Identity,Space and Disaster: A Case Study of Pettimudi Landslide in Kerala

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of ‘geographical, economic and vulnerable space’ in disaster risk management. This article considers the life world of vulnerable labourers in a private plantation land as space. This space determines vulnerable labourers in a private plantation land, determining government interventions. This article is dependent on secondary data, informed discussion with local community members and media reports on community response to the post-landslide. Interviews with community members and secondary data have been analysed concerning the total perspicuity of spatial vulnerability. The focus of the space discussed in this article is the community’s life world. Disaster displaces, kills and destroys economic resources, and it is common across the world. There are variations in the number of deaths and amount of economic loss depending on the structure and space in which a natural disaster happens. This article discusses a landslide in the private plantation land and attempts to demonstrate how the authority and the government intervened and how the spacial risk limits such government interventions? The landslide killed poor workers living in poor-quality labour settlements; however, the government and the plantation company tried various reasons to divert the attention from the spatial vulnerability prevalent in the area and cited heavy rains as the only reason. The article attempts to discuss this critical issue in the historical context of the plantation that evolved through the colonial period and labour control in the given space. The article offers a theoretical debate on space and provides critical insight into ‘space and identity’ in disaster risk and rehabilitation management.

Keywords

Colonial plantation Pettimudi space risk vulnerability

Introduction

This article is about the landslide in Pettimudi, a tea plantation estate in the Idukki district of Kerala. This article attempts to discuss the ‘geographical and physical space’ in which the incident happened and the approaches of the state towards the disaster. Vulnerability is a particular method of demonstrating the level of risk posed to specific groups or individuals, that is, more vulnerable a person is, the more at risk they are of victimisation (Green, 2007). Social inequalities and socio-environmental policies put people at risk (Bolin, 2007). Morrow (1999) argues that disaster vulnerability is a socially constructed outcome. The social and economic circumstances of people’s everyday life determine the extent of vulnerability. So, the household loses its ability to protect itself, and resilience depends on community decision-makers. Vulnerability is played asymmetrical across disasters and hazards (Joseph, 2012). This article also proposes to discuss this critical issue with reference to landslide in Pettimudi.

A study (Sajin Kumar & Oommen, 2020) proved that the area is landslide-prone, and these scientific data are based upon the vulnerable conditions of the labourers living in this space. Pettimudi is a private plantation land within this landslide-prone area, and the people who died were workers of the estate and they lived in layam, a company provided accommodation. It is a line of ten residential spaces in one building. An individual house consists of a small portico, kitchen, one bedroom and a small working area. This landslide had impacted the plantation workers and not the company’s business prospects and markets. Hence, this article focuses on workers’ ‘life and space.’ Workers living in the layam are socially and economically excluded communities, with limited spatial mobility.

Space restricts their socio-economic mobility, and hence, they are dependent on the plantation company for livelihood. This article adopts the social space concept developed by scholars such as Lefebvre, Soja and Zieleniec. These three scholars offer a diverse yet critical conceptual framework to define space. The proposes to contextualise the concept of space with landslide affected are of Pettimudi. Lefebvre (1991, p. 85) explains that space is a social relationship. It is closely connected with the forces of production. Lefebvre (1991, p. 85) also argues that,

space is never produced in the sense that a kilogram of sugar or a yard of cloth is produced. Nor is it an aggregate of the places or cations of such products as sugar, wheat or cloth. Does it then come into being after the fashion of a superstructure? Again, no. It would be more accurate to say that it is at once a precondition and a result of social superstructures.

Soja (2010) considers space a complex social product and often practices discrimination. Zieleniec (2007, p. 73) theorise space as an individual’s understanding of their social reality and conditions their space usage and interactions. The article proposes discussing the landslide in the private plantation land as a ‘social space.’ This article’s core objective is to see how the state disaster management authority, government and the plantation company’s response and recovery initiatives engage with vulnerable workers ‘living geographical and socio-economic space.’ Labour vulnerability in this private estate is historically associated with slave labour, poor economic ability and lack of access to power. The article argues that the state, the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) and the plantation company are limiting the landslide as an event and not seeing the given geographical and social space as a triggering factor for the risks. The article further argues that the given ‘space,’ in which the community lives influences the rehabilitation policies of the government and the company. The given ‘space’ is controlled by the company, and the government. Socio-economic vulnerabilities influence disaster responses and recovery. Also, geographical factors and social exposure trigger the disaster in less-developed and underdeveloped countries (Ward & Shively, 2017). Society is not vulnerable to disaster just because of being exposed to natural hazards, however exposure results from social and economic vulnerability (Abney & Hill, 1966; Besley & Burgess, 2002). Natural calamities are shaped by the existing social, political, economic and environmental conditions and should not be treated as ‘natural’ incidences (Cannon, 1994). Vulnerability is also linked to the class location of the people (Wisner et al., 2004). Disconnecting vulnerability to a natural disaster from the living condition is getting prominent at the administrative level to ease the intervention process. Vulnerability assessment, in general, is a process of homogenising the community and ignoring the root causes and differential impact (Anderson, 1994; Buckle, 1999; Paton et al., 2000). A conventional method to assess poverty ignores the loss associated with uncertainties (Ligon & Schechter, 2003).

Social vulnerability influences the disaster response and relief work of institutions and agencies. Social and economic inequality is the biggest impediment to building resilience (Laska & Morrow, 2006). Spatial and temporal patterns of social vulnerability extend the disaster risk (Cutter & Finch, 2007). Poor and marginal communities are concentrated in disaster-prone areas, and hence, natural, built and socio-economic environment increases the causalities of disaster (Chakraborty & Joshi, 2016; Zahran et al., 2008). It is also connected with the institutional and socio-economic conditions that trigger the catastrophe in the context of natural hazards (Blaikie et al., 1994).

Socio-economic vulnerability increases the disaster impact and narrows down the recovery process (Flanagan et al., 2011). Vulnerability indices in developing countries are close to disaster impacts and development projects and there exists a direct relationship (Yoon, 2012). Social vulnerability refers to the characteristics of the community, which influences their response to disaster recovery and response (Cannon, 1994). Social and individual relations of society are constructed and transformed by space and materials (Harada, 2000). The lack of social capital of poor and vulnerable communities further extends the crisis and prevents the building of resilience (Aldrich & Meyer, 2014). Deprivation often put pressure on the poor to adapt to development and neglect the responsibility of the state in developing societies. Collins (2009) argued that human adaptation to the negative impact of development could be considered as an issue of adjustment in the relationship between people and potential disasters. Disaster-prone areas are generally backward in terms of access to development institutions. The definition of disaster-prone areas is a geographical region prone to risks of multiple hazards. In such areas, hazard risks are considered inevitable, which means hazards occur at a particular time-frequency and harm human life. These are not just concerning the vulnerable people due to socio-economic reasons. It is something beyond the conventional understanding of poverty and inequality. It is about suffering as well. Morris (1997) defines that,

a community suffering from poverty and distress is often treated as just victims and set aside that a victimisation is only a form of representation. Suffering from pain, poverty, and crisis is not merely a state of being; it is like a viral infection almost independent from human agency.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology

Space, Subject and Risks

Disaster-prone areas are indeed a ‘space’ having certain economic and social features that distinguish these areas from the other areas. Gieryn (2000) argued that,

place matters to the quality of human existence. Place is not a static, empty backdrop for social relationships. It is neither an architectural model, Geographic Information System (GIS) map, census tract, Google Earth image nor a cyberspace; rather place is ‘filled up by people, practices, objects, and representations’. A Disaster-prone area is a space wherein the people, practice and their representations in the development and access to the resources are uncertain. Hence, it becomes a space with risk for the community, yet they have to live there because of poverty. This is a created space.

Massey (1994) explained the space as ‘power-geometry—a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, of solidarity and co-operation.’ The community living in disaster-prone areas is subjected to the concerned society’s dominant economic interests and development policies. Disaster proneness is, in fact, a space of inequality and the area where the community has to maintain solidarity for existence and survival. Generally, poor people are forced to occupy space in disaster-prone areas. Hence, the problems of poverty and marginalisation create further complexities in determining human existence over there. Smith (1990) argued in less exact, but more accessible language that,

the complete abstraction of physical space from matter provoked the possibility of defining other kinds of space in distinction to physical space; when physical space became absolute, it left behind a conceptual ‘space’ that would eventually be filled by such concepts as ‘social space’. So long as space and matter remained to some extent confounded, human material activity could not be conceptualised in abstraction from physical space.

Smith explained the idea of physical space as a manifestation of the human material interface. Space determines the nature of human action. Hence, human action in a physical space, prone to disaster, is limited by the severity of the disaster risk. The ‘spaces’ formed in such areas also define human action, which is also reflected in the low economic activity of the community. Domash and Seager (2001) observed that differences based on class, gender and race/ethnicity are not generally determined by population distribution across space. It is also due to the impact of space on social groups. Life in disaster-prone areas is more exposed to risks and uncertainty along with severe vulnerabilities. This creates a living condition, which is hardly compatible with the mainstream perception of development and existence. Environmental hazards in disaster-prone areas make unequal impacts on the community; naturally, the poor victims of such threats.

One could refer to Marx (1857) to explain space in a broader argument, for him space is about the expansion of the market and capitalist production. The market and capitalist production transform every space into an active agent and convert it into an active capitalist space. Though capitalist production has the institutional capability to convert every region into its production process, its reach to disaster-prone areas is often regulated by natural reasons and state regulatory interventions. The idea of space is often a relative concept; for instance, a capitalist approach to region will create space for resource values. It does not mean that the lack of capitalist interest suggests that the site is empty of social relations and human existence. Disaster-prone areas are not free from capitalist interest. However, its nature of exploitation is dependent on the resource value. The untapped resources in the areas and the community’s poverty determine the nature of capitalist interventions in these areas. Hence, choose the social relations according to the institutional interventions of capitalism.

Smith (1990) observed that social space, in general, is a humanly-constituted abstract field of societal events, and can be defined in multiple ways. Human relations are subjected to the natural space or risks of disasters. It is also related to how the risk is being communicated. The livelihood dependency is a determining factor in people’s risk perception in disaster-prone areas. The economic activity limits the reproduction of social space in disaster-prone areas. However, risk-induced economic activity is generally impossible within the contemporary production structure. It is also associated with the socio-economic inequality of the regions. Harvey (1973) explained that the perception of space is a relative concept which simultaneously depends on the circumstances. A proper conceptualisation of space has evolved through human practice or lived experience. Harvey (2006) observed that uneven geographical development means unequal distribution of resources. Ownership of space and power are directly related; capacity is expressed through control of dominant and relegation of the powerless in a space (Sibley, 1995). Disaster-prone areas in India are, in fact, the result of unequal development or overexploitation of resources.

Lives in disaster-prone areas are directly or indirectly subjected to multiple regulations and have to develop a consciousness, legitimising the absence of institutions and causes of hazard. The impacts of such legitimisation are more visible on the ‘collective and individual life’ of the people living in disaster-prone areas. Life is regulated and subjected to the interventions of agencies. People residing in disaster-prone areas have fewer choices than other regions or areas, including individual decisions. However, Habermas (1987) argued that ‘the lifeworld is the intuitively present, in this sense familiar and transparent, and at the same time vast and incalculable web of presuppositions that have to be satisfied if an actual utterance is to be at all meaningful, that is, valid or invalid’. This article applies the lifeworld concept of Habermas to discuss how the government, private company and disaster management authority engage with the plantation workers at the time of landslide and how it is possible to ignore the structural roots of vulnerability conveniently. The labour class in Pettimudi hardly enjoys any autonomy in livelihood practices, and hence, their life-world is increasingly being subject to the instrumental rationality of the state and bureaucracy. Based on this sizeable critical framework, this article attempts to apply the spatial justice theory to connect lifeworld and justice delivery. Soja’s (2010) theory of ‘space and justice’ is well connected with this article’s argument that space is a deciding factor. Soja argued that spatiality is a complex process of social product, and it actively creates a discriminatory-built environment. Such an environment also helps hierarchies, restricts political mobility, makes development a dependent project and exploits resources. The increasing risk and uncertainty among the community in disaster-prone areas are indeed the result of poor problematisation of the lifeworld. This article considers these vulnerable labourers as a community. The community could be a sense of a well-defined, face-to-face, territorial group overlapping with the minimum number of units of the region (Mills, 2004). A community could be a group sharing common interests and a sense of belonging to a neighbourhood (Finnegan, 1994).

It could be a force to identify with multiple elements, which create a sense of community belonging (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Plantation workers in Pettimudi is a community governed by the power structure of the plantation company, and hence, this article treats them as a closed community. This article uses this theoretical framework to discuss the structural inequality and space in determining the disaster risk governance in Pettimudi.

Methodology

The research enquiry of this article started with the content analysis of news reports of landslide in Pettimudi, a tea plantation estate in the Idukki district of Kerala. Kanan Devan Hills Plantations (KDHP) Company owns the tea estate. Its history traces back to the colonial history of plantation in India. So, the landslide happened in a closely built environment wherein the landowners controlled the resources, including the labour. The community members and volunteers were in the forefront of relief and rescue, and later on, the government came up with conventional relief and rehabilitation support. This article follows a qualitative research approach. The article is entirely based on secondary data, informed interview with local community members and follows the community response to the post-landslide. Officials of the company also interviewed for this research; however, the official’s name and designation is kept anonymous. Newspaper reports and independent articles published in the local media also analysed to see how the critical information pertain to the landslide is being shared with the public. The content analysis helps to see how the company, disaster management authority and the government want to inform the public on the root causes of landslide. One of the prominent community leaders was interviewed to understand the current living standard of the plantation workers and how the government and the KDHP carefully set aside the spatial risk and vulnerability in the area. The article carefully refers to the comments of ministers, officials and community leaders towards the state responses. These sources tell plantation workers’ right to demand justice, interface with the space and risk and the poor bargaining power help the government and the plantation company manage the disaster as an independent event and not link the impact with spatial inequality and risk.

Pettimudi Landslide in a Post-colonial Setting

Pettimudi landslide happened in private corporate plantation land, and it killed poor working-class living in a settlement in the private land. Therefore, the deaths due to poor socio-economic conditions should be considered seriously. This tea estate was established by a British official Mr John Danial Manro, in 1877. He was a clever officer who understood the land ownership pattern of early Kerala and had an agreement with the local chieftain of Poonjar, who had no legal ownership of the land; however, the then Travancore king assigned him the right to control the land. He had handed over about 145,280 acres on ₹3,000 as an annual lease. The agreement was signed in July 1877, while Travancore kings owned Munnar Hills (Sunil, 2019). It was the beginning of slave labour in Kerala. It is a historical fact that the plantation sector promoted slavery worldwide (Blackburn, 2011). Europeans started plantations in the periphery, but the European labour was not working under the deplorable conditions of the plantation sector (Chew & Ghazali Mohayidin, 1995). The plantation sector deliberately framed labour policies to keep the labour with them (Mandle, 1973). Migration was the major source of labour supply to the plantation, and it brought multiple cultures in the plantation sector (Alladin, 1986). Abolition of slave labour through various interventions, including Christian missionaries’ support, had otherwise ensured free labour for the European capitalists’ plantations (Kurup, 1984; Umadevi, 1989). The plantation sector depends on extracting resources and exploiting the labour power of the poor (Raj, 1985). The plantation in Kerala, including the Kanan Devan Tea Estate where the landslide happened, brought slave labour from the nearby state, Tamil Nadu.¹ Though the then Thiruvithamkur abolished slavery in 1843, slave labourers were still permitted in the plantation sector in the early 20th century (Ravi Raman, 2002). The workers who died in the landslide were the posterities of the slave labour. This history makes this issue complex and needs serious inquiry.

The colonial method of labour control still prevails in the post-colonial plantation sector in Kerala. The study by John and Mansingh (2013) argued that the Plantation Labour Act, 1951 ensured minimum support; however, it failed to provide social security and social and economic mobility of the workers and did not even follow a better division of labour. The money wage is low, and the workers have to live with bare minimum support. Lack of economic mobility and decent accommodation force them to keep at least one family member in the estate as a worker to continue staying in the accommodation provided by KDHP, that is, layam.² Layam in tea gardens are in deplorable conditions. Almost all such layams are 80–90 years old; perhaps, these were constructed along with setting up the plantation itself (Kumar, 2018). Twenty-two such layams were washed out by landslide (Special Task Force on [STF] Pettimudi landslide, Government of Kerala, 2020). The landslide on 6 August took sixty-six lives (four people are still missing and are considered dead) of plantation workers, all of them were buried together due to the scarcity of land.

The Government of Kerala declared ₹500,000 as solatium to the survivors from State Disaster Response Fund victims and Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.³ There was a controversy that arose out of this solatium. On 7 August, there was an air crash in Kozhikode airport, exactly 250 km away from Pettimudi. The Chief Minister of Kerala and other ministers concerned visited the accident site on the same day but did not visit Pettimudi. Many reasons were referred, including distance and security. The Government of Kerala announced ₹1,000,000, for the victims of the air crash. The community compared the solatium for them and compensation for air crash victims. Such comparative interpretations were influenced by the ‘space’ of Pettimudi and the air crash.

Labour, Space and Disaster

Space could be an agent which controls and marginalise the disadvantaged population through trade, segmentation and homogenisation in terms of class, race and ethnic identity (Saatcioglu & Corus, 2015). The space in which Pettimudi landslide took place is controlled by private capital, and hence, the plantation workers have to identify themselves with this controlled space. Capitalism’s organisation and operation determine the ownership, organisation, control and manipulation of space (Zieleniec, 2007, p. 6). The vulnerable plantation labourers have to confront the risk within the given social space. Space and vulnerability are results of an interface between social relations of production, class relations, institutional relations and entitlements relations (Watts & Bohle, 1993). Their entitlements are limited as per the Plantation Labour Act of 1951. Spatial practice is an experience of the circulation of goods, people, money, labour power, information, etc, which are closely connected with the ownership, use and description of land within a hierarchy and divisional operation of organisations and social control (Zieleniec, 2007, p. 73). Poor entitlements and restricted social space force the works even restrict themselves from identifying and mainstreaming the root cause of the landslide risks.

Pettimudi landslide offers ample options for government and scientific community to have their interpretations of the event; still, the workers have another narrative, which traces back to the colonial influence of plantation sector administration. The local community looks at it from the given idea of space and justice. It is evident from the articulation of the event and problem by Ms Gomathi, a trade union leader, who was interviewed for this study.⁴ She gave different narratives of the incident and also the conditions of the labour settlements in the tea estate. Ms Gomathi came to public notice when she and her colleagues launched the Penpillai Orumai (women’s collective) movement in Munnar town in 2015. About 12,000 Dalit workers stood against the KDHP, one of the largest plantations in the country. The Plantation Labour Act, 1951 was their primary target. This act is an instrument to carry forward colonial labour control measures in the post-colonial system. The act ensured minimum support, but it failed to secure the empowerment and structural transformation of the colonial plantation model and did not ensure a better division of labour.⁵ Ms Gomathi still works in the tea estate as a daily wage labour, she was the only leader who attempted to correlate disaster loss with the community’s socio-economic conditions. She said,

We are the third generation of plantation workers and there is no visible progress in our lives even after the third generation passed on. The Layams where the land-slide victims lived were built during the British period (pre-independence).⁶ There are 35 Layam and 25 families live in there. KDHP used to do regular maintenance; however, there has been no proper maintenance of Layams in the last couple of years.

Table 1.

Loss Assessed (in ₹) in Totally Destroyed Twenty-two Layams.

Vehicle	5,301,000
Furniture	745,500
Home appliances	905,000
Vassals	440,000
Garments	220,000
Valuables	20,000
Animals	31,500
Total	7,663,000

Source: Special Task Force Report, Government of Kerala.

She believed that these workers had no other option except to continue to live there. To continue occupying the layam, the workers ensure that at least one family member works in the layam once the father/mother/brother/sister retires from service. This is a kind of institutionalisation of bonded labour. Their poverty and exclusion were evident in the damage and loss assessment of Pettimudi (refer Table 1). Table 1 is self-explanatory; it shows the extend of economic vulnerability and asset base of the community. They had nothing to lose but life. Pettimudi landslide did not pose much economic loss to the government as well. Tamil Nadu State Government offered ₹300,000 as solatium because these workers were Tamil Nadu migrants. Pettimudi landslide did not cause much economic burden on the Government of Kerala.⁷ The STF report explained that family members of fourteen families died in the landslide, and there was no need for rehabilitation. Only six families needed to be supported with land and house, so this landslide impact was restricted only to the workers residing in the layams.

The total loss in partially destroyed layam was ₹139,400. Even though seventy lives were lost, the economic loss was considerably less. This financial loss needs to be assessed because it happened in an economic zone, which connects with global commodity trade and market. The economic loss estimated was not the company’s loss, it is the total asset of the workers who live and work in the KDHP premises. The landslide did not affect the KDHP in terms of economic loss. One could think of labour loss; however, KDHP operates with a reserve army of labour, and hence, the death of workers does not cause any challenge to the company. The STF report recommended that disaster management authorities to reach out to such remote areas; otherwise, the task force found no critical issues.

Victims of Disaster in a Controlled Private Space

The mass burial of disaster victims is not new to the state of Kerala.⁸ Lack of owned land with sufficient space for burial forced the rescue workers to bury them in a common area. If the lack of land was an issue, it was common for all those depressed caste sections in Kerala.⁹ Unlike other such mass burials, the Pettimudi caught the public memory of landslide in Kerala. Their landlessness was closely associated with the colonial model of plantation governance in the post-colonial era. Keeping workers without any economic assets of their own was a strategy to control the labour, and hence, generations passed on without any land assets. The social space in which the worker lives never give them any capacity to question the institutions of oppression. As Foucault and Miskowiec (1986) argues, social space could be a site for the pressure of the marginalised population. Pettimudi is a restricted space where the local economy and labour are controlled by KDHP company. Deprivations conditioned their lifeworld and deepened their dependency on KDHP for livelihood, and this was one of the inputs of profit in the plantation sector.¹⁰

The general public, KDHP and the state often neglect their right to social and economic mobility. The plantation workers are one the most excluded populations and resemble gated communities’ characteristics (Ravi Raman, 2002). Gated communities live in individual private spaces and privatise their civic responsibilities (Blakely & Snyder, 1997). They are socially excluded and the social exclusion of the community further excludes them from economic, social, political and cultural well-being. Still, socially excluded communities have the right to participate as citizens in the society they live in (Bruhn, 2011). It was evident from the approach of KDHP management on the landslide. Ms Gomathi, plantation worker and trade union activist revealed that,

the land-slide happened at 10.45 PM and the local estate manager telephone the panchayat office at 7 AM next morning and inform the incident and asked for earthmovers to remove the mud. He neither told the panchayat about land-slide nor explained the severity of the crisis. It was evident that the KDHP did not want any external support or wanted to release the news until it reached their control.

The STF appointed by the Government of Kerala also mentioned that the rescue team reached the site at 11 a.m. on 7 August 2020.

Social exclusion is not just restricted to a temporary unit or phenomenon, rather it pervades the public discourse and government policies (Levitas, 2005). The government often considers such a section of the population as mere beneficiaries of government-funded schemes. The resilience of the community was challenged such a routine approach, and as Irshad (2018) argued, the excluded community’s dependency determines their resilience. It forgets the history and the fact that effective government intervention ensures the social and economic mobility of the excluded population (Meerman, 2005). They are poor and asset-less, and hence, asset-less communities are excluded from the disaster loss assessment (Irshad, 2014). The KSDMA, a designated agency established with India’s Disaster Management Act, 2005, and the Revenue Department of Kerala have not displayed any documents regarding Pettimudi landslide on their websites.¹¹ The government wants KDHP to be a part of rehabilitation and proposes a model in which the government will find the land (2,178 sq ft to every family), and KDHP would bear the cost of construction. The Government of Kerala has distributed revenue land in the remote area, and KDHP has sanctioned ₹10,000,000 for constructing nine houses. KDHP and the government share the responsibility, but no assessment has been carried out about the safety of layams that are to be built in landslide-prone area within this private estate. One of the staff members of KDHP, who asked to remain anonymous, told us that it gave all possible support to the victims and arranged a vehicle for transportation of those workers who were temporarily relocated. He accepted that layams have similar conditions; however, the present rehabilitation was restricted only to nine families (six families who escaped the landslide and others living in the layams close to the dilapidated layams).

Table 2.

Rainfall Data.

Date	Forest Department	KDHP
1 August 2020	22 mm	3.12 inches
2 August 2020	58 mm	6.64 inches
3 August 2020	111 mm	11.88 inches
4 August 2020	195 mm	12.16 inches
5 August 2020	93 mm	14.48 inches
6 August 2020	309 mm	24.26 inches

Source: Harshan (2020).

Ms Gomathi also said that landslide is not new to this area, in 2019, a four-member family died in Nallathanka area; however, it was not revealed to the outside world. Sajin Kumar and Oommen (2020a) found that the Idukki district including Pettimudi is a landslide-prone area. Local resident and academic Dr Vimal Raj further added that the ecosystem in this area is extremely fragile. He said that the minor landslides in average rainfall create fear among the workers living in the layams. Dr Vimal Raj believes that climate change, changes in land use patterns of the areas and vulnerability of the working class push them into near bonded labourers of company. They are becoming a corrosive community at the bottom (Irshad & Joseph, 2015). Ms Gomathi Sebastian and Dr Vimal Raj represent two generations of plantation workers. For them, the mass burial of victims and routine state approach violate people’s rights and denial of economic rights. As Poudyal et al. (2012), the character and socio-economic status of the community influence the risk mitigation.

Building Reasons and Misguided Root Causes

Government’s and KSDMA’s focus was the event itself, and the community perceived and experienced the landslide within their limited Space around layam. The media hurried in explaining the root cause of landslide as rain-fall. Harshan (2020), a journalist, compared the rain-fall rate from 1 August 2020 to 6 August 2020 collected by two stations, one run by the Forest Department and another run by KDHP itself (refer Table 2). Harshan focused only on rainfall data collected by KDHP and argued that the Forest Department’s rainfall data was not authentic as there were technical errors in the assessment. Harshan’s argument was not based on a scientific assessment of the forest department’s rainfall data nor any reference sources to justify his argument; however, the government seems to have depended on such non-calibrated opinions to arrive at a policy decision.¹² The post-colonial plantation and the government support for them desperately wanted to restrict the risk within the limited lifeworld of the community.

Following the landslide, earth scientists assessed rainfall data, and they raise objections on KDHP’s rainfall data and argument of cloud burst. The Times of India dated 16 September 2020 quoted an environmental scientist Dr Johan Mathai, a former scientist from the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, saying that ‘it was hard to believe KDHP’s rain-fall data and denied cloud burst as the cause. Interestingly, the district administration trusts on loud burst’,¹³ and also ‘the State Disaster Management Authority officials raised doubt on KDHP’s rain-fall data’.¹⁴ This conflict over reasons indicates the lack of systematic risk communication between agencies and experts. Sajin Kumar and Oommen (2020b) in their study argue that a real-time rain gauge and landslide susceptibility mapping are needed to assess the impact. It is quite evident that the KDHP company, the media and the government could not find any valid reason to face any public pressure to look into the structural causes of risk and exclusion of the community from mainstream disaster risk reduction activities. No organised trade union in the area nor the elected people’s representatives from the site demand any landslide risk assessment in the area. Ms Gomathi and some local respondents wanted to relocate to a safe place with land and a house; however, their voices are restricted to limited space.¹⁵

Discussion and Conclusion

Pettimudi should be looked at from a historical perspective of denial and exclusion. The area is still contributing to global trade. They contribute to the national economy; however, they are pushed to live in a vulnerable geographical and socio-economic space for generations. The plantation is a labour-centric work, and there is minimum substitutability of technology with labour. Laboures who live in the layams are physically and socially conditioned through a very calibrated method of subjugation. KDHP controls their lives and also controls and governs the landslide risk. Such restricted space with limited autonomy of personal and public life of the workers further reflects in their exposure to risks. There are three perceptions on the Pettimudi landslide, the government, the KSDMA and the labourers. The government (state) considers it as a general disaster. The Disaster Management Authority considers this as one among the many landslides and needed to put its regular institutional interventions for first response and sit back. According to them there is no continuity of interventions required. For the plantation workers, it is the continuation of risk and control of ‘space’ on their lifeworld in determining their freedom and autonomy. The STF appointed by the Government of Kerala also pointed out that the landslide-affected area is a private estate. There were many difficulties due to the poor road connectivity and infrastructure. However, one could see a careful attempt not to attribute the reasons for death to the poor quality of layams and poor infrastructure there.

The manner in which the government and KDHP managed the landslide totally ignored the structural issues about the area and the deep-rooted vulnerability of the community. It was a tragic interface of vulnerability and landslide risk in a limited ‘space’ of Pettimudi. The risk was limited to the community and their vulnerable living space, that is, layam. Layams are the constructed physical and social space for controlling labour through historically evolved power. Hamilton and Sharma (1996) argued, power is exercised through multiple methods, it could be both overtly and covertly, and it could also be exercised interpersonally and intersubjectively. The KDHP exercises its authority by owning the layams and controlling the labour. KDHP’s regulation method could be looked at from the more extensive understanding of the application of the selective process to isolate the oppressed and keep the level of consciousness of oppression to a minimum and give the impression that it is negotiable. The poor and vulnerable disaster victims never get any say in rehabilitation, and often the government and agencies design rehabilitation according to their institutional capability (Irshad, 2020). The victims of Pettimudi also have no choices nor any demand to place, and they are accepting the rehabilitation proposed by the government and the company.

Kerala experienced cyclones in 2017, floods in 2018 and 2019 and the victims of these disasters rose against the government’s approach of relief and rescue. However, there was no such resistance from the landslide victims in Pettimudi. The parliamentary political parties in the locality also found no need to mobilise the people for rehabilitation. For their rehabilitation, Ms Gomathi demands land for landless and wants total resettlement of the workers to a safe environment. The government decided to share the community’s rehabilitation and relocation with the KDHP. State agencies and ruling parties hardly show interest in owning up to the entire rehabilitation process as state success, unlike other disasters.

A close examination of post-landslide events demonstrates the deeper involvement of a colonial regulation method in the post-colonial disaster events. The hierarchies define what ought to be ‘the reason’ for risk, and the administration entirely agrees to ‘the reason.’ The reason is manufactured through controlling the ‘space’ and ‘dependent lives in the space.’ It would create the wrong precedence in disaster risk governance in a democratic system.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support Dr Sajin Kuma, Department of Geology, University of Kerala, for sharing his experiences on landslide risks in Kerala.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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