At the time
of his birth, Pokkan's umbilical chord looked like the bloated,
elongated seed of the mangrove tree, and people affectionately tweaked
his name to 'Pokkudan', a play on his physical condition. It was this
kid with the bloated umbilical chord, born to untouchable pulaya parents
in a Kerala village in the early 1930s, who went on to become the
legendary Kallen Pokkudan, a name now synonymous with mangrove
conservation not only in the state, but all over India.
Throughout his life, Pokkudan has lived in close contact with the nearby
wetlands and, for over a decade, been collecting, preserving and
planting the seeds of the "mad mangrove" tree (the long-fruited, stilted
mangrove known as rhizophora mucronata). Some 22 species of mangrove
trees welcome you to Pokkudan's village nestled in the rich wetlands of
north Kerala's Kannur district. Over the years, this humble farm worker
has planted over 1,00,000 mangrove saplings with his own hands in his
native village.
When at the age of 52, Pokkudan started planting mangrove seedlings in
the village in 1989, people called him a crackpot. Environmentalists had
then not begun to pay attention to the destruction of mangrove forests,
a vital part of the coastal ecosystem. In just four decades, mangrove
forest area in the state had dropped from over 700 sq km to a paltry 17
sq km. Yet, Kannur still has nearly 45 percent of the state's remaining
wetlands, thanks mostly to Pokkudan's initiatives.
Curiously, what led to Pokkudan's passion for mangroves was an acute
political disillusionment. He had spent most of his life building up the
CPM's local agricultural laborers' union. The association soured when he
raised his voice against caste discrimination within the party. After
leaving the CPM, Pokkudan did nothing for almost a year. In that time,
he noticed monsoon storms drenching little children as they walked to
school on narrow mud paths in the wetlands. The lashing winds would
often take away their umbrellas and storm waves would regularly destroy
the embankments in the paddy fields.
Pokkudan knew from experience that mangroves were the best buffers
against the wind and the waves. But, over the years, the wetlands had
turned into dumps for garbage from nearby towns. This had severely
affected their ecological functions such as nutrient cycling, flood
control, ground water recharge, salt dissipation, absorption and
dilution of pollutants and creation of microclimatic niches that
supported a variety of life forms.
Rooted to the
wetlands as he was, their deterioration pained Pokkudan immensely. For
the pulayas, the mangroves had always been a source of food, fuel,
fodder and medicine. There was the fish that could be cooked or kept
apart for times of famine, and the berries and tubers that could be
eaten both raw and cooked. Many of these had medicinal properties. "The
fish, the birds and the people all depended on the mangroves," says
Pokkudan. He calls the trees "the security guards of the earth" and is
convinced that floods in coastal regions would not kill so many if there
were mangroves.
Collecting the seeds of the mangrove trees was strenuous work. Besides,
the swamps were choked with waste. The seedlings planted initially
didn't take root because he didn't know the techniques well. But when
the 300 seedlings he planted the following year grew, Pokkudan's work
began to be noticed. Soon, the media, environmentalists and forest
officials arrived on the scene. With Pokkudan's help, the Department of
Forests set up a mangrove nursery of around 30,000 seedlings. Youth
clubs organized campaigns about the need to preserve mangrove forests.
People began to put up resistance against destruction of wetlands in the
name of development.
In Kerala, Kallen Pokkudan is the last word on swamp ecosystems. He
talks of a Dalit's oppression in the same breath as the slow death of an
ecosystem. "The birds that roam the skies and nest in mangrove branches,
tree heads, paddy fields and river banks also have a life similar to
ours. As a Dalit, I had always tilled the earth for others. Maybe that's
why I tried to go deeper into the possibilities of protecting
mangroves." The idea of man as a child of nature is complete when he
says, "If someone asks me how I want to be known in future, I would say
Kandal Pokkudan ('Mangrove' Pokkudan)".
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At the time
of his birth, Pokkan's umbilical chord looked like the bloated,
elongated seed of the mangrove tree, and people affectionately tweaked
his name to 'Pokkudan', a play on his physical condition. It was this
kid with the bloated umbilical chord, born to untouchable pulaya parents
in a Kerala village in the early 1930s, who went on to become the
legendary Kallen Pokkudan, a name now synonymous with mangrove
conservation not only in the state, but all over India.