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Prior to the State re-organization in1957, Attappady was administered as part of the Malabar District of the then Madras Presidency. With the amalgamation of Travancore, Kochi and Malabar, the new State of Kerala was formed and Attappady was included in the Mannarghat Taluk of Palakkad District.
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An organized effort for development of this tract was started after the coming up of the new State in 1957 and during 1961 the National Extension Service was introduced under the Five-year Plan. However, nothing significant happened for long. This can be attributed both to the inherent limitations of National Extension Services and lesser accessibility for the functionaries to interior areas.
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry development succeeded to limited extents, that too only to the accessible areas, or in the hamlets lying in close proximity to the roads and embankments, rivers and their tributaries. Subsequently, Applied Nutrition Programme with external assistance moved to the interior habitations. This is because of the fact that the scheme provided assistance by way of giving free food and related commodities to the tribes. It is to be noted that in the earlier days, the remoteness of Attappady and linguistic uniqueness of the tribes slowed down the advancement of developmental inputs. Furthermore, general indifference of the functionaries towards tribal development, top-down planning process, lack of transparency in implementation, ineffective monitoring and evaluation etc. have seriously undermined the past developmental efforts.
Attappady had witnessed massive removal of the forest wealth in the past. This continued even after the state re-organization. With the introduction of the Block Development Office and other developmental departments of the Government, a large number of roads and subways were constructed. However, the quality of construction by and large left much to be desired, as presently, almost all roads are in a dilapidated condition requiring urgent repairs.
With the coming of the forest reservation and Forest Act in the late nineteenth century, the forest of Attappady entered the scientific management of British forestry. Post-independence, the Kerala Forest Act of 1961 helped to a certain extent in controlling forest felling and degradation. However, it restricted the movement of the tribal people in the forest area and also affected their livelihood.
From the early twentieth century, large-scale arrival of plainspeople, both from Travancore and Tamilnadu, also disturbed the tribal life in Attappady. The settlers from the plains began occupying rich, fertile valleys and converted them into agriculture lands. In the process, the tribes were pushed further up in the mountains. Most of the tribal people were shifting cultivators, and hence near their settlements large extents of forestlands became degraded. With little understanding of settled agriculture and restriction to use forest resources, the tribal community began experiencing a new phase of social unrest, which was dominated by unemployment and poverty. Gradually the tribes began working for the settlers, forest department and other government agencies as manual labours .
The situation of all the settlers was also not much better. Attappady area was considered as malaria stricken tract and therefore, the affluent sections of society from other areas did not migrate to Attappady. It was only the economically backward and a faction of destitute who migrated to the area. Lesser financial resources and the unpredictability of reasonable returns for their efforts from the fragile eco-system always remained a serious challenge. In the absence of proper system for marketing of products, the farmers were in serious financial crisis. A few others turned to be the intermediaries and middlemen.
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History