A 12-hour Idukki hartal called by the CPI(M) over Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) restrictions and concerns affecting farmers disrupted normal life across Kerala’s high-range district on Friday, with schools closed, private buses off the roads and a higher secondary examination postponed.
The hartal began at 6 am, police said. Commercial establishments remained closed, while the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation operated a limited number of services. Police personnel were deployed at major centres across the district to prevent violence.
The CPI(M) Idukki district committee said the protest was intended to seek greater clarity in the cadastral map published on the basis of recommendations submitted by the previous United Democratic Front government regarding ESA boundaries. The party is also demanding that the proposal to declare the Cardamom Hill Reserve area as forest land be abandoned.
Other demands listed by the party include withdrawing orders that convert plantations and farmland into wildlife sanctuaries, scrapping plans to create elephant corridors and ending what it described as a covert effort to revive the High Range Mountain Landscape project. The demands bring together land classification, conservation restrictions, farming activity and human-wildlife conflict, which have remained contentious issues in the forest-rich district.
CPI(M) district secretary C V Varghese appealed to residents to cooperate with the hartal in a video message posted on Facebook. He said milk supply and newspaper distribution would continue, while vehicles carrying people for weddings and cremation services would be exempted.
Varghese also said tourists arriving from other districts to visit destinations in Idukki would not be obstructed. Sports meets scheduled in the district would likewise be exempted, he said, adding that the party expected the hartal to remain peaceful with public cooperation.
The disruption extended to the education system. Most schools, colleges and other educational institutions had announced that they would remain closed on Friday, according to police. The Directorate of Higher Secondary Education cancelled the Higher Secondary Improvement Examinations scheduled in Idukki, although the examinations were being held elsewhere in Kerala. Officials said the district’s examinations would be conducted on another day.
The hartal has also affected daily mobility in a district where public transport links settlements, plantations, market centres and tourist destinations across hilly terrain. With private buses off the roads and only limited KSRTC services operating, residents faced reduced transport options during the protest.
Idukki’s dispute reflects the practical difficulty of applying environmental classifications in a landscape where forests, plantations, farmland, settlements and tourism locations exist alongside one another. The CPI(M)’s demands concern both the boundaries used for ecological regulation and the consequences that land-use decisions could have for farmers and residents.
Police arrangements remained in place across major centres during the hartal. The rescheduled date for the cancelled Higher Secondary Improvement Examinations in Idukki is to be announced by the authorities.
