.
The Ayyankalipada was originally intended to have human rights activist Mukundan C Menon as mediator. When the team came to know that he could not reach Palakkad within the stipulated time as he was in Thiruvananthapuram, they sought Justice VR Krishna Iyer as mediator. He was not in place either. Then Adv. The group was approaching Veerachandra Menon. After receiving the information, he reached Palakkad and met District Judge Rajappanachari. The two then proceeded to the Collector's Chamber for arbitration. The peace talks ended at 8.30 pm.
Eventually the government agreed to accept all the demands of the Ayyankali army. Ayyankalippada accepted the government's assurance that there would be no police case and released the collector at 9 pm.
Then Kallara Babu, a member of the group, read a statement aloud. ‘Our needs are very small. You must do justice to your constitution and the rule of law. The amendment to the Tribal Land Protection Act against human rights understandings should be repealed. We will use all our strength to resist this move to destroy the unity of the oppressed and protect your dirty system. For the last six hours we have been holding this regime with just a thread and these plastic pipes. This proves that all reactionaries are just paper tigers. That is what Mao said. '
The group decided to hold the collector hostage after several meetings since September 1996. The first suggestion generally raised was to gherao the Mannarkkad tehsildar. Later the form of the strike was changed. Later the aim was to take the Palakkad Deputy Collector hostage. Since his office was in a secluded place a short distance from the city, he abandoned the venture in view of the possibility of being easily subdued by the skepticism of the people. Then he reached the goal of being a Palakkad Collector.
The strike was postponed two or three times for a number of reasons, including the withdrawal of one of the first participants. The four members of the final group were assigned different tasks in advance. Kallara Babu was the political commissioner of the group. Ramesan is also the Army Commander.
The position of the Ayyankali army was to subdue the armed regime unarmed. This is the reason for coming to the position of counterfeit weapons. The fake weapons were made by Ramesan. The main weapon was a toy gun given to him by a friend in Bombay (Mumbai) when he returned home. The other is the 'bomb'. Make a small hole in the egg and remove the white and yolk and fill with sand. Then, the white yarn was applied to the top of the egg with fevicol and then twisted to form a bomb. PVC pipes are cut to a certain size and made of sand-like material called 'dynamite'. Wrap the red tape around the pipe and attach a few wires and put it in the battery box. A two-way switch was also attached to it.
The Ayyankalipada activists revealed that they used a toy gun, a threaded bomb and a PVC pipe to take the collector hostage. The four parted ways from there.
The next day, the police registered a case on the complaint of the collector. The case was registered on the basis of allegations of collusion between Ayyankalippada and the Collector.
The four participants in the action were in hiding after the incident. Ajayan Mannoor was the first to be arrested in the case. He was arrested in Muvattupuzha seven months after the incident. Within a year and a half, Vilayodi Shivan Kutty and Kanhangad Ramesan were arrested. Shivankutty was taken into custody from the venue of the South Indian Tribal Conference in Attappadi. Ramesan was arrested in Wayanad for carrying out political activities under the name of Akbar. Kallara Babu surrendered to the Palakkad court in 2010 after 14 years.
In the case, all three were convicted except Kallara Babu. The court sentenced him to 13 and a half years in prison. However, the court reduced the sentence to three and a half years in view of the purpose of the strike and the good behavior towards the collector. The sentence was reduced to one year on appeal by the three. They spent 113 days in jail for various periods. The case is still pending in court after 25 years.
Palakkad was the first agitation in Kerala to seize power. That is why the government was paralyzed. Perhaps that is why there was no other kind of intervention on the part of the police. If it was today, sometimes the situation would have changed. If the Central Army had come, the form and appearance of the struggle would have become a different history.
Another thing is that the time chosen for the strike was special. IKE Nayanar became the Chief Minister when he was not a member of the Legislative Assembly. He was preparing to contest the Thalassery by-election. The team calculated that the chances of a sudden police intervention were slim at that time.
The reason for choosing Palakkad itself for the struggle
This is because tribal land is the most alienated district. The districts from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram were inspected as to where the strike should be.
Another factor was the fact that Palakkad Collector WR Reddy was taking a very sympathetic approach to the problems of the adivasis.
As soon as he received the phone call from the Collectorate, Asianet correspondent K Jayachandran and cameraman KP Ramesan were returning to Palakkad in a car.
The Asianet team will reach the collectorate at 2 pm. The incident took place a year after Ramesh joined Asianet. The footage of the incident was broadcast in detail on a special program called 'Kannadi' two days later on Asianet. The delay was due to the fact that the tape had to be sent from Palakkad to the Asianet headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, edited and sent outside Kerala for uplinking. Asianet did not have an uplinking facility in Kerala at that time.
W. R. Reddy did not recognize Kallara Babu in court because he was not convicted. When the judge asked the collector who Babu was, he pointed to another accused Gopi who was with Babu. Babu was in a dull outfit and Gopi was in a good outfit including jeans. This is said to be the reason why the collector went astray. When asked by the judge if he was sure, the collector said yes. The judge laughed and asked Gopi his name. The collector said he did not remember when he said he was Gopi.
Only Ajay Mannur, the state secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), is currently active in revolutionary politics. Kallara Babu left the organization. Vilayodi Sivankutty, who is active in human rights work, is the Kerala Chapter President of the National Confederation of Human Rights Organization (NCHRO). All four still retain the energy of the struggle.
This incident caused the amendment of the tribal land law to be discussed among the people. Kunchacko Boban, Joju George, Vinayakan and Dileesh Pothen will play the lead roles in the film, which also stars Prakash Raj and Shine Tom Chacko.
The film features a script and characters that do full justice to the real events.
💢 tail piece
അയ്യAyyankalipada was the youth wing of the Communist Party of Kerala (KCP) formed by a section of activists after the dissolution of the CPI (M). The KCP leadership consisted of K Murali and Mundur Ravunni, who later became ideologues of the CPI Maoists. The KCP later merged with the CPI-ML Naxalite Bari. The party later merged with the CPI-Maoist, a party formed by the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) and the People's War Group. The operation of the Ayyankali army was later frozen due to organizational problems.
ട്ടEdited: Poor expatriate seeking knowledge✨
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