DONGAR meet of KORAPUT plateau



DONGAR meet of KORAPUT plateau

Intangible Cultural Heritage(ICH) or what some call as ‘Living Heritage’ encompasses many traditions, practices and customs of a group of people or a community. These include the stories they tell, the family events they celebrate, their community gatherings, the languages they speak, the songs they sing, knowledge of their natural space, their healing traditions, the food they eat, their rituals, Parabs, their holidays, beliefs and all cultural practices they conduct.

The DONGAR meet of koraput plateau is designed to conserve and protect the cultural heritage of both the tangible and intangible ones of the indigenous communities of Koraput plateau who were termed as ‘Hill Tribes’ during British days and subsequently categorized in independent India as ST (Scheduled Tribe), SC (Scheduled Caste) and the balance of about 40% were left as ‘General’. Of course they are later categorized as OBC (Other Backward Classes). Still now, if one observes or makes study, one can be convinced that the so-called OBCs of Koraput plateau cannot be compared with the OBCs of the rest of the country. Thus, the German Scholar Georg Pfeffer while studying the communities of this highland terms the OBCs of Koraput plateau, as the non-STs of ‘Desia tribes’.

The term ‘hill tribes’ was coined by the British administration of the erstwhile ‘Madras Presidency’ for the whole indigenous communities of Koraput plateau which was then declared as ‘Agency Areas’. Those agency areas subsequently in independent India has been named as ‘Scheduled Areas’. As the term ‘Hill Tribe’ was initiated in the Madras Presidency only, many pundits of our country, particularly of Odisha state seems are not able to appreciate the term ‘Hill Tribe’ and it also seems that they are not aware of the fact that the term ‘Hill Tribe’ is a synonym of the ST, SC & OBC’s combined. It is not known , on whi;ch criteria and why the Odisha portion of Koraput Plateau Hill Tribes were first divided into three categories in which the present OBC were first categories in which the present OBCs were first catagorised as ‘Generals’ and were made them equal with the general categories of the rest of the country. Till now no pundit can vouch that the said catagorisations are made scientifically.

There has been more concern with the Pundits with the identification of tribes of koraput Plateau and are looking through their magnifying glasses to identify the differences in between Paraja and Jhadia, Bhatara and Bhumia, Kui Kandh and Kuvi Kandha, Putia Paika & Didayi etc. But they rarely try to find the similarity among the so-called Scheduled Tribes and de-notified ‘Hill Tribes’. In fact, there are about ninty percent similarities among these Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and other Backward Classes of the Koraput agency as was known earlier as Hill Tribes in British India.

The does not mean that lists have been drawn by the Pundits without any conception. This was obvious from the use of criteria that were adopted. These criteria ranges from such features as geographical isolation, simple technologies and conditions of living, general backwardness to the practice of animism, indigenous languages, physical features etc. The problem however lay in the fact that they were neither clearly formulated nor systematically and scientifically applied. One set of criteria were used in one context. The result is that the list includes groups and communities strikingly different from each other in respect of not only in size of the population, but also in the level of technology and other characteristics. Indian anthropologists have been actually aware of a certain lack of uniformity between what their discipline defines as tribe and what they are oblized to describe as tribes. Yet they have continued with its existing labels.

The census officials were however far from clear with regard to the criterian of distinction. It is with the 190`1 census that one finds a mention of criteria howsoever inadequate that may be. It defined tribes as those who practiced animism. Animism is a vague term in Indian context as all most all the religious practices of Indian origin have the same practices of Indian origin have the same practices of worshiping nature, animals etc. like monkey as Hanuman, eagles as Garuda, Ox as Brushava etc. The word ‘animism’ coined by the British officials seems for obvious reasons to divide the indigenous Indian communities. In the subsequent census animism was replaced by the tribal relilgion. Although the criterion so introduced was highly unsatisfactory, it continues to be used widely and extensively. In India, the tribal situation is marked by two paradoxical facts.

i) The absence of neat demarcations of the tribals (indigenous people of India) as a homogenous social cultural category –and-

ii) The significant magnitude of what is acceptged as comprising tribal reality.

No one can demarcate a clear devide between the tribals and the non-tribals in India. The intensly fluid nature of the non-tribals is evident is the indeparable difficulty in arriving at a clear anthropological definition of a tribe in India, be that in terms of ethnicity, race, language, social forms of modes of livelihood. It would truly impossible for any one to say to say that all the diverse communities lilsted under the constitutions of India as’ Scheduled Tribes’ confirm to the notion of tribal in classical sence (Sharma sures; 2000). It is an irony that the indigenous communities of Koraput plateau are the victims of such confusion. The whole population of undivided Koraput district were termed as Hill Tribes since 1918 by the British Government in Madras Presidency. Till 1950 all the communities of Koraput were Hill Tribes and were getting the same facililties under the law. But in 1950, on the advice of the Pundits divided the whole population into SC, ST & OBC without having scientific parameters and their cultural, social and psychological “One of us”feelings were scattered. The result is now seen in Khandhamal and Narayanpatna etc of the Koraput plateau. It seems that the definition of ‘Hill Tribes’ coined by the British administration for all the indigenous communities of Koraput plateau ruled under the ‘Madras presidency’ are more scientific than the definitions of ‘tribe’ made by the Pundits under the constitution of India. The British definition made in 1817-18 was that.

“Any body or classes of persons reside in the Agency tracts (entire Un-divided Koraput district was declared as Agency tracts), that may from time to time be notified as such for the purpose of the Act ( Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfar Act, 1917) by the Government.”

The treatment of the indigenous communities, now termed as tribals, is one of the greatest tragedies of Indian history commenced under the British administration and still continuing in this 21st century. Taking advantage of their primitive ways of living and social structure, the other section of the society exploitd them in the pursuit of wealth and power. They were deprived of their land and their livelihood and they became a prisoner of our so-called ‘Socio-economic developmental system.’

Ever since the Portuguese travel writers and missionaries decided to describe the vastg varities of ethenic and occupational groups and sects of the Indian sub-continent in terms of ‘Caste’ and ‘Tribe’, the terms have stuck to society as masks that start becoming one’s real personality. The result is that today no Indian describes society without taking recourse to the categories ‘caste’ and ‘tribe’. In the initial period of India’s contact with western nations, the two terms were used as synonyms; the difference lay only in the social status of the groups they described. The synonyms was finally shattered through a legal intervention by the colonial rules when an official list of communities were prepared by them (1872) as the list of tribes. A similar list was prepared in the previous year for communities that were mistakenly thought of as ‘criminal’ and were covered by the provisions of an inhuman ‘criminal’ Tribes Act of India. 1871. Since then the ‘tribes’ are perceived as a distrinct segment of society. (Devy GN:2000).

In the context we may fefer the statement made by the premier institution of the Government of India-‘Anthropological Survey of India’, which can be taken as the official authorities on ‘tribes’. In the introduction chapter of their studey report ‘The Scheduled Tribe’ it is mentioned:

“Any discussion of tribes in India has to proceed from the assumption that a tribe is an administrative and political concept in India”. (Oxford University Press: 1994)

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