Tale of two villages deep within forests

Seven-year-old Anagha of Byrigadde village studies in class 2 at the Government Primary School, Kundur, about three kilometres from her place deep in the Saragodu Reserve Forest of Mudigere taluk in Chikkamagaluru district. Every day, her father, Narayana, drops her off and picks her up from school. Narayana rides his bike in the uneven forest terrain, keeping his eyes and ears alert for any wild animal’s sudden appearance.

A few days ago, Narayana was busy at the brick kiln where he works. Anagha’s mother had the responsibility of dropping her off at school. They had just walked a few yards from their house when they found a wild tusker right in the middle of their path. “The elephant was only a few feet away from us. We managed to run back home. The elephant remained there for a while, forcing us to stay indoors. And that day, I missed my school,” said Anagha.

For the girl and other residents of the locality, encountering a wild animal is not unusual. Her grandmother, Bhagirathi, said, “We spot them regularly around our place. Over the years, the number of people living around here has come down while the number of wild animals has increased.”

She has lived in Byrigadde for more than 60 years but has never had the luxury of good roads or electricity supply. Her son, Narayana, 52, cultivates a couple of acres of land that was never registered in his name and works at a kiln to augment his income.

Ready to move out

This family of four is one of 16 families scheduled to be shifted out of the Saragodu Reserve Forest area. On October 28, 2024, the Karnataka Cabinet cleared the proposal to rehabilitate the families in Saragodu Reserve Forest and gave consent to shift them to Haduoni village in Balur hobli of Mudigere taluk. The Chikkamagaluru district administration has identified 33 acres and 24 guntas of land for rehabilitation. Each family will get two acres of land for cultivation and four guntas each to construct a house.

Saragodu Reserve Forest, spread over 3,690 hectares, was notified in 1904. However, many families have lived within this reserved area over the years. Following the directions of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), which oversees the implementation of the Supreme Court’s orders regarding forests, the Forest Department identified the families within the reserve forest for relocation.

“The department relocated 148 families in 2006. However, these 16 families were left out, as they had been staying there since before 1978. Considering them as traditional forest dwellers, they were not included in the rehabilitation package back then,” said N. Ramesh Babu, Deputy Conservator of Forests of Chikkamagaluru division.

The families, including those from Other Backward Classes and Dalits, urged the government to relocate them as living in the forest was highly challenging, including sending their children to school. Sumithramma, who also stayed at Byrigadde, has three children. Her eldest son gave up his studies soon after the government gave him a bicycle in class 8.

“At that age, for him, a bicycle was more important than education. He stopped going to school from the day he got the bicycle. Now, he works as an agricultural labourer. However, my two other children studied well as I sent them to hostels at a young age,” Sumithramma said.

The Karnataka government introduced a bicycle distribution scheme in 2006-07 to encourage children in rural areas to continue their studies. However, in this case, it worked quite the opposite way.

Solar tentacles

The families’ woes grew when the Forest Department put up tentacle solar fencing to stop wild elephants from entering human habitats. The department laid the solar fencing for about 24 km. “We have to cross the fencing to reach the nearest shop, which is about three kilometres away. Most of us have suffered electric shock while crossing the solar fencing. We felt as if we were in a cage,” said Rajesh, a resident of Mandahulihara, another village within the reserve forest. He works as a writer in a private coffee estate at Merasanige, where his job is to look after the estate and manage the labour.

Now, they are all ready to leave their places for a better life at Haduoni. They thank the officers and elected representatives, including MLA Nayana Mottamma, for their efforts in getting the proposal for rehabilitation approved by the Cabinet.

H.D. Rajesh, a KAS officer who was Assistant Commissioner in Chikkamagaluru, identified land at Haduoni for rehabilitation. In fact, the Revenue Department had recovered land that had been encroached upon by a coffee estate owner. The officers retained the coffee plants, and the same land is being allotted to forest dwellers. Locals say district in-charge secretary Rajender Kataria, Chikkamagaluru DC Meena Nagaraj, and Additional DC Narayanaraddi Kanakaraddi worked hard to get the proposal approved.

“We are thankful to elected representatives and officers for fulfilling our demand,” said Puttaraju, 65, who lives at Mandahulihara with his family. Until the Cabinet cleared the proposal, he was not confident that his family would shift to a new place one day. “No matter how much money and effort we have spent to develop the forest land so far, we are keen on moving to the new place. With not even minimum facilities and security, we cannot live here for long,” said Geetha, Puttaraju’s wife.

Finally, an alternative

Getting the proposal approved by the Cabinet was not an easy task, according to Mudigere MLA Nayana Motamma. “These people were left out of the initial rehabilitation package. But they could not stay there for long with constant fear of attack by wind animals.”

The government has assured the families of land to cultivate and build houses. They are also expecting a financial package from the Forest Department. Meena Nagaraj said, “We have identified developed coffee estates, ready for harvest, for the families. It will help them financially.” The Forest Department will provide financial assistance for transportation and other family needs.

The DC and other district officers allotted the plots and sites for houses to the families by picking lots at Chikkamagaluru on January 10, 2025. The families chose their plots by picking up chits with plot numbers. They hope to move to the new place within a few days. Finally, their days amidst the thick forest appear to be coming to an end.

Bad road to Bidarathala

While the families in Saragodu Forest have hopes of moving to a better place soon, the residents at Bidarathala in Mudigere taluk may have to wait for longer. The families at Bidarathala (Madhugundi) village, close to Charmadi Ghat, have been urging the government to rehabilitate them for many years. As many as 10 families, all related to each other, are ready to give up their private land if the government offers each of them an alternative land of two acres each to cultivate.

The major reason they want to leave is the lack of connectivity. Thanks to the restrictions on developing roads in forest areas, the village road is hard to walk on, let alone drive a vehicle.

B.R. Sathish, 42, a native of Bidarathala village, recalled that he lost his father because of the road in April 2017 because it was impossible to transport the sick man to a hospital. B.K. Girish, 38, says that he also lost his father, Krishne Gowda, in a similar way about 26 years ago. He was a boy of 12 when family members carried his father on a ‘doli’ as no vehicle could reach the village. By the time they reached the hospital, he was dead. “We brought the dead body back in the same way for cremation,” said Girish.

The nearest school is at Kottigehara, about 11 km away. As there is no transport facility to the village, only those who were admitted to hostels in distant places studied. “Altogether, we have eight-and-a-half acres of land in the village. We grew lemongrass, paddy, coffee, areca, and cardamom for several years. However, for the last eight years, safeguarding crops from wild animals has been difficult,” said B.R. Nagesh, also a native of Bidarathala, who runs a hotel at Kottigehara.

Lemongrass trade

The families remember a time when they earned well for about 15 years when they grew lemon grass (Cymbopogon) and extracted its oil. Rajappa, a native of Kerala who came to Bidarathala somewhere in 2003, showed the residents how to earn by processing lemongrass. The villagers, particularly the youth, of whom many had no formal education, picked up the skill. They grew lemongrass on their land and extracted oil from the grass. For that, they invested money and purchased machines required to extract oil. “After growing lemongrass for 45 days, we cut it and extracted oil. The maximum amount we got was ₹1,200 per kilo of oil. Each family produced 25 to 30 kg of oil every 45 days. That was a good earning,” recalled Sathish.

However, they stopped growing lemongrass about eight years ago when the number of wild elephants in the area increased. “After 2009, when Charmadi Ghat was closed for road work, wild animals crossed the highway and entered human habitat in the locality. They increased in number gradually. Repeated incidents of crop damage forced the farmers to give up farming and look for alternative jobs. A majority of them shifted to Kottigehara and Mudigere in search of jobs,” said Sanjay Gowda, a resident of Kottigehara.

In 2019, the Chikkamagaluru district witnessed heavy rains that resulted in landslides. Hundreds of houses, including those in Bidarathala, were damaged. The residents were kept in temporary shelters. Later, the administration sanctioned sites for the rain-affected people at Banakal, about 15 km from Bidarathala. “Now we have sites at Banakal to construct houses, while agricultural land is still at Bidarathala. Given the road conditions, we cannot travel regularly. We are expecting the government to come to our rescue and provide us with an alternative land as well,” demanded Sathish.

They want to relocate to build their lives and earn by cultivating the land. “In our families, there are seven men, aged between 25 and 43, all unmarried. Our children are not getting proposals because of the conditions in our village. As there is no road to the village and no yield from the land, who will marry our boys?” asked Nagesh. “We are hoping that life becomes better if we move out of this place. I have been living here for over 50 years with no electricity or road. I wish at least my son Girish can lead a happy life somewhere else,” said Meenakshamma, 70.

The families have brought these issues to the attention of the district administration and the Forest Department. Ramesh Babu, DCF, said a few from the village recently met him and requested rehabilitation.

“We are aware of the problems the villages are facing. The department will look into the issue and prepare a proposal. All that they require is about 20 acres of land for rehabilitation,” the officer noted. Earlier, IAS officer G. Sathyavathi, who was DC in Chikkamagaluru, had visited the village and interacted with the villagers. The villagers are expecting a response from the administration and elected representatives for their worries. Both MLA Nayana Motamma and DC Meena Nagaraj said they are yet to get details of the issue.

People of Bidarathala hope to, one day, move out for a better life as those in Byrigadde village will soon be able to.

(Edited by B. Pradeep Nair)