Southern States - Kerala

Gloom among rubber farmers

By K.P.M. Basheer

KOCHI May 18 . This is the story of a tree. A tree that has, after arriving in Kerala a century, shaped up a way of life, changed the face of Kerala's agriculture and, in the process, drove out other trees from large tracts of land. Hit by globalisation, these days it also promotes suicide.

The rubber tree is a legacy of the colonial rule. It was in 1902 that an Irish man, John Joseph Murphy, first raised a rubber plantation in Kerala with seeds imported from the then Ceylon.

Keralites are now commemorating that historical event as the `100th year of rubber.' They need to, for rubber has virtually changed the physical, economic and, even cultural landscapes, of Kerala.

The rubber tree's first port of call in India was Kolkata, but it was in Kerala that it took roots. From the small strip of land at Thottekkat, some 30 km from Kochi, where the Irish farmer raised his plantation, rubber has now spread to every corner of the State, taking the total area of cultivation to roughly half-a-million hectares. India is the fourth largest producer of natural rubber in the world, and Kerala alone produces roughly 95 per cent.

But how did this alien tree_it hails from Latin America_find such a fertile ground in Kerala? Three major factors explain this. First, the Second World War: It jacked up the demand for rubber (70 per cent of rubber production goes into tyre manufacture). The war spawned tiny rubber estates across the central Kerala region. The trend caught on.

Second, the Rubber Board. Set up in 1957 and based at Kottayam (this town is considered India's rubber capital), it has been a huge success in popularising rubber cultivation. ``Cash incentive, free seeds and subsidised fertilizers offered by the board had got thousands of farmer hooked,'' recalls P. Muralimohan, a former joint commissioner for rubber production.

Says the noted Malayalam fiction writer, Paul Zacharia, who is a rubber farmer himself: ``The Rubber Board's role in promoting rubber cultivation has been largely overlooked by the media.'' He notes that several Rubber Board officials like the late filmmaker G. Aravindan (he was a field officer), had taken pains to persuade farmers to switch over to rubber.

Third, the enterprising and hard-working Christian community. Literate and receptive to new ideas, Christians were on the vanguard of the `rubber movement,' though later on other communities followed suit. Rubber suited the lower-middle-class rural-Christian work ethos. Rubber cultivation was like a home-based industry and the entire household, including women, found work. And, rubber paid handsome dividends, too.

In the second half of the 20th century, there had been a wave of migration of farmers from southern and central Kerala to the north (Malabar) and the east (High Ranges) in search of cheap and fertile lands.

Most of the `settlers' were Christians. Battling malaria and wild animals, these farmers raised rubber plantations (and churches, too) in these virgin lands. With the carpetbagger's mindset, they made their fortune from rubber.

Terms like `rubber culture,' `rubber literature' and `rubber politics' are also in circulation. Mr. Zacharia suspects an element of `cultural communalism' in these terms. ``It is a myth that rubber is a Christian commodity,'' he says.

\Mr. Muralimohan also shares Mr. Zacharia's view and adds that Christians do not form the majority of rubber growers now. But, it is true that a way of life that hinges on rubber has evolved over the past half century. However, rubber has been unkind to the ecology.

The rubber tree is a jealous god: it doesn't like any other tree or plant to grow in its neighbourhood. For planting rubber, innumerable hillsides have been shaved of large and valuable trees.

Other croplands have been turned into rubber plantations. Moreover, the rubber-driven migration caused large-scale destruction of forests.

The globalisation-liberalisation regime has turned the `rubber sector' upside down. Prices have fallen drastically.

In five years, the price of raw rubber fell to about one third of what it used to be. Liberalisation has made imported rubber cheaper than the domestic product, encouraging tyre makers to import.

This has hit the State's economy, Government's wallet, wages, price of land, and politics (a couple of parties survive on rubber politics). No other agricultural or industrial commodity has had the kind of impact on Kerala's day-to-day life as rubber.

Of the estimated nine-lakh rubber growers, about 90 per cent are small farmers--owning less than five acres. No glimmer of hope awaits them.

Unattended plantations, incomplete houses and cancelled weddings give a hint of the spreading gloom. Several rubber farmers, burdened with debts, have ended their life.

The rubber tree is now a fallen god.

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