Peringammala, the state’s largest panchayat by area, that borders the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve has about 3,000 tribal people spread over 22 hamlets. (Even as the mob lynching of a starving tribesman in Attappadi roils Kerala, indigenous communities elsewhere are languishing in administrative apathy and social hostility. A look into the lesser-known fatalities plaguing tribal hamlets close to the state capital. This is the first part of a series.)
Kerala’s famed hill station hides everything that is wrong with the state. In Ponmudi’s shadow lies Peringammala, the state’s largest panchayat by area. The panchayat that borders the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve has about 3,000 tribal people spread over 22 hamlets.
Tribal communities in the panchayat could relate to the murder of Madhu in faraway Attappadi a week ago. Death is a constant presence in the tribal hamlets. As many as 27 youngsters have committed suicide in the tribal belt in the last six years. The tally goes up to 34 with the addition of seven people belonging to the Scheduled Castes.
Veena was among the seven lives snuffed out last year. The college student from the Kani community hanged herself in a tree close to her house in the Njaraneeli village on August 31. The immediate provocation seemed to be her parents’ admonition but the suicide points to a larger malady gripping the tribal community.
The suicide of the 17-year-old zoology student hit headlines and rocked the legislative assembly. Tribal welfare minister A K Balan visited the girl’s house and announced a slew of welfare measures that were never followed up.
Veena was the oldest daughter of Chithranandan Kani and Vasanthakumari. She studied up to the 12th standard in a government residential school close to her house. When she joined the Iqbal College at Peringammala, her parents rejoiced.
Veena's parents - Vasanthakumari and Chithranandan - and her brother SibinkumarVeena came close to a boy who accompanied her on her way to the college six kilometers away. When he gifted her a phone, her parents were not amused. She could not take it when her parents chided her.
The teenager’s knee-jerk reaction shattered the hopes of Vasanthakumari and Chithranandan, who had funded his children’s education by working as a manual laborer and a temporary watchman with the forest department.
Puzzling deaths
Ambili has a similar story to tell. The 42-year-old woman is still mourning her husband. Sreekumar, five years her senior, was found hanging from the roof of the goat pen one morning in July. Nobody knows why he took the extreme measure, except that he was drunk the previous evening.
The couple had married off their daughter. They were planning to gift her 80 cents of land they owned when Sreekumar ended his life. Ambili and her son Nandakumar are still shock.
Like Veena and Sreekumar, the other persons who had committed suicide had not left behind any clue. They were aged between 15 and 50. Some of them ended their lives for apparently silly reasons. The others did not have any reason at all.
(To be continued...)
Read more: Latest Kerala news
