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Locals irked as government control mars coconut picking in Lakshadweep islands
In Lakshadweep, the coconut tree is more than a crop. It is the spine of life, the anchor of households, and the commons on which an entire community has survived for centuries. On these fragile coral islands where cultivable land is scarce, most palms rise from public lands—roadside strips, panchayat plots, and shared homesteads—long treated as open access resources. Families climbed them freely, harvesting nuts that went into food and drink, into oil and copra, and into ropes, mats, and boats. Coconut sales supplemented fragile fishing incomes, often forming the difference between poverty and survival.
That intimate relationship with the “tree of life” is now under strain. This week, the deputy collector of Andrott Island issued an order making it mandatory for anyone intending to pluck coconuts from roadside trees in Andrott and adjoining Kalpeni to submit prior intimation to both the police and the Lakshadweep Public Works Department at least 24 hours in advance. The directive, issued under Section 152(1)(a) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, classifies coconut plucking without clearance as a “public nuisance”. The official justification: climbers obstruct traffic and pose safety hazards.
But to islanders, the order looks less like a safety measure than another step in the erosion of their commons. Coconut harvesting, once an informal practice flowing through generations, must now follow a script alien to island life: safety cordons, flagmen, cones, restricted time slots, helmets and gloves for climbers and ground handlers, and bans on plucking during school hours or ship embarkations. Failure to comply could bring prosecution and cost recovery from the tree owner.
“We grew up watching our fathers and grandfathers climb roadside trees without asking anyone's permission. The nuts we plucked went into our kitchens or to the market. Now they want us to fill out forms and wait for police clearance. It feels like they are cutting us off from our own trees,” said P P Cheriya Koya, an octogenarian from Kalpeni.
Commons under control
Lakshadweep's land and resource systems have always been different from the mainland. Historically, most cultivable plots were not held outright but as Pandaram lands—technically government-owned but leased to families, known as cowledars, for cultivation. Islanders could plant, tend, and harvest, but could not sell the land or claim absolute ownership.
This tenure system was codified after independence through the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands Tenancy Regulation of 1965, which placed ceilings on tenancy rights, abolished exploitative middlemen, and vested significant landholdings in the administration. While it protected tenant families from eviction, it also entrenched the government's position as the ultimate landowner.
In practice, however, island life moved on customary understandings: fallen coconuts and fronds were freely gathered, roadside palms climbed without dispute, and commons were used for grazing, boat-making, or coir work. The coconut palm functioned as a shared lifeline, not a regulated asset.
The new order upends that equilibrium. By demanding police intimation and departmental clearance, the administration has transformed what was once a customary right into a conditional privilege. Islanders see it as another instance where the state asserts its authority over community-held commons.
When asked about the controversial move, Sub-Divisional Officer for Andrott, A. P. Attakoya, defended the order as a matter of public safety rather than an attack on livelihoods. “We have been witnessing repeated instances of coconut plucking along public roads without any safety measures. Falling nuts, fronds, or even climbers themselves pose imminent hazards to pedestrians, schoolchildren, and vehicles. Under the law, this amounts to a public nuisance,” he informed. The directive, he added, simply requires advance intimation to police and the PWD so that basic road safety protocols can be ensured.
Evictions and erasures
The coconut directive comes in the shadow of a larger upheaval. In July, the administration issued a notification to acquire the entire island of Bitra—home to 105 families—for defence purposes. The move bypassed the need for gram sabha consent, triggering protests across the islands and on the mainland. Residents have started collecting land records and organising rallies, fearful that their land, livelihoods, and identity are about to be erased.
“Since the natives are Scheduled Tribes, we believed our land could not be seized so easily. But the government says gram sabha consent is not even mandatory. If they can take away our island, they can take away anything,” said K G Mohammed of Kavarathi.
The Lakshadweep Students Association (LSA), which burnt copies of the notification in Kochi, sees both the coconut order and the Bitra acquisition as linked. “First, they acquired properties on uninhabited islands where our people farmed. Then they moved against Pandaram land in inhabited islands. Now they want Bitra, and they even regulate how we pluck coconuts. This is nothing but uprooting islanders from their habitat step by step,” said LSA president Misbahudheen P.
Fragile ecology, fragile rights
Lakshadweep's socio-economic fabric leaves little room for such disruption. A study by the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute underlines that coconut cultivation and copra production form the backbone of the islands' economy, generating nearly nine crore nuts annually from just 2,674 hectares of cultivation. No other crop rivals its reach or cultural depth.
Coconut is more than cash. It provides natural storm barriers, buffers erosion, and stabilises the islands' delicate coral ecosystems. The palm's presence is ecological insurance in an era of rising seas and intensifying cyclones. When palms are felled for road widening, ports, or helipads, or when commons access is narrowed by regulation, it is not just livelihoods but environmental resilience that erodes.
Fishing, the other pillar of island survival, is also under pressure. The expansion of controlled zones for security and shipping, coupled with declining fish stocks, has tightened the spaces where small-scale fishers operate. With land and sea both shrinking, coconuts have become even more critical. Which is why restrictions on plucking feel, to many islanders, like an assault on their very future.
From commons to state assets
The dispute over coconut harvesting is therefore not about nuts and fronds alone. It is about who owns the islands' commons, who decides their use, and whose vision of the islands will prevail. For the administration, the coconut tree along a public road is a state-regulated asset. For the islanders, it is a shared lifeline, part of a living heritage of community rights.
“When even climbing a coconut tree is no longer ours to decide, what future do we have here?” asked Muhsin Abubacker, a Kalpeni farmer.
Across Lakshadweep, that question is turning into a refrain. The coconut tree, once the emblem of self-reliance and sustenance, is now the frontline of a contest between bureaucratic authority and indigenous survival. In a territory already facing the twin threats of ecological fragility and strategic appropriation, the battle over coconuts has become emblematic of something larger: the dismantling of commons, the weakening of rights, and the slow unravelling of an island way of life.
Source: HindustanTimes
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