• Nine families face homelessness with matter in legal limbo
• Residents not given written eviction notice
• Plantation Ministry says it will intervene

Residents of the Malaiyaha community from a southern smallholder plantation in the Galle District are facing threat of eviction as the landowners intend to sell the land, even as authorities say that no legal intervention can be made to lay claim to the land on behalf of its residents due to the land’s private ownership.

Born in what was formerly a part of the Walpita Estate in the Baddegama Divisional Secretariat Division of the Galle District, Kopal Sandanam has been asked to leave the very land where he spent all of his 80 years. In July, the owners of this former smallholder tea and rubber plantation demanded that Sandanam and 24 others, members of the nine families who call this estate their home, vacate the land in three months.

With nowhere else to go, Malaiyaha people like Sandanam continue to live without legal claim to the land they have lived on for generations.

Sandanam is the oldest resident of the estate and was born there in 1945. His father, Krishnapillai Kopal, arrived in the island from India as a labourer and worked in this estate as a supervisor (kangani) while Sandanam’s mother worked as a labourer.

Fifty-eight-year-old Sandanam Valliamma, Sandanam’s daughter, said that no written request had been provided for them to leave the land.

“In July, the owner came to Sri Lanka and asked the head of each household to come and meet her in her house. Then she told us that she would give us three months to vacate the land.”

Valliamma had reasoned with the owner: “How can we do that? Our children go to school here, our vote is also cast here; how can we leave like that?”

She alleged that the owner had claimed that they could not sell the land as long as the families lived there.

“The owner said that Rs. 200,000 would be deposited in our accounts after we leave. They told us to build two rooms, a living room, and a kitchen with that money. What can we do with an amount like that? They also didn’t say anything about land,” said Valliamma. 

The families have since requested the owner to grant them 15 perches of land with legal deeds for each family within the same estate or in its immediate vicinity along with assistance to build houses.

Despite attempts to contact the owner of the estate through the watchman who promised to share the reporter’s telephone number with the owner, no contact was made at the time of going to print.  

The families are receiving the support of the Voice of the Plantation People (VOPP) organisation in resolving the matter. With the organisation, the families have met the Governor of the Southern Province and the Divisional Secretary, and taken the matter to the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure.

Deputy Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure Sundaralingam Pradeep told The Sunday Morning that an intervention would be made by the ministry.

“It is difficult to make a legal intervention given that this is a private estate. But if we discuss with the parties, we will be able to arrive at a relief plan. People cannot be evicted like this in a sudden manner,” he said. 

The villagers expressed their opposition towards the eviction and held that the residents of the estate were part of the village, adding that they should be given the land they had been living on for generations.

A monk from Purana Salgamu Rajamaha Viharaya, a temple in close proximity to the estate, also said that these residents should be given a just and practical solution if the owners wished to sell the land.

Deprivation of resources and justice

Born on this estate, Valliamma has never been to school. She said that the estate owner and his wife, who was a School Principal, had discouraged them.

“They asked us what the point of going to school was, and instead sent me to work at a nearby house.”

Valliamma’s generation of residents made sure that their children went to school. Recently, her daughter S. Pushpakanthi graduated with a degree from the University of Kelaniya as she pursued external studies while working in a garment factory.

Those who worked on the estate had not received statutory benefits such as the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF), the residents said.

According to VOPP Executive Director Anthony Jesudasan, although the workers contributed their labour for decades, the estate management had failed to ensure their legal entitlements to social security and retirement benefits. As a result, the organisation noted that families that had been working on the estate for generations were left vulnerable in terms of income insecurity, healthcare access, and financial stability during old age.

Jesudasan shared that a similar incident had occurred in an estate in Kurunegala where the residents had been successful in waging a community struggle when faced with eviction. They have since received land and housing.

Meanwhile, the residents on the estate continue to live under difficult conditions and poor infrastructure. Their houses were originally line rooms from colonial era plantations, yet only a few houses from the 16 line-room units now remain. Their homes are dilapidated and mostly unfit for human habitation.

One such structure stands on two walls and a few pillars as the remainder of the surrounding walls had collapsed when the land was being developed for cinnamon plantations, according to a resident. Cracks that run across walls and leaking roofs continue to worsen the conditions of the dwellings.

A small number of residents from the nine families had still worked on the estate until 2023. However, as the land had been partitioned and sold along with the decline in the estate’s operations, the people had resorted to irregular daily wage labour, where some work in cinnamon plantations in the vicinity. Most of the young people from the community are employed outside the estate.

The access road to the settlement remains an uphill climb laden with rocks. No vehicle can reach the residents, leaving them to carry those who fall sick during emergencies. When it rains, the road becomes hazardous as the water makes it muddy and slippery.

Legal and political challenges

The legal concept of ‘adverse possession’ in Sri Lanka allows an individual who has occupied a land openly, continuously, and without the owner’s permission for a period of 10 years to claim ownership of that land.

However, according to Law and Society Trust Senior Researcher Attorney at Law Vidura Munasinghe, the changes in estate ownership across various periods and the recognition of these residents as employees of the estate have complicated the application of this law.

“Ownership has changed over years between State ownership and private ownership. Adverse possession can usually only be applied to private land. Even to do so, the occupation of the land should be done against the will of the owner of the land. But these estates have continued to facilitate these people as their employees, so they cannot lay claim through this law. As such, there is a problem with the law,” he noted.  

However, the Estate Quarters (Special Provisions) Act No.2 of 1971 states that where the services of any person who is an employee on an estate and who is provided with quarters on the estate are terminated by the employer, whether with or without notice, such person shall have the right to occupy the quarters together with dependents until they are evicted through court order.

Munasinghe opined that because these were private lands, most estate owners tended to think of the people who lived on those estates as illegal occupants.

“They think that the people can be evicted if the estate goes bankrupt, if the estate is being sold, or if the people are no longer employees of the estate, regardless of how long the people have been living on and using the land.”

While many owners tend to claim that the estates are operating under losses and therefore cannot continue to run, shutting down an estate is not a simple decision, as this model of tenure has operated in the country for a long period as a unique economic unit. The lives of those who worked on the plantations have been tied to the land and estate.

“There is a problem here; these lands cannot be sold like any other land,” said Munasinghe.

He suggested an alternative model of running plantations: a cooperative model run by the workers themselves.

“We cannot look at estates the way we look at any other business, because they have continued for a long time under exploitative conditions. People have spent their lives on these estates. Therefore, there should be special mechanisms to deal with them,” he noted.  

Pointing towards the need for the Government to take responsibility, Munasinghe suggested bringing in regulations to protect the workers who had been sold along with the lands when the State re-sold plantations it took over following the nationalisation of private estates during the 1970s.

In addition, he noted that people from low-country plantations, especially the small plantations, were politically vulnerable as their unique conditions were not strongly represented in the representative system.

“Workers of low-country small plantations are not organised like their up-country counterparts. All of the main political parties operate plantation worker trade unions and they have a strong hold of the up-country as there are large numbers of people in one place. In contrast, low-country plantations have many smallholder estates where smaller numbers of people are scattered. Their bargaining power is minimal as they do not represent a large voter block unlike in up-country plantations,” Munasinghe explained.  

He also pointed towards a growing ageing crisis in the plantation sector with many young people leaving estates, highlighting the need to care for the elderly population.

Meanwhile, last Sunday (12), President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presided over a ceremony in Bandarawela, where 2,000 beneficiaries from the Malaiyaha community were handed letters of home ownership.