Did Isha take tribal land at Ikkarai Boluvampatti?
The claim
The claim is that Isha bought, or simply took, about 44 acres that the government had assigned to landless and tribal families at Ikkarai Boluvampatti.
The Hindu reported it on 25 October 2016 from a press statement by P. Shanmugham of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association. A later petition in the Madras High Court, by the Velliangiri Hills Tribals Protection Society through P. Muthammal, asked for constructions on village land to be pulled down. Swarajya, in a December 2024 ground report, names Muthamma as the woman who said 44 acres given to tribals had been taken, and says her effort was backed by the All India Democratic Women's Association.
What Isha answered in 2016
Isha's statement, carried by The Hindu on 27 October 2016, said it had never acquired land assigned to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or the poor. It said the 44 acres were not one parcel. Thirty-seven acres were in a separate part of the village. Seven acres abutting Isha land had been allotted to nine people, and those people had sold. Isha said the list of purchasers was annexed to the statement. That annexure is not on this page.
What the daughter said
Swarajya quoted Gayathri, Muthamma's daughter, in December 2024. "What my mother says is not true. The foundation did not take over any land belonging to tribals." The same report quotes an Isha monk, Swami Jyotirmaya, saying the holdings were revenue land of the dominant communities, with pattas, some of it cultivated, none of it owned by tribals. Gayathri, the report says, now runs a shop near the Adiyogi statue through a self-help group.
What the 2023 court order actually was
On 24 August 2023 The Hindu reported that the Madras High Court had ordered the joint director of town and country planning to inquire into constructions on 20.805 hectares in the village. The deputy director's status report said 15.53 hectares were classed as wetland and 5.275 as dryland, that the government website named Isha as owner, and that his office had no planning approval on file. That is a permissions question, already on the buildings page. It is not a finding that the land was tribal assignment.
The October 2024 Coimbatore police status report, as The Hindu summarised it, said an FIR on encroachment of land given to tribal people was under investigation. This page does not have the later status of that FIR.
Still missing: the 2016 purchaser list, and the closing report on the tribal-land FIR if one exists.
Sources
- The Hindu, 27 Oct 2016, Isha's reply
- Swarajya, 25 Dec 2024, the daughter's account
- The Hindu, 24 Aug 2023, the planning inquiry