A government order said the residual toxicity of the pesticide would not have persisted after October 2011. The victims disagree.
A child victim of the aerial spraying of endosulfan. (Madhuraj)
The Kerala government’s recent decision to exclude all children born after October 2011 — irrespective of their conditions and symptoms — in the northernmost villages of Kasaragod from the list of endosulfan victims has raised serious concerns among families and pro-environment groups.
The government made the decision even as the scientific community maintained that traces of the banned and highly toxic pesticide are still to be found in Kasaragod, where the pesticide was aerially sprayed on cashew plantations for a long time.
In 1978, the state-run Plantation Corporation began spraying endosulfan on its cashew nut crops in the Kasaragod area to remove tea mosquito bugs. In 1981, the firm began spraying endosulfan from helicopters, which continued till 2005.
At least 500 people are estimated have died due to the pesticide, and some 6,600 people are listed on the government’s registry of endosulfan victims.
Families of endosulfan victims and local environmental groups see the state government’s recent order that endosulfan does not survive in the environment after six years — the reason for the October 2011 cut-off, as the pesticide was banned in 2005 — “as discriminatory and devoid of any understanding of ground reality”.
According to the authorities, aerial spraying of the pesticide in Kasaragod and its surrounding areas stopped on 25 October, 2005, and subsequently, the pesticide’s environmental “persistence” would not last beyond 25 October 2011.
Endosulfan victims and their relatives on a protest in Kasaragod. (Madhuraj/Mathrubhumi)
The duration of a contaminant’s presence in the environment is defined as “persistence”, and the government said it would no longer treat children born with deformities after 2011 as victims of the banned pesticide.
The pesticide was previously sprayed on government-owned cashew plantations managed by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala Limited.
According to the 18 November state government order, only people who resided in the locations or had intrauterine exposure between January 1980 and October 2011 would be considered victims.
The government also stated that the decision was made on the advice of an expert committee.
A group of medical professionals, including the state’s director of medical education, doctors from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram, and a doctor from NIMHANS in Bengaluru, made the recommendation.
The committee’s declared goal was to identify endosulfan victims using existing scientific evidence.
However, according to the local community, the expert committee failed to consider some of the globally-recognised characteristics of endosulfan and its after-effects, and the order would now prevent any new endosulfan patients born after October 2011 from receiving government assistance.
In these villages, many children were born with abnormalities such as enlarged heads after 2011.
“We condemn the government’s order and will strongly protest,” said Munisa Ambalathara, president of the Endosulfan Peedhitha Janakeeya Munnani, a voluntary organisation that advocates for endosulfan-affected families’ rights.
She stated that the state government hosted the first special medical camp to locate endosulfan victims in 2010 and that the follow-up camps were held in 2011, 2013, and 2017.
“The previous special medical camp was held during the time of the first Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government. If endosulfan had no long-term environmental impact after 2011, why would the government conduct a camp in 2017,” she wondered while speaking to South First.
She questioned why no expert had not then questioned the futility of holding a camp.
Several children, some as young as five years old, were identified as endosulfan sufferers in the 2017 camp, she said, adding that they were included in the government’s registry and given free benefits and treatment.
A victim of endosulfan who is physically challenged. (Madhuraj/Mathrubhumi)
All individuals who received treatment and benefits from 2017 were now feeling betrayed by the administration.
The sufferers claimed to have the same symptoms and malformations as victims born before the global ban on the pesticide.
With the latest order, the government also went back on its earlier promise to hold special camps each year to identify endosulfan victims.
According to Ambikasuthan Mangad, a writer-turned-activist whose novel Enmakaje was inspired by the Kasaragod endosulfan disaster, the new order was part of the government’s plan to shy away from its responsibilities towards the endosulfan victims.
The order would halt all special medical camps, besides stopping benefits to the victims.
Mangad reminded the government of a January 2017 Supreme Court ruling mandating it to compensate all endosulfan victims with ₹5 lakh each, based on a ground-level assessment completed in 2011.
Several studies, Mangad added, had proved the persistence of endosulfan’s residual toxicity in the region over the last two decades, and the government should seek the advice of independent specialists before arriving at such discriminatory findings.
He claimed that the government’s order amounted to deception aimed at denying compensation to the victims of the public sector company’s abuse of the environment.
In 1978, the state-run Plantation Corporation began spraying endosulfan on its cashew nut crops in the Kasaragod area to remove tea mosquito bugs.
Endosulfan victims and their relatives on a protest in Kasargod. Photo By Madhuraj.
In 1981, the firm began legally — but ineffectively — spraying endosulfan from helicopters on its plantation in the district’s 11 grama panchayats.
Until 2001, the pesticide was sprayed from the air twice or three times a year. Its use was proclaimed illegal in October 2005.
Soon after, many people began to experience health difficulties, including physical anomalies and mental diseases.
Similar health issues were reported in the areas surrounding the corporation’s cashew fields in Kasaragod with each passing year.
After conducting extensive research, a government-appointed committee from the Kerala Agriculture University (KAU) advised an immediate halt to aerial spraying and pesticide use in February 2001.
The National Institute of Occupational Health published a study in January 2002 that discovered endosulfan contamination in water in the area, and in blood samples gathered from the affected villages.
According to the study, the exposed populations had a higher chance of congenital malformations, low IQ, slow learning, learning difficulty, early menarche in girls, and delayed puberty in boys.
Civil society representatives, campaigners, and families impacted by endosulfan aerial spraying struggled for years before the government convened the first special camp to identify victims in 2010.
As of now, around 6,600 people are listed on the government’s registry of endosulfan victims. Over 500 have already died.
Close relatives of the victims, who have physical and mental defects, are still suffering from stress, anxiety, and melancholy. Social activists who work with them have observed suicidal tendencies among the relatives of endosulfan-affected people.
Victims of endosulfan at a recent protest in Kasaragod. Photo: Madhuraj
“The system has failed them. These sad folks are a liability for the rest of Kerala. The government and civic society are callous. Nobody is interested in resolving the issues we identified,” Amabalathara Kunhikrishnan, the Endosulfan Victims’ Action Council’s leader, told South First.
“It appears that the government is blind and insensitive,” Kunhikrishnan raged. He recalled earlier instances when leaders from across the political spectrum contacted them with bogus promises of rehabilitation, healthcare, and alternative livelihood possibilities.
Promises have remained mere promises. None of them have been fulfilled. The Supreme Court recently reprimanded the Kerala government for its careless handling of the situation.
The residual effects of the deadly insecticides are still visible despite the global ban. Children are still born with swollen heads as a result of hydrocephalus (an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid), as well as other physical abnormalities and mental issues.
Cancer, cerebral palsy, skin ailments, and vision loss are also widespread among the population of Kasaragod, Kerala’s poorest district.
Endosulfan is still prevalent in the soil and sediments at waterbodies in and around the corporation’s estates, according to studies by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology, and Environment.
“In a medical camp held in 2017, 1,905 people were found to be affected by endosulfan. However, the government included only 287 people on the list of victims. Following a protest by the victims in front of the Secretariat in 2019, the government decided to include individuals under the age of 18. However, a decision on including the remaining 1,031 is still pending, and the latest order would worsen their plight,” Mangad told South First.
Kunhikrishnan stated that if the government failed to meet the endosulfan victims’ demands, they would be forced to go on an indefinite strike.
The Endosulfan 1031 Protest Committee, founded by the mothers of victims not on the official list, has decided to take to the streets to press for their demand.
“Our only demand to the government is that 1,031 patients be added to the list of endosulfan victims, and we will fight the new order in any way we can. It is part of a deliberate effort to deny help to these children,” said P Shyni, convener of the collective.
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