Badagas of the Blue Mountains

This site is dedicated to my mother, Idyammal Bellie Gowder

Born into the richest family of the Badagas in 1912, forced to marry at the age of fifteen, to a poor but educated man who was eighteen years elder, just to honour and the keep the words of your father Rao Bahadur Bellie Gowda, from a sick bed,  you suffered in silence and bravely accepted all the short comings of life.

Though you were the youngest among five brothers, you were not given any share of your father’s property of nearly 950 acres of land and many houses spread around the Nilgiris, Nakku Betta, because you were a girl child.

But, your eldest brother, the great Ari Gowda, the undisputed leader of Badagas for many years – till his death in 1971, was a constant help and support inspite of opposition from the next generation of male members.

Ida – Kaday (Idyammal) in 1927

Though you were the unifying force of Rao Bahadur Bellie Gowder family of Hubbathalai, you ignored the ridicule and became a role model of determination showing exceptional leadership qualities.

The suffering and hardship did not deter you to educate each and every child, both boys and girls numbering eight, sending all to colleges [including one to a medical and another to engineering].

Your 99 years and ten months of life, was full of wisdom and a source of inspiration to children,  grand children and great grand children living all around the world.

Ide Hethe (Idyammal) in 2010

Oh mother, I touch your feet and seek your blessings wherever you are!

ENGELLAVA OLLENGAY BADUKKU ENDHU HARACHCHU, THAAYEY !!

Students contest for Mountain Day

Dharmalingam Venugopal
Nilgiri Documentation Centre

The United Nations designated  “International Mountain Day” is observed every year on December 11 to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.

The topic for this year is “Mountain Cultures: celebrating diversity and strengthening identity”.

The Nilgiri Documentation Centre has been celebrating Mountain Day since its inception in 2002.

This year NDC proposes to organize a competition for Nilgiri students on the topic, “The Nilgiri Mountains- A Marvel of Cultural Mosaic”.

The Nilgiris is a unique case where tradition, modernity and change have marched together for centuries producing a remarkable integration of cultural diversity. Nevertheless, newer changes and challenges are bound to occur in the future. How the present student community which will be called upon to manage those challenges in the future is of utmost importance to the Nilgiris.

The competition for students (both school and college going) will cover writing (prose and poetry), painting and elocution. Certificate of participation and suitable prizes for winners will be presented on December 11 at the Mountain Day function. Details will be informed after receipt of entry applications.

Students desirous of participating may contact dharmalingamvenu@gmail.com or 9444365360 at the earliest.

The tea grown in the Nilgiris is mainly due the tireless efforts of the hardworking Badaga community with their small tea holdings [tea estates called ‘Thotta’]. Unfortunately, like in many parts of the country, these small tea growers – farmers who sell the green tea leaves plucked from their small and tiny tea estates to the local Tea Factories, have been getting a raw deal due to the cartelization and the middle men, the so called tea brokers along with a ‘could not care less’ attitude of the Tea Board.

Many, in sheer desperation and disgust, have sold their land [tea estates] to property developers or abandoned the idea of growing tea. Needless to add, they are always at the ‘receiving end’.

Though a few informed ‘elders’ like Hubbathalai Siva have been trying their best to get a better price for the small tea growers, no substantial benefits have resulted so far. Will there be a better tomorrow that can bring cheers with chai? – Wg Cdr JP

Sivan and others meeting the Union Commerce secretary at Ooty on the eve of IITC -2016

My first visit to a Literary Festival

10 random or reckless thoughts

Dharmalingam Venugopal

Though I have been in Madras (I do not prefer to use the word Chennai) for 40 years I have not attended a single Literary Festival.

Today I attended the Ooty Literary Festival lured by the inclusion of ‘Ooty’ to the title. My humble impressions.

1. Since I came to learning much later in life I was always overawed of ‘Writers’. Always images of Socrates or Karl Marx jumped to my mind. I have imagined writers to be kind of military generals determined to cleanse men and women and change society. But I was in for kind of little shock today. It appeared anyone could become a writer provided he or she could think of a marketable idea, write something, have it corrected by a copy editor and find a publisher who could make the cover more attractive than the book.

2. I was welcomed by two persons whom I could not recall of ever been associated with books or literature. I realized that they were merely trying to fill up the hall. Being a member of patron of Nilgiri Library is indeed like a Honorary Degree of Letters.

3. I learnt that the topic for a writer today is immaterial. It could be on global or local catastrophe or how to reduce your waist line or how you eat your ice-cream or view your cinema. It’s always man or mankind who are the villains; not you and me. I confessed to one man, probably a Writer, that my grandfather had 10 children but lived in a house of 600 sqft while I have no children but live in a house of 2000 sqft. If a native of Kotagiri could be so guilty of ‘over consumption’ why blame the world. Those I put the question slipped away; evidently their houses must be not less than 5000 sqft!!!

4. Literature, I thought, was for all classes. But Literary Festivals, it looked , are definitely for the higher classes. The writers mostly were in expected casuals (humility in dress at least) and the moderators were all in status-suits and fine silks befitting their rank and class. There were a sprinkling of middle class in the audience. Where are the poor? Are there no ‘Gana literature’? The oral and epic literature of the Badagas and Todas had been described by scholars as exceptionally unique and profound. Do they not merit a mention in the Literary Festival in their own soil?

This beautiful description of a LITFEST reflects the feelings of many like me, the Tamil medium [in school] types, who long to see and hear the ‘local liteaure of of Badagas and Todas’ being discussed. Since my knowledge on the Toda language is limited, I can vouch for the great and unique Badaga [mainly oral] literature. The Badaga ballads like Beradha Bellie, Koli Thippae , Udugu Jogi, Kara Chennae etc., can not only bring the best of human feelings but also reflects the life of tribals  in those days in the Nilgiri hills much before  any British or  missionary ever came to ‘this unspoilt piece of paradise on earth’ – Wg.Cdr.JP

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Dr.Haldorai, along with Nellikolu Trust has been doing a great service to Badaga Community.

Kiya Kauhatti Dr.Haldorai (married from Hubbathalai Ooru), also a scholar in Tamil, has written many books on and about Badaga, the unique & one of the original tribes of the Nilgiri Hills and Badaga (Badagu), the language. Nellikolu Trust has been publishing his books and making it available at an affordable price.

Of late, Dr.Haldorai has revived the traditional Badaga Ballads like ‘Koli Tippae‘ and ‘Udugu Jogi‘ and given them both in Badaga [used Tamil Script] and in Tamil translation. Obviously, the trigger seems to be a gifted lady – Devhennu, wife of Jogi Gowder, from Kekkatti and daughter of Nunduva Nanjaiyya, who can sing Badaga Ballads in her beautiful voice. Nanduva Nanjaiyya Rama mentions that when she sings these Badaga ballads like the story of the sufferings of Koli Thippae, ‘everyone is touched and eyes wellup with tears’.

The stories of ‘Koli Thippae’ and ‘Udugu Jogi, recorded by Nellikolu Trust and written by Dr.Haldorai from the songs of Devhennu are indeed treasures that we can be proud of.

You would have  been 104 today!

A journey that was extraordinary ! A life full of challenges !!

But you never gave up !

The steely determination with which you faced  fate and life, is an inspiration for many generations!!

Happy birthday to Mrs.Idyammal [Idy Hethe], wherever you are!!

Keekiri Awai, missing you with sorrow, thinking of you with nostalgia, remembering you with love.
Continue to bless us – Indu.K.Mallah

Happy Birthday Idiyammal Hethe. You look so bright and beautiful in the photograph. Your radiance is so transparent. Probably every wrinkle on your face has untold stories and events. May you live in the hearts of all Badaga women and keep blessing – Rajma

This website http://www.badaga.co has crossed another milestone of 450,000 hits a few months back and now stands at 462,000+. A big thank you to all.

If this site has helped in knowing about the Badagas of the Blue Mountains, an indigenous tribe of the Nilgiris, a little better, we would have achieved some of our objectives.

But there are a lots more to learn and do for the betterment of the community, thus making it an example of a model & modern society of our great nation.

Proud to be an Indian: Proud to be a Badaga!!

Polar bear at Red Fort, listening to PM’s speech?

8:10 am /15-8-2016 watching PM’ Independence day address on TV.

What caught my ‘attention’ was the ‘polar bear’ at the right bottom corner.

Look carefully.  Notice the polar bear?

Some times even Camera angles can play tricks.

I have absolutely no doubt that Badagas are one of the original indigenous communities of  NAKKU BETTA, The Nilgiris – the Blue Mountains in Southern India.  See the page on ‘Badaga Origin’  for Info – Wing Commander Bellie Jayaprakash

The Nilgiris

A Pleasant Indigenous Puzzle

Dharmalingam Venugopal

photo -The five indigenous communities of Nilgiris in 1875 from the book by J.W. Breeks, the first Commissioner of Nilgiris

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is observed every year on August 9 to promote and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population. This event also recognizes the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues such as environmental protection.

Indigenous peoples, or Natives, are ethnic groups who are native to a land or region, sharing a cultural identity that has been shaped by their geographical region.

Indigenous peoples globally are concerned that their  cultures are being lost from discrimination and pressure to assimilate into their surrounding societies.

It has been well documented that the Todas, Kotas, Badagas, Kurumbas and Irulas are the established indigenous communities of the Nilgiri uplands and their unique ways of life and interdependence have been one of the most documented subjects in Asia.

photo – Wg Cdr JP

Of late, however, there is a tendency to doubt the status of the Badagas as an indigenous community. According to a view Badagas were immigrants fleeing from Muslim persecution in Mysore in the past. There is absolutely not a shred of evidence, either documentary or oral, substantiating it. In fact, there has never been any persecution of any Nilgiri communities by Muslims on record.

Some even believe the Badaga migration took place during the reign of Tippu Sultan.   The first written documentation of the Nilgiris dates to 1602 while Tippu was defeated in 1799. Though Nilgiris was under Tippu for many years, he had nothing to do with the place or the people except for putting up two look out posts on the hills. There is no evidence of his ever visited the hills.

photo – Wg.Cdr. JP

The five indigenous communities of Nilgiris in 1875 from the book by J.W. Breeks, the first Commissioner of NilgirisThe 1602 document left behind by the scholarly Father Finicio who came with a large entourage from Calicut speaks of the upland communities including the Badagas in clear terms. Badagas numbered about 500 then while other communities were much less.

Some research scholars speculate that the Badagas could have moved to the hills gradually in batches starting from around the middle of 1500. Such conclusions are drawn based on the evidence of paid local informants to the European writers after Nilgiris was opened up by the British.

Such research are at best for academic purpose and have no relevance for Nilgiris or its people. When around the middle of 1500 America, Europe, UK and most other nations and our own country and states had not been born, the need to locate where the Badagas or other tribes of  Nilgiris came from or when is absurd.

The elaborate documentation of Nilgiris over the past two centuries shows only how the five communities had lived in harmony, without any violence marked by a unique system of barter and interdependence while maintaining their respective identities and cultures.

As an anthropologist described it, “To the assertion that war is an inalienable feature of all human life, the Nilgiris case presents one refutation. There was no knowledge of the Scriptures to bolster it; no Brahmins to legitimize it; no Kashtriyas to rule over it: yet the social order functioned well for centuries”.

The Nilgiris and its indigenous communities continue to remain a Pleasant Puzzle. It is best to leave them like that. [also see – The Hindu ]

Hats off to D.Venugopal’s views. My conviction that what we do not know about Badagas, their traditions,customs and culture, is much more than what we know. One of the most absurd and unconvincing argument is that Badagas are not native to the Nilgiris but migrants from Mysore area. An untruth that was hammered down our throats by ill informed historians/researchers from the west. Unfortunately, there are quite a few ‘desi’ scholars who seem to believe that lie about Badaga Origin. – Wg Cdr JP