A reluctant warrior for the cause of paddy fields

A HINDU News Paper Report on 13th July 2012 by K.A.MARTIN

Over the years, reclamation of paddy fields has met with constant resistance from people.

From these struggles have emerged heroes, ordinary men and women, who bet their lives on the cause they believed in.

N. V. John is such a reluctant warrior. The sprightly 80-year-old former teacher of drawing from Piravom has an impressive gait and an iron grip when he shakes hands. He has a sparkling smile.

He smiles when he says he is past his best years. He smiles when he says he had his left leg broken by goons allegedly sent by a group that was trying to reclaim about five acres of rice paddy without government sanction.

That was on the night of May 14, 2011. He was retiring for the night when there was a knock on the door. His wife opened the door. Three persons burst into the room, attacking him with iron rods. He ducked one aimed at his head. He took a real hard one on his right arm.

He smiles again, at their failure to land one on his head. He spent 15 days at a hospital in the city.

His leg has healed well. But his right arm still hurts and his wife continues to be in a state of shock.

Mr. John, a veteran of the Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kochi, says he will not pursue the case in connection with the attack on him. It is not of much consequence.

He, however, promises to pursue tirelessly the cases in connection with the attempt to illegally reclaim a portion of paddy fields in the Nadakkada Vannilam Padashekharam in Piravom.

“Not too many people know me even in my village,” he says about how he accidently came to lead a people’s resistance against illegal reclamation of paddy fields.

It was soon after The Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act 2008 came into force that some people started mining clay from a portion of the paddy field near his home.

They soon filled the mined area with rubble and started a brick kiln. Life turned miserable for the residents as tipper lorries choked the village road.

A legal battle led by him, ably supported by the farmers, followed.

The nearly two years of struggle continues even as the district administration issued an order to restore the paddy field to its original condition