PRAGOTI

Nearly two decades after a tribal hamlet in Tamil Nadu, Vachathi, was attacked by police and State forest officials, under the guise of a crackdown on alleged sandalwood smuggling, last week a lower court convicted 215 government officials, including 17 held for rape. Subsequent cover-ups, in collusion with the State government, were exposed after the investigation was handed over to the CBI after a writ petition filed by the then CPI (M) State secretary, A. Nallasivan in the Madras High Court. R. VAIGAI documents the scale of atrocities and the role of the Left, both the CPI(M) and mass organisations like the AIDWA, in supporting the struggle of the people of Vachathi. This article first appeared in People's Democracy.