Residents of India’s Lakshadweep islands oppose BJP govt’s new draconian moves

[bhaigan]

A series of regulations proposed by an administrator belonging to India’s governing party in a set of islands in the Arabian Sea has caused widespread resentment and fear among its residents.

Lakshadweep is an idyllic archipelago of 36 islands – 10 of them inhabited – spread over a 32-square-kilometre area in the sea, about 200 km off the southwestern coast of the Indian Peninsula.

Residents in the smallest among India’s eight “Union Territories” (UTs), with a population of 65,000 people – 97 percent of them Muslims – are fearful of a series of moves by its right-wing administrator appointed by the federal government.

Praful Khoda Patel, who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is the first non-bureaucrat administrator of the Lakshadweep Islands. Patel once served as the home minister of Gujarat state when Modi was its chief minister.

Since he took over the Lakshadweep administration in December last year, Patel has pushed through a slew of new laws and regulations without consulting locally elected representatives in India’s only Muslim-majority territory apart from Indian-administered Kashmir.

Residents say the proposals threaten their livelihoods, land ownership, culture and even the fragile ecology of the tropical islands.

The controversial proposals range from a ban on beef, disqualification of people with more than two children who wish to contest the village council elections, to taking over land belonging to the locals for the purpose of development without safeguarding the interests of the landowners.

 

 

While the proposals are currently being considered by the federal home ministry, several opposition parties, including the Congress, are demanding they should be dropped and the 63-year-old administrator recalled.

Threats to land rights and jobs

The most controversial legislation introduced by Patel is the Draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021, which would allow the administration to acquire the land of residents to build highways, railway lines and other infrastructure projects.

There are plans to build roads “as wide as 15 metres”, but locals say Lakshadweep does not need highways, and that such projects will damage the islands’ fragile ecology.

“There is no scope or need for bigger roads,” Abdul Kader, president of Kavaratti village council, told Al Jazeera.

The size of Lakshadweep’s largest island, Androth, is just 4.9 square kilometres.

 

 

Dr Muneer Manikfan, a diabetologist who is also the vice chairman of Minicoy local council, an island close to the Maldives, said the draft proposal’s idea of an “area with bad layout or obsolete development” is arbitrary.

 

“The administration can publish a development plan for an area irrespective of whether the area is populated or not. People can be relocated to anywhere the administration likes,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The local community will forever have to live in fear of their property being taken over by the administration anytime.”

Even if permission is granted for development, the draft in some cases says the maximum period allowed will be three years. That means an islander can make her house standing for only three years. Then the fate of her building is at the mercy of the authority.

 

A family on Lakshadweep’s Agathi island which lives off selling goat milk [Biju Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

“If we need to construct an additional bedroom, say, for our children’s marriage, we can’t. For a 1000-square-feet house, the additional structure shouldn’t be more than 100 square feet,” says activist Cheriya Koya.

 

“When they send a notice to pull down the whole building by a set date, we have to do it at our expense or else we will have to pay 200,000 Indian rupees ($2,750) as penalty and 20,000 ($275) rupees for each day if we delay.”

Section 72 of the draft Planning and Development Authority proposal allows the administration to evict a person from a property that “he is not entitled to occupy”. Manikfan says the section infringes on one’s right to property.

Worse, the draft law denies protection granted to the Scheduled Tribes – the islands’ indigenous people – by the constitution and violates the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.

 

 

Muslims in Lakshadweep, classified as a Scheduled Tribe, are one of the rarest Muslim groups in India to be granted reserved quota in government jobs and seats at educational institutions run by the state.

Residents say the Lakshadweep administration also aims to usurp the local executive powers of the elected village and district councils.

The elected council representatives will not be able to make decisions on many issues that directly affect people such as healthcare, agriculture, education, and animal husbandry and fisheries, as these subjects would come under the direct control of the administration if the proposal is accepted.

 

Travellers and those returning from India’s mainland on a ferry boat near Agathi Port [Biju Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

A government employee who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity said about 500 casual and contractual workers employed in various government offices lost their job after the new administration took over.

 

Lakshadweep’s government-run tourism body, Society for Promotion of Nature Tourism and Sports (SPORTS), alone terminated nearly 200 contractual staff in February.

“They want to fill those vacancies with labourers brought in by the contractors from outside,” the employee said.

Residents also say a number of dairy farms have been closed and their cattle auctioned off, citing non-feasibility. They allege that Patel’s plan is to bring in a dairy giant based in Gujarat to set up its retail outlets across the islands.

Beef ban and alcohol permit

Patel has also proposed a ban on the sale of beef and the slaughter of cows, calves, and bulls.

According to Lakshadweep Animal Preservation Regulation, 2021, no person can directly or indirectly sell, transport, offer for sale, or buy beef or beef products in any form anywhere in the Muslim-majority islands, with violators facing up to 10 years in jail.

 

Processing tuna fish by salting and drying to make ‘mas’, whose export is one of the main economic activities on the islands [Biju Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

A section of upper-caste Hindus considers the cow a sacred animal, whose slaughter is banned in many states across India. Cow slaughter is one of the right-wing BJP’s main populist planks.

 

According to another proposal, non-vegetarian food options on the menus of “anganwadi” (neighbourhood) state-run preschool childcare centres could also be removed, while the administration has banned beef from the midday meals provided to schoolchildren.

Recently, the administration shut down dozens of “anganwadi” pre-schools.

Patel is also planning to permit the opening of liquor bars and shops, claiming the move will boost tourism on the islands, which are currently a non-alcoholic zone due to their Muslim population.

Resorts on Lakshadweep’s inhabited islands cannot supply liquor, which is allowed only at resorts on the uninhabited island of Bangaram.

Manikfan says liquor is not “socially acceptable and culturally desirable” for Lakshadweep.

 

 

Detention without trial despite low crime rate

Patel has also introduced a Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation, 2021, which empowers the administration to hold anyone in detention without trial for up to one year. The detention could be extended if the administration wishes so.

The bill has angered the locals in Lakshadweep, which has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Residents say there is no need for such a “draconian” legislation.

So why has such a harsh law been introduced? “To jail the people who criticise the administrator and his plans,” says activist Hussain Shah.

One of Patel’s earliest actions included booking criminal cases against three people, including local Congress leader MA Atta for putting up a banner in Kavaratti, the capital island of Lakshadweep, criticising the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act passed by Modi’s government in 2019.

The law fast-tracks nationality for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but excludes Muslims, a step often compared with former US President Donald Trump’s controversial Muslim ban.

Huddling and chatting on the beach is a favourite evening pastime on the islands [Biju Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

From COVID-free to 7,500 cases

Lakshadweep had remained coronavirus-free throughout 2020 because of the strict protocol necessitated by its poor health infrastructure with just three hospitals for the 10 inhabited islands.

People bound for the islands had to be quarantined for seven days in the Indian mainland – in Kochi, Kozhikode or Mangalore cities – under the administration’s supervision before boarding a ship or flying.

Even after reaching Lakshadweep, they were asked to remain in quarantine for another seven days.

 

 

But Patel is accused of exacerbating the COVID-19 crisis in Lakshadweep after he changed the protocol in January by allowing anyone entry into the islands with a negative RT-PCR report obtained 48 hours before their travel.

A week after the rules were changed, the territory reported its first coronavirus case on January 17. Until Friday, the island had recorded close to 7,500 total cases, with nearly 30 deaths.

Clamour to scrap proposals

Meanwhile, a clamour to scrap the legislations proposed by Patel and remove him from his position grows louder across India.

Elamaram Kareem, a member of parliament from the Community Party of India (Marxist), blamed Patel for the spread of the coronavirus on the islands in his letter to President Ramnath Kovind and demanded the “anti-people” proposals be rejected.

 

 

In his letter, Kareem said the standard operating procedure (SOP) in force in the Union Territory to curtail the spread of COVID-19 was unilaterally changed by Patel.

“This unplanned and unscientific altering of the SOP has led to the current surge in COVID cases in Lakshadweep, where there was not even a single case reported in the year 2020,” he wrote.

“New regulations, including a ban on the slaughter, transport, selling and buying of beef, are an onslaught on the people. Hundreds of casual and contract laborers working under different departments have lost their jobs.”

Neighbouring Kerala state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and KC Venugopal, a Congress member of parliament, have also opposed Patel’s decisions. Vijayan said Patel’s actions pose a “grave threat to the life and culture of the people of Lakshadweep”.

[bhaigan]

https://science.thewire.in/environment/praful-khoda-patel-lakshadweep-ecological-mayhem/

[bhaigan]

What are Praful Patel’s plans for Lakshadweep?

For a week now, the administrator of this archipelago of 35 atolls and coral reefs in the Arabian sea has been in the news.

Since December 2, 2020, when he took charge at the union territory (UT), the one-time BJP MLA from Gujarat has issued a series of extraordinary orders. Among others, folks with more than two children are now ineligible for Panchayat positions. Non-vegetarian items have been struck off school menus. Hundreds of casual workers have been laid off. Some protestors against CAA/NRC have been arrested. Fisherpeople’s sheds have been demolished. Mandatory quarantine, which kept the UT safe from COVID-19 until January, has been done away with.

That is just the start. Under Patel, the Lakshadweep administration has announced a slew of Bills that have the local community panicking about its future. The draft Lakshadweep Animal Preservation Regulation 2021 bans beef. The draft Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation 2021, allows the administrator to unilaterally detain people for up to a year. The draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 concentrates planning powers with the administration, and empowers it to take any piece of land in the island, irrespective of its ownership, for “development” purposes.

Taken together, these amendments don’t add up. The Goonda Act – Prevention of Anti-Social Activities – could be seen as an attempt to choke protests, especially since Lakshadweep saw anti-CAA/NRC protests. But if Patel is consolidating planning powers to push economic activity, why is his administration destroying fisherfolks’ sheds?

“Only 10% of the people here are employed by the government. All others live off fishing,” said a teacher in the UT on condition of anonymity.

To understand these seeming incongruities – and what they mean for the islands – we have to start with Praful Patel.

[bhaigan]

Who are allowing these draconian laws on the island ?

ee badcow gallu oka chat beef ban antaru, inko chota beef allowed antaru

consistency undadu padu undadu vella istam

[kingcasanova]

Pinarayi gadu support chesinapude anukunna, deentlo matter ledu ani

[bhaigan]

2 minutes ago, kingcasanova said:

Pinarayi gadu support chesinapude anukunna, deentlo matter ledu ani

Gujarat's Ex home minister ni administrator ga pettinappude naku enduku doubt koduthundi ?

[Truth_Holds]

A person from Gujarat trying to sell liquour in Lakshadweep.

Mundhu nee state lo ammu raa gujju gaa.

 

[Ryzen_renoir]

21 minutes ago, Truth_Holds said:

A person from Gujarat trying to sell liquour in Lakshadweep.

Mundhu nee state lo ammu raa gujju gaa.

 

Don't worry , you find alcohol in every corner of gujarat just unofficially

[Truth_Holds]

Administrator Attempting Land Grab In The Guise Of Development: Lakshadweep MP

'Liquor and beef are just diversion tactics, land is the administrator’s main ambition,' says Lakshadweep MP Mohammed Faizal PP

 

Lakshadweep MP from the NCP Mohammed Faizal PP has hit out at the island's Administrator Praful Koda Patel, alleging the latter has made a mockery of the democratic process while implementing the new draft notification. In an interview to Outlook's Thufail PT, Faizal says Koda is facilitating land grab in the name of tourism and development. He also accuses Patel of using beef and liquor issues as diversionary tactics. Excerpts:

Q) What’s your take on the Administrator’s new rules in Lakshadweep?

The very existence of the people of this island is under threat. The Draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 (LDAR) — which gives the administrator powers to remove or relocate islanders from their property, for town planning or any developmental activity, is draconian to say the least. The people of Lakshadweep are understandably upset, and their protest is totally justified. The new enactment will give legal security for the Authority to grab the land with or without people’s consent. The Authority will unilaterally decide whether compensation needs to be paid or not, or to whom the land should be given. The SC-appointed Justice Ravindran Commission had submitted an Integrated Island Management Plan (IIMP), which says any developmental project, either private or government, would pass through the local elected body since Lakshadweep is ecologically fragile and sensitive. But, the new draft notification will allow mining, quarries, railway, national highway roads etc. Imagine how many houses, coconut trees, fishermen shelters need to be demolished on the island to make way for these projects.

Q) Are you opposing all new measures of the Administrator?

In its entirety. The way in which the regulations have been framed are against the democratic fabric of the country. No consultations with local bodies, which represent the people of the island, has taken place. The cloak and dagger manner in which the notifications were pushed through, with little or no transparency is totally unacceptable. That’s why we oppose the entire exercise.

Q) How are people reacting on the ground when you talk to them?

I ask Mr Patel, how many days have you spent on the island in the last five months? With the pandemic around, I am sure he has not even spent 15 days in Lakshadweep. How can he lay claim to understanding the aspirations and concerns of the islanders when he is never around? He is ruling Lakshadweep sitting in Daman and Diu using the administration there. He is treating Lakshadweep people as second-class citizens. People are very much frightened. Lakshadweep was Covid-free for one year. We achieved that by implementing stringent restriction and quarantine system. When Patel took charge, he unilaterally lifted the restrictions and the entire islanded is now flooded with Covid.

Q) Going beyond this immediate concern, do you think this new notification also threatens the culture and ecology of Lakshadweep?

You must understand that liquor is banned in Gujarat where Patel was an MLA and Home Minister when Modi was the Chief Minister. He is saying that liquor permission in Lakshadweep is meant for tourism development. We are not against tourism development. But local entrepreneurs are still waiting to begin projects, submitted to the Lakshadweep administration years back. These are ecological and environmental-friendly projects but are still not getting the go ahead. And, what’s the ideology behind the beef ban? There is no ban on beef in states like Goa, Mizoram and Manipur, where BJP is ruling. Similarly, Lakshadweep, like Kerala, is a place where people are habituated to non-vegetarian food. So, what is the need for such a piece of legislation? Praful Koda Patel’s intention in pushing for liquor and beef ban is to just divert the issue.

Q) Do you think vested interests are at play behind this notification?

Definitely. I say that because Praful Patel has done the same thing in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. If you see who have got the contracts, the same people are coming to this island. Entire scenario has changed into a corporate tender process now where local contractors can’t participate. There were 260 active contracts which were going on when Patel took charge. On his immediate visit, he asked all the works to be stopped. Now people are suffering because they have taken loans from the banks.

Q) Do you think its BJP’s politics at play in Lakshadweep?

I am surprised why is the central government supporting Patel. Patel has done the same thing in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Unless the Centre steps in and intercedes, we will be justified to believe that this is a centrally sponsored exercise.

Q) What kind of reforms Lakshadweep needs at the moment, according to you? It is said that you had written a letter to central government seeking permission for Mangalore port?

No, I haven’t written anything of that sort. That was distorted news. I said Beypore port needs modification. We have a number of vessels, motor sailing vessels which operate privately. Beypore port’s turn around number is very low because of the limited space. That doesn’t mean a complete shift from Beypore to Mangalore. That’s Mr Patel’s intention, not mine. What’s happening in Lakshadweep is land grab in the guise of reforms.

Q) What’s your plea to Centre at this moment?

Send back the draft notification to Lakshadweep district body and let them discuss and identify what they want.

Q) Are the security concerns raised by the administration justified?

I am very sad that the Collector has tried to justify this Gunda Act and portray Lakshadweepians as habitual offenders prone to terrorism etc. The AK 47 and other things seized was 166km away from Minicoy Island. The central intelligence used the name of Lakshadweep in this case only to identify the location. It was not in India’s territorial waters but on the international route. Attributing it to Lakshadweep is very painful. I am not saying Lakshadweep is crime-free. But, to deal with that we already have IPC, CRPC and other laws. One BJP leader said on a television debate that they are introducing Gunda Act because when tourism develops there are chances of gambling and terrorism coming to Lakshadweep. What kind of a justification is this? We are getting wholehearted support from student unions and political leaders from across the country.

[argadorn]

Meeru okati observe chesara ... only Muslim domineted countries places lo other people ni Ranivaru .. adey Europe and other countries lo other religion vallu vellachu

[Jambhalheart]

to taking over land belonging to the locals for the purpose of development without safeguarding the interests of the landowners.

Exactly the same way baboru threatened & grabbed poor local farmers in amaravati region under CRDA chattam I say

Can anyone explain on how this land grabbing (in name of development) is different from baboru's annexation of land (adhey 1 acre evvu capital ayyina tharvaatha 200 sq rds esthaanu ani useless agreement)

baboru chesthey srumgaaram BJP chesthey vyabhichaaram ??

 

 

 

disqualification of people with more than two children who wish to contest the village council elections

 

I don't support BJP but this is good move as we will have to control population or else covid 2nd wave lo chusaam kadha hosp lo beds vundavu , chivaraki cremation ki kooda 20 hrs waiting cheyaalsi vasthondhi

I don't agree with beef ban, alchohol ban or even land grabbing in name of development by either baboru or BJP (both r wrong)

[Raven_Rayes]

33 minutes ago, argadorn said:

Meeru okati observe chesara ... only Muslim domineted countries places lo other people ni Ranivaru .. adey Europe and other countries lo other religion vallu vellachu

India lo raanisthunnara mari?

The funny thing is, Pakistan is the only country in our region to give citizenship by birth. India used to have it, until Rajiv Gandhi put conditions on citizenship of parents by 1987, and today it has come to CAA.

Even most European countries don't give citizenship by birth.

[jawaani_jaaneman]

Resign Modi resounding ga vinipistundi, from Lakshadweep.

[kingcasanova]

5 hours ago, bhaigan said:

Gujarat's Ex home minister ni administrator ga pettinappude naku enduku doubt koduthundi ?

maniddariki doubt raavadam lo thappu ledu

[bhaigan]

3 hours ago, jawaani_jaaneman said:

Resign Modi resounding ga vinipistundi, from Lakshadweep.

Any doubts ?