Codava National Council conducts satyagraha in Delhi

Madikeri: The Codava National Council (CNC) convened a dignified Satyagraha at Jantar Mantar, Parliament Street, New Delhi, on November 1—Karnataka Rajyotsava Day, observed by Codavas as Incursion Day—to mourn the 1956 merger of their erstwhile Part ‘C’ State of Coorg into Mysore (now Karnataka), a cataclysm that the CNC claims, rendered them second-class citizens in their ancestral domain.

Under Chairman N.U. Nachappa Codava, a contingent from Codavaland (Kodagu) submitted a fervent memorandum to the President, Prime Minister, Home Minister, and global entities, demanding a dedicated commission or the Second States Reorganization Commission to enshrine Codavaland’s geopolitical autonomy under Articles 244, 371, and the 6th/8th Schedules, akin to Northeast councils, Leh-Ladakh, or international precedents like Tibet’s region.

The CNC lambasts the merger as a constitutional betrayal, violating the 7th Amendment’s safeguards and UN indigenous covenants, transforming Codavas into apartheid subjects amid resource plunder, demographic influxes, and cultural erosion. “Coorg’s self-sufficiency, as affirmed in the Supreme Court’s 2023 Article 370 verdict, underscores our viability—yet we’ve endured as an internal colony, looted of forests, minerals, and waters, spawning droughts and landslides,” the document asserts.

Successive regimes, it charges, foster “Codava phobia” via acculturation and xeno-centric policies, necessitating urgent self-determination for the aboriginal Animistic tribe.

The 10-point charter invokes Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s WP (PIL) No. 7769/2023 in Karnataka High Court for a commission to probe Codava grievances, alternatively a reorganization panel. Further, the Cauvery River demands “living entity” personhood, Talacauvery as a Codava pilgrimage akin to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, and 200 TMC allocation per 1966 Helsinki Rules (beyond Tribunal’s 270 TMC to Karnataka and Supreme Court’s 14 TMC addendum). The CNC seeks memorials at Naalnaad Aramane, Madikeri Fort, Uluguli, Mullusoge, Lakdikote, Harangi, Gaddigebetta, and a UN Holocaust-listed Devaattparamb Genocide Monument under Article 49 and Venice 1964 Declaration, preserving it as a sacred Desha Mandh rivaling Kurukshetra or Kalinga.

Participants, led by Nachappa, included Nandetira Kavitha Subbaiah, Anjaparavanda Kaushi Nikhil, Jammada Mohan, Ravi Subbaiah, Aruna Beba, Kandera Suresh, Parvangada Naveen, Appeyangada Male Poonachcha, Karthanda Dilan, Machimada Nishan, Bojjangada Poovanna, Anjaparvanda Nikhil Cariappa, and Machimanda Sharath, who offered floral tributes post-Satyagraha.

Memoranda were dispatched to Law Minister, Dr. Swamy, Karnataka CM (Vidhana Soudha), UN Headquarters (New York), UNESCO DG Audrey Azoulay (Paris), UNPFII, and Indigenous Rights Rapporteur (Geneva).

This resolute stand, rooted in 35 years of advocacy, seeks equity for the endangered Codava tribe in India’s pluralistic democracy, ensuring their 2026–27 census code revives a non-religious, non-caste legacy from 1871–1931 enumerations.