On the cold winter night of 29th December 2024, Paniyeravara Ponnanna, a young man in his very early 20s, was buried in a weed-infested, ill-maintained Hindu cemetery at Hathur village, between the towns of Gonikoppa and Virajpet in Kodagu district. Ponnanna was not a native of Hathur village. In reality, like the majority of Yeravas, a subjugated and exploited Adivasi community, he really had no home village to be taken back to. Hathur became his final resting place since it houses one of the few cemeteries where people from this tribal community can be buried.

The murder of Paniyeravara Ponnanna

On the evening of 27th December 2024, the serene tranquillity of village Chembebellur village was broken by the bullets killing Ponnanna, fired from a double-barrelled gun by Porukonda Chinnappa, belonging to the dominant Kodava community.

Chembebellur is picturesque village in Virajpet taluk, Kodagu district, with sprawling coffee plantations owned mostly by Kodava planters, including that of Porukonda Bansi Poonaccha, where Ponnanna and his young wife, Geeta, worked as plantation labour. They lived in the “line houses” on the coffee plantation, much like thousands of other Yeravas spread over the countless plantations in Kodagu. Incidentally, Geetha’s mother and sister live and work in the nearby Kakamad coffee estate while Ponnanna’s parents, Thimma and Summi and, live and work in another nearby coffee plantation, Moornad, along with his younger brother, Poovanna.

On that tragic day, Ponanna and Geetha, after work, decided to pluck jackfruit for dinner that night. Ponnanna was atop the jackfruit tree, when their employer’s uncle, Porukonda Chinnappa, approached them with his double barrel shotgun and dog, and hurled casteist abuses at them, saying “Hey Ponnu, you Yerava bastard, you come to my farm and pluck jackruits; I am going to kill you”  and shot him. Ponnanna screamed in pain and fell to the ground from a height of about 20 feet. Even as he was writhing with pain on the ground, Geetha tearfully questioned Chinnappa as to what he had done. Chinnappa just turned his back and walked back to his house without glancing back even once. Geetha called her employer. Together they took Ponnanna to the hospital in the employer’s car, but in vain. Ponnanna was dead.

The Virajpet police has registered Cr. No. 133/2024 for offences punishable under sections 103(1) of BNS, 2023, section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and sections 3 and 25 of the Arms Act, 1959.

Why did Chinnappa shoot Ponnanna dead? Was it really about a jackfruit? Ponnanna’s wife and parents said that perhaps only Chinnappa can answer this. Same was the reply of the plantation owners, who also debunked the rumour doing the rounds that Chinnappa shot Ponnanna because he may have thought that Ponnanna was trying to steal. They said that sacks of coffee lying all around the coffee estate unwatched, were untouched. The real reason became apparent when people described Chinnappa in detail. A pensioned retired army personnel, Chinnappa was employed in the SBI bank in Virajpet as an armed guardsman, and had a history of abusive behaviour towards Yerava plantation workers in general. Not so long ago, Chinnappa had roughed up Yerava plantation workers, but was bailed out by his influential friends. Geetha herself said that previously Chinnappa had set his dogs on Ponnanna and her without any provocation. The reason for such unprovoked aggression towards Yerava workers by Chinnappa and others, was explained by Savita, a young Yerava plantation worker, who is a proud owner of a two-wheeler (the first in her entire family). She says, “We are good people as long as we slog. Some of the planters will even treat us well occasionally, but most have contempt for us. That's the reality. Some of them are so irritated that we are buying bikes, organising ourselves and demanding for houses. They feel like any progress for us will disturb their balance. They are used to looking down on us. They look at us like we are worms.”

Devasted by the loss of Ponnanna, his family are unanimous that this crime cannot go unpunished. Chinnappa must receive the strictest possible punishment, and the discrimination and oppression of the Yeravas must end. 

Social reality of Yeravas

This gruesome murder reflects the oppressed daily lives of the Yerava community, and provides a glimpse into their social reality.

Kodagu is home to many tribal communities with diverse ethnic origins, besides the Yerava, including Kudiya, Jenu Kuruba, Kadu Kuruba, Betta Kuruba and Soliga communities. Inarguably the most vulnerable Adivasi, and most backward community in the district, Yeravas are denied dignity and deprived of basic rights, including education, health services, employment and social security. Owing to the subordinated position accorded to Yeravas in the social ladder, they face daily insults and indignations. By all accounts there are some “good” planters, but the fact remains that the dominant sections of Kodagu, as a whole, tolerates and perpetuates these oppressive social relations that strips Yeravas of their dignity. The persistence of the feudal social relations is in no uncertain terms attributable to a collective silence, even denial, of the social reality of Yeravas.

Primarily agricultural labourers, most spend their entire lives working on the coffee plantations where they are housed in ‘line houses’. The only mobility they enjoy is from one plantation to another exchanging one ‘line house’ for another. A most basic for a human being, a native to call your own, is alien for most Yeravas, who are born and die in the ‘line houses’ in the coffee plantations. Constitutional promises remain a mirage; government schemes are of no avail to them.

In the plantations, their documents such as ration cards, Aadhar cards, voter identity cards, etc. are taken into the custody of the planters, getting which back is almost impossible even when they decide to move to another plantation. This also restricts access the PDS system or other government schemes.

With illusory access to formal banking systems, Yeravas borrow from their employers in times of need. In some instances, they are completely at the mercy of unscrupulous planters who unilaterally increase the interest rates. It is also debatable whether this is really a debt in the true sense of the word, because of the wage theft arising out of low wages coupled usurious interest rates. The bottom line though is that majority of the Yerava plantation workers are trapped in a vicious debt bondage, where the clearing of the so-called debt is almost an impossibility. Yerava plantation workers, trapped in such debt slavery, when desirous of moving to another plantation for work, are dependent on the prospective employer buying off this debt from the previous planter.

It is unsurprising to find chits of paper on Yeravas carrying the name of the plantation owner and their contact details along with the so-called debt that is allegedly due to them, to be handed over to their prospective employers, who in turn would directly negotiate with the previous employer, clear the debt and take the Yerava plantation workers into employment on their coffee estates. Ofcourse, the Yerava plantation workers have no idea of the nature of these conversations or the amounts exchanging hands; all they will be informed is that the debt stands transferred to the new employer and they have to work till it is repaid or taken over by a subsequent employer.

Many Yeravas have interesting anecdotes about their own names. Geetha for instance was named Nivedita at birth but entered as Geetha in the school records by the owner of the plantation that her parents then worked on. She is presently called Sita by the plantation owners, since Geetha is also the name of one of the plantation owner’s family members. Kaddhi, a young Yerava, was named as such by the plantation owner at birth, as was Bulka. Ponnanna was never called by his name, even by the man who murdered him; they preferred to call him Ponnu since Ponnanna is a name that Kodavas use.

Kodagu district is renowned for its coffee plantations, forest wealth, scenic and breath-taking beauty that makes it a prime tourist destination. This picturesque postcard, however, cannot anymore hide the brutal reality of the predominantly tribal workers in the coffee plantations, in particular the Yeravas.

When speaking of the life of Yeravas, one facet that instantly comes up in all conversation is the rampant alcoholism in the community, as being the cause of their present condition. It is said that almost the entire community, including children have taken to the vice of alcohol abuse. Alcoholism is surely a problem that needs to be addressed. However, the dismal situation of Yeravas is not a product of this alcoholism, but systemic dispossession and oppression that has reduced them to this state.

An oft heard retort is that the Yeravas are not compelled to work on the plantations, and remain so of their own choice. This betrays a blindness to the social disabilities suffered by Yeravas and a superficial understanding of what constitutes choice. Firstly, this form of labour is one where socially and economically powerful sections of the community are exploiting the poor and weaker sections, and is known as forced labour which is prohibited under Article 23 of the Constitution. As to what constitutes ’force’, it cannot be denied that such force may arise in several ways and not only through physical force; it can also be the compulsion arising from hunger and poverty, want and destitution. Clearly Yeravas cannot be said to acting as free agents with a choice between alternatives, but under the compulsion of social and economic circumstances.

It is believed that, until a few centuries ago, the Yeravas were a thriving, agriculture and forest-based tribe, in Wayanad and Kodagu districts of Kerala and Karnataka, respectively. However, feudal social relations reduced Yeravas to the status of a subordinated community, without near-total denial of any material assets or rights. After Kodagu was annexed to the British Empire in 1834, the British introduced coffee plantations, which transformed the traditional agrarian society, particularly its social relations, with the Yeravas and other slaves attached to the Kodava landlords becoming plantation workers. Published literature from the colonial times confirm the status of Yeravas as hereditary praedial slaves. The “Yeravas of Kodagu” (1987), an ethnographic study conducted by Shri B.K. Das, Director of Census Operations, states that past tradition of “agrestic serfdom” of the Yeravas stands out as an important identification mark. To quote:

However, there is a qualitative difference between the settlements of Yeravas and those of the other land-owning' communities of the region. The landlords and the tenants live on the lands they own or possess whereas the Yeravas live on the lands of the landlords and planters for whom they generally work. Their association with agrestic serfdom indicates that they, as well as their immediate forefathers have all along been living in such a manner only. Because of their economic plight they did not enjoy enough freedom to exercise any sort of choice in planning out their settlements. They have no tradition of having ever lived as an independent community in a compact and sizeable group at any one place or set of places at any time, especially in the recent past. Thus, much significance cannot be attached to questions such as their traditional or prescribed pattern and spatial arrangement of their dwellings within their settlement. It is also known that quite a few of them have for generations been living on forest lands and working as labourers in forestry occupations. Here too, their freedom is limited in that each family or group has to build the hut on the land, assigned by the Departmental Officials.

Thus, Yeravas have suffered through myriad forms of slavery to the present serfdom, which under bad masters, even today, assumes the form of primitive slavery. Clearly, the intervening circumstances of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution has left a minimal imprint on the lives and futures of the community.

Conclusion

Kodagu district is renowned for its coffee plantations, forest wealth, scenic and breath-taking beauty that makes it a prime tourist destination. This picturesque postcard, however, cannot anymore hide the brutal reality of the predominantly tribal workers in the coffee plantations, in particular the Yeravas. Much like the spread of coffee as a global commodity cannot hide the history of slave trade and sheer exploitation of Black and indigenous people or the present-day manifestations of slavery and serfdom that persist in coffee plantations across the globe.

Ponnanna’s brutal murder merely confirms the brutal feudal reality in Kodagu. It is not just that majestic jackfruit tree in that sprawling coffee plantation in that scenic village, that is the scene of the crime. Everyday subordination and oppression of plantation workers occurs across the district. The rule of law is thrown to the wind. The special status that the Constitution accords to Adivasis is made redundant. Might is right, takes the place of democracy.

The Yeravas and other plantation workers need to assert their right for a life of freedom and dignity. An organised resistance is the sure way towards liberation from their systematic oppression and dehumanisation. Even though the deeply entrenched feudal caste system would not easily yield to pleas for equality and justice, it is necessary for the Kodavas and other dominant community plantation owners to seriously introspect about altering this status quo in the interests of their own humanity. Writing about race, James Baldwin, reminds us that, "Our dehumanisation of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanisation of ourselves: the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his". On the other hand, the State, aware of the subordinated social position of Yeravas causing their economic and social backwardness, needs to step in and protect, and ensure enjoyment of, their rights.