Kerala Governor urged to intervene to stop reforms in Lakshadweep

Implement changes only after consultations, activists tell in letter

Social and environmental scientists, social activists, ecologists and geographers have appealed to Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan to intervene immediately to stop the reforms that are under way in Lakshadweep and to review them urgently. “The changes being proposed, apparently for the welfare of the people, should be implemented only after a thorough consultative process. The programmes being planned should have a long-term vision and follow a regional, need-based, consultative approach rather than the top-down way being envisaged now,” they said in a letter to the Governor on Wednesday. Expressing shock over the happenings in Lakshadweep, they said the ethnic community structure of this unique bit of land lying afloat the Arabian Sea had withstood the vagaries of the ocean and weather. The occupants of the island had adapted and found a niche that enabled them to cope with the limitations of land-and- freshwater availability.