Whether from a class perspective or from a community identity perspective, it is undeniably the biggest failure that decades after the land reforms, a good majority of the dalits and adivasis in Kerala remain fully landless. In the context of the Supreme Court verdict of 21 July 2009, which rejected a stay order by the Kerala High Court on important sections of the Kerala Restriction on Transfer by and Restoration of Lands to Scheduled Tribes Act, 1999 and the new scenario where the legislature and the judiciary proclaim that the adivasi community has now agreed for alternate land, and therefore, the issue of restoration of land has become irrelevant, this study looks into the story of Aralam farm in Kannur district, where a rehabilitation programme by the state is currently in progress. This study reveals the grim reality of the dalits and adivasi people in a state, where no territory is declared as a scheduled area under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.
