Increasingly strident anti-SilverLine (K-Rail) protests, spearheaded by women and children, compelled police-backed revenue surveyors to retreat from placing concrete land markers on private lands to establish the semi-high-speed railway’s alignment in at least four districts in the State on Monday.
The Congress and the BJP threw their weight behind the neighbourhood protests led for the most part by residents scared of losing their homes, land, and livelihood to the mega-development project.
Kallai, Areekad and Idiyangara in Kozhikode, Thirunavaya in Malappuram, Chottanikkara in Ernakulam, and Nattassery in Kottayam emerged as the epi centres of the agitation.
At Nattassery, local resident blocked an attempt to lay survey stones. The stand-off continued till late in the evening and the protest ended by around 6 p.m. with the officials leaving the spot.
Tension prevailed at Chottanikkara in Ernakulam all through the day as local residents and Congress activists removed survey stones laid in the area. An attempt by a survey team to yet again lay stones in the evening was thwarted by the agitators.
The efforts by revenue officials to lay survey stones led to a clash between local people and the police at Kallai in Kozhikode. The anti-K-Rail activists uprooted the survey stones laid and threw them into the nearby Kallai river.
In Kozhikode, BJP workers uprooted K-Rail markers. Youth Congress workers marched to collectorates and planted replicas of land markers on government land. The police used water cannons and iron barricades to prevent them from storming the offices.
The United Democratic Front upped the ante in the anti-SilverLine campaign that appeared to be gathering momentum. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said UDF leaders would court jail. He said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s authoritarian push to impose SilverLine on Kerala would fail. Mr. Vijayan would meet his “Nandigram”, the iconic struggle against farmland acquisition that decimated the CPI(M) in West Bengal.
The BJP attempted to draw national attention to the agitation by meeting Governor Arif Mohammed Khan in protest against the police action on the anti-SilverLine agitators, chiefly women and children. BJP secretary Vijay Rehatkar led the delegation. Later, BJP State president K. Surendran clarified that the party’s anti-SilverLine agitation was independent of the UDF.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan challenged the UDF to derail SilverLine. The government would adequately compensate those who lose land for the project. “If not now, when SilverLine,” he asked in Kannur. People wanted the project and the government had the mandate, he said.
CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said he saw the makings of the liberation struggle that undermined the 1957 EMS government in the current wave of “orchestrated” protests. He said in Kannur that some forces headquartered in Changanassery were spearheading the movement. They had pitted women and children in the vanguard of the struggle to provoke a police firing.
Mr. Balakrishnan’s comment drew a sharp reaction from the Nair Service Society (NSS). It stated that the NSS leadership was not for or against SilverLine. An NSS taluk union leader had visited a protest spot in Madappally in Kottayam. He feared he would lose his land to the project.
Culture Minister Saji Cherian and K-Rail managing director V. Ajith Kumar reiterated the government’s resolve to proceed with the project.
The State police have slapped cases on scores of protesters. The charges include destruction of public property and restraining government officials.
