Codava Natl Council threatens of indefinite stir

Bangalore, July 19: The Codava National Council (CNC) today threatened to launch an indefinite struggle to press for various demands, including granting constitutional guarantee to land tenure, language and tribal status to Codavas in Karnataka.

Speaking to newspersons here, CNC Secretary General N U Nachappa said the Codava race and the land were inseparable. He took exception to the stand taken by two politicians from Kodagu district, without mentioning their names, with regard to the nature and continuation of land tenures under the title Jamma and the exclusive proprietary rights over the same by the holders thereof from time immemorial.

These two leaders had kept the people of Kodagu in dark and misled the Government on the Jamma land issue, he alleged, adding that their ultimate objective was to get converted over 50,000 acres of Jamma lands into common tenures and help hawala-backed land mafia from Andhra Pradesh and other places to grab the land from Codavas.

To a question, Mr Nachappa said the Council's demand was to impose a total ban on alienation of such lands and prohibit alienation to anyone other than a traditional land owner. The sale transactions already done should be nullified, he added.

He said the other demands included forming Codava Autonomous Region on the lines of Tibetan Autonomous Region, including Codava language in the eighth schedule of the Constitution and treating Codavas as a primitive ethno-linguistic tribal group under the Constitution.

UNI