KEEZHAVENMANI MASSACRE

Volume 23 - Issue 01, Jan. 14 - 27, 2006

India's National Magazine

from the publishers of THE HINDU

Keezhavenmani revisited

S. VISWANATHAN

The Keezhavenmani massacre of December 25, 1968, by landlords and their henchmen, which was all but ignored by the mainstream press, is poignantly brought to life in a documentary film.

TIME, they say, is the best healer. But certain wounds, especially

those that remain in the collective memory of a society, defy the

saying. This was quite in evidence at a function held in Chennai on

December 18 to mark the release of a documentary film, perhaps the first ever, on the massacre of 44 people, mostly women and children belonging to families of Dalit agricultural workers, nearly 40 years ago at Keezhavenmani village, 25 km from Nagappatttinam in TamilNadu.

The film, Ramiahvin Kudisai (The Hut of Ramiah), narrates how they were burnt alive in a hut where they had taken refuge. The story is told by some of the survivors, who break down, unable to contain their grief and anger, even after such a long time. It is a detailed account of the violence perpetrated by landlords intolerant of the growing

strength of the agricultural workers' movement in the region. Most of

the invitees, who watched in silence the one-hour film produced by The

Roots and directed by Bharathi Krishnakumar, were seen wiping their

tears at the end of the screening.

Keezhavenmani has gone into the history of the country's agrarian

movement not only as an example of the supreme sacrifice of the

toiling masses in their struggle for liberation from economic

exploitation and social oppression, but also as a frightening reminder

of the ruthless ways in which their oppressors try to protect vested

interests. Thousands of people, including activists of the Left and

Dalit parties, gather at the village on December 25 every year, the

day on which the tragedy took place in 1968, to pay their respects at

the martyrs' memorial.

Strangely, however, the coverage of the incident in the mainstream

newspapers was inadequate. The reports were even misleading in certain

respects. For instance, many newspapers described the incident as a

clash between two sections of kisans, or between two groups of

agricultural workers, all for a wage hike of just half a measure of

rice. The incident was apparently seen in isolation of the

developments during the preceding months. The larger socio-economic

aspects of it were by and large ignored. The documentary fills the gap

to a great extent. It answers many questions, such as why and how the

massacre happened and what roles the police, the State government and

political parties played.

The documentary brings to light many a hidden fact through the

personal accounts of some of the accused in the case relating to the

arson, their close relatives, and a retired police official. The

documentary, with the help of a lot of meticulously collected

background material, presents the incident as part of the decades-long

struggle by under-paid and under-fed agricultural workers for a better

living. In this perspective, any study of the Keezhavenmani massacre

has to be made in the light of the agrarian movement in the rice-rich

undivided Thanjavur district during the preceding three decades.

THANJAVUR district, prior to its division, accounted for nearly 30 per

cent of the State's paddy production, thanks to its rich irrigation

facilities. Thousands of acres of land were in the possession of

temples, Hindu religious mutts and zamindars, a class of people

created by the British to collect land revenues for the government.

Thirty per cent of the cultivable land was in the possession of 5 per

cent of the landholders. Fifty-five per cent of the temple and mutt

lands were under the control of the cultivating tenants. There were

also small and marginal farmers. The district had a large presence of

agricultural workers, most of them Dalits who were treated as slaves

(pannai adimaigal). Dalits were therefore oppressed both socially and

economically. They suffered the worst forms of untouchability, being

denied access to public wells, rivers, streets and temples.

It was under these circumstances that the communist movement struck

root in the district. With agricultural workers being mostly Dalits

and a significant number of marginal and small landholders being from

the socially backward castes, the communists had to integrate the

fight against economic oppression and social oppression with the

cooperation of both these sections. Under the guidance of leaders such

as A.K. Gopalan, B. Srinivasa Rao and Manali C. Kandasami, the

communists first organised the cultivating tenants, who were at the

mercy of zamindars, temples and mutts, and then agricultural workers.

Long struggles by them for protection from eviction led to the

abolition of the zamindari system with the adoption of the Tamil Nadu

Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948; the

Tanjore Pannaiyal Protection Act, 1952 (later repealed) and the Tamil

Nadu Tenants Protection Act, 1955.

The Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act, 1956,

was meant to ensure that the tenants paid a fair rent. With the

abolition of the zamindari system, a new class of marginal farmers

emerged, besides the small farmers. Similarly, the mechanisation of

agriculture that came with large allotment of funds for agriculture in

the First Five-Year Plan brought in the daily-wage earners. In the

1950s a Minimum Wages Act fixing wages for farm workers came into

being. The communist agricultural workers' unions demanded agreements

on payment of wages for both cultivation and harvest periods. In the

1960s, thanks to developments such as border wars, steep fall in food

production and certain actions of the Union government, such as,

devaluation of the Indian rupee in 1966, there was a spurt in prices

of agricultural commodities giving fillip to demands for higher wages

in several places. A separate organisation for championing the cause

of agricultural workers were later formed.

The peasant movement in the State also agitated for reducing the

concentration of land in the hands of a few by fixing a ceiling on

holdings and for redistributing the surplus land among the landless

agricultural workers. The Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of

Ceiling) Act, 1961, came into being. It is another matter that the

Act, riddled with loopholes, ensured that not much land was declared

as surplus.

Before achieving these, however, the tenants, small and marginal

landholders and agricultural workers had to confront the money power

and political influence of the landowners at several levels. The

confrontation often led to violence and loss of lives. The police were

invariably on the side of the landowners. Many people, including some

frontline leaders, were killed in police firings. Interestingly, in

the early years of the agitations for increased wages, agricultural

workers and agriculturists signed wage accords in the presence of the

police. The workers intensified their struggles when landholders

refused to pay the wages agreed upon and threatened to replace them

with workers from other places.

The Paddy Producers Association, a militant organisation of

landholders, emerged. The association not only refused to pay higher

wages but also threatened landholders intent on implementing the wage

accord with dire consequences. In 1966, the union organised rallies

and a strike in the district demanding appointment of a tripartite

committee. But the Congress government in the State refused to yield.

Next year, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) came to power in

alliance with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The union

renewed the plea for a tripartite committee to settle the wage issue,

but the DMK government also was in no mood to accept it. However,

following the death in police firing of a union worker who was trying

to protect the union flag from attack allegedly by the men of

landlords at Poonthazhangudi village on October 6, 1967, the State

government convened a tripartite conference at Mannargudi, which fixed

the wages for the short-term crop. It was valid only for a year.

Meanwhile, the Nagappattinam taluk unit of the Paddy Producers

Association came under the control of Irinjur Gopalakrishna Naidu, a

landlord, who formed a brigade of volunteers allegedly to oppress the

workers through intimidation, undertake harvest operations, and let

loose terror.

THIS was the situation when the Keezhavenmani carnage happened. The

major issue was the refusal of landlords to yield to the agricultural

workers' demand for higher wages since the earlier agreement had

lapsed. The workers demanded six litres of paddy for every 48 litres

harvested, but the Paddy Producers Association did not agree. Wherever

workers insisted on the higher wage, the association arranged for

carrying out harvest operations with "outside" labour in violation of

the understanding between the disputants under earlier wage accords.

K.BARANIDHARAN

A glass urn containing the remains of the victims, collected a few

days after the incident by freedom fighter I. Maayandi Bharathi. The

urn is now kept at the memorial for the victims at Keezhavenmani.

Wherever the landlord offered to pay higher wages, the Producers

Association protested and warned of counter action. The association

allegedly threatened the agricultural workers in Keezhavenmani around

December 10 that their huts would be torched. Leaders of agricultural

workers said that the taluk secretary of the CPI(M) and party

legislator K.R. Gnanasambandan had written to the State Chief

Secretary about the threat and asked for protection to them. (But a

communication from the Chief Secretary, however, reportedly stated

that the legislator's letter had reached him only in January.) Both

the letters were of no avail.

The apprehensions of the labour leaders were proved right on December

25. The Hindu's lead story on December 27, 1968, reported that 42

persons, mostly Harijans (as Dalits were called then), were burnt

alive on the night of December 25, and that the gruesome incident

followed a clash between two groups of kisans. It said: "Twenty-five

huts in all were burnt to ashes. The victims are said to have taken

refuge in a hut, which was among those destroyed." The report gives

the information that the landowners refused to concede the demand of

"Marxist kisans" that they be paid a harvest wage of six litres of

paddy and went ahead with harvesting that day engaging labour from a

neighbouring village. When these "outside" workers were returning

after work in the evening, the report said, "a group of about 200

persons attacked them, armed with deadly weapons". In the clash that

followed, Pakkirisami Pillai, a farm worker, sustained stab injuries,

which proved fatal. The "outside" workers ran away and the attacking

mob chased them. According to the report, around 10 p.m., another

group of about 200 persons were said to have marched to Keezhavenmani,

where a clash followed. Gunshots were also heard during this clash.

Twenty-five houses were set on fire. The inmates of huts ran out and

were said to have taken refuge in a single hut, which was among those

burnt down, the report said. Nineteen persons injured in both the

clashes were hospitalised. The report said that Gopalakrishna Naidu

was among those taken into custody. The report refers briefly to the

kisan trouble in East Thanjavur district for two months.

Although a police station was within 5 km from the village, the police

came to the spot hours after the incidents. Senior police officials

reportedly came only the next morning. Despite prohibitory orders,

hundreds of people visited the village.

Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai observed: "The incident is so savage and

gruesome that words fail me to express my agony and anguish" and

deputed two Ministers, M. Karunanidhi and S. Madhavan, to visit the

village and report to him. The eighth congress of the CPI(M), then

being held in Kochi, expressed its shock over "the inhuman act of

vandalism of the landlords' goondas" and directed P. Ramamurti, member

of the party's Polit Bureau and Member of Parliament, K.R.

Gnanasambandam, member of the Tamil Nadu Assembly, to rush to the

village. Ramamurti visited the village and later held discussions with

the Chief Minister.

Two days later, Annadurai announced that a one-man commission, headed

by Justice Ganapathia Pillai, would inquire "into the problems of

agricultural labour, the relationship between the labourer and the

landlord, and connected issues in East Thanjavur". Another immediate

action taken by the government was to bifurcate the Thanjavur police

district and appoint Walter Devaram Superintendent of Police for East

Thanjavur with Nagapattinam as headquarters.

Protest meetings and demonstrations by workers of the Left parties

were held all over the State. Leaders condemned the massacre and the

police administration's failure to protect the lives of the poor Dalit

agricultural workers.

B.T. Ranadive, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, wrote in a long article on

the tragedy in the party's official organ People's Democracy, in its

January 12, 1969 issue: "It must be stated that had the DMK Ministry

been alert, the wage question could have been settled long ago. But

blackmailed by Congress propaganda about the breakdown of law and

order, and pressurised by the landlords within its own party, the

Ministry allowed things to drag on thereby encouraging the latter's

offensive against the workers." He stated that the DMK Ministry could

not escape the guilt of connivance at the growing crimes of the

landlords. "In the last few months at least three murders of leaders

of agricultural workers had taken place and neither the Ministry nor

the local police had taken any action to counter this campaign of

murder and terror and bring the criminals to justice," wrote Ranadive.

The veteran Marxist also gave a graphic account of what he saw at

Keezhavenmani when he visited the village a few days after the

tragedy.

A long article by D. Pandian in the official organ of the Communist

Party of India (CPI) also threw more light on the tragic incident. He

wrote: "The latest mass murder of women and children is the

continuation of this reign of terror of mirasdars [landlords]. All

these murders took place in a taluk where special police reinforcement

is sent to `protect the crops' according to the Ministry. And, yet on

December 25, at about 7 p.m. this savagery was enacted with impunity."

He said that the police went there only around 10 a.m. the next day

only to collect the charred remains of the victims. "The mirasdars set

fire to the hut and butchered the innocent victims; the police

completed the `cremation'," the article said.

"From all evidence," Pandian wrote, "it is clear that it was a pre-

planned, calculated murder." He also faulted the State government for

its "callousness and failure to protect the kisans, poor Harijans,

even after a series of murders in the area."

THE documentary, succeeds to a fairly large extent in revoking the

memories of the mass murder as one of the most heinous crimes against

women and children, by recreating the mood of that fateful night and

restating the tales of woe of those less fortunate and deprived

sections of the people by their survivors and those who stood by them

in those hours of crisis in their own words. It goes further and makes

some bold statements by going deeper into the issues involved.

For instance, it attempts to establish that the massacre of the

innocents was an `avoidable' crime. It adduces evidence to show that

had the government acted on the alerts from the kisan and labour

leaders about the threats from the landlords and their henchmen, the

carnage could have been averted.

A letter to the Chief Secretary from Gnanasambandam, written 15 days

before the incident reportedly reached its destination late - around

January 5,1969. Another appeal to the government from legislators such

as N. Sankariah to convene a meeting of the Assembly to discuss the

worsening situation in respect of relations between agricultural

workers and a section of landlords failed to provoke any response. A

warning from Ramamurti to the State government that if the activities

of the Paddy Producers Association president were not checked by the

police and the administration, the agricultural workers' organisation

also might have to think of an army of volunteers to protect

themselves as had been done by Gopalakrishna Naidu was also of no

avail. In the process of revealing this, the documentary raises

questions about the policy of the then DMK government in using the

police while dealing with issues relating to labour and also about a

possible nexus between the police and the landlords. What results is

an expose of the government's inefficiency in managing crises.

Another aspect that is highlighted by Krishnakumar's short film is the

unbelievable attachment of the people of that little village not only

to their soil but also to the movement that grew with them in that

region. Ignoring threats to their lives and casting aside offers of

allurement, an affected person states in the documentary that they

refused to pull down the flags and switch sides. Nor did they accept

the offer to be resettled in a nearby village. The documentary also

exposes the weakness of the judicial system. One of the accused in the

main mass murder case confesses how he could escape punishment by

claiming alibi with the help of an obliging doctor. (Although 10 of

the accused, all landlords, were convicted and sentenced to 10 years'

imprisonment, the High Court quashed the sentence on appeal and the

Supreme Court confirmed it.)

A striking contribution of the documentary is perhaps that it

highlights the point that the fight for liberation from economic

exploitation and social oppression has necessarily to be an integrated

one and Dalit liberation is inseparably linked to the fight against

exploitation of all sorts, which many of the interviewees vouchsafed

for from their own experience in East Thanjavur.