Badagas of the Blue Mountains

I found this interesting piece of youtube clip in FB – Badaga Group. Though it is, more of the Nilgiris and about a local hotel, I like the way Badagas have been portrayed – in a positive way.

I have mentioned about the Koi Udakka and Gaasu Dhotti in the Badaga Recipe page much earlier.see http://badaga-recipes.blogspot.in/

Also, do you know that the Nilgiri Mountain Railway – now a UNO heritage – has a strong Badaga connection. Rao Bahadur Hubbathalai Joghee Gowder Bellie Gowder, undisputed Nakku Betta Chief till his demise in 1935, laid the NMR track from Mettupalayam to Ooty  in 1908 during the British time. Bellie Gowda was the one who built the first school for Badagas in Hubbathalai. He was given the title Rao Sahib and Rao Bahadur mainly because of this. See also http://sites.google.com/site/badagacommunity/raobahadurhjbelliegowder

His son Rao Bahadur HB ARi Gowder, another great Nakku Betta leader, was the railway contractor during his time. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._B._Ari_Gowder

Amazingly, these two were authorised to stop this ‘toy train’ anywhere between Coonoor and Ooty just by showing the hand to stop.

Raghu Joghee (Photo Journalist with Dinamalar) published this in Facebook – Badagas Group.

My (Wg Cdr JP) take on this :

See my detailed disclosure in https://badaga.wordpress.com/badagas-origin/

Hello JP….I am Magesh Hirian from Kettti Acchanakkal (live in the USA now)…….I am a very proud Badaga and and a great admirer of our heritage and culture….. I am completely blown away with this website. Please keep up the good work. This is awesome!! love it.. na endhu enna Hethai Ammana mathi..

Hello Magesh Hiria, Thanks a lot. If my interest and passion in maintaining the websites on Badaga have not diminished even a tiny bit, it is only due to the encouraging words from friends like you. Even after more than 208,000 visits/hits, it is highly heartening to see and welcome NEW visitors.

As I have mentioned a lot of times in these websites, we are lucky to have been born as Badagas in this great Bharat nation. There are so many fantastic social customs/systems like community living [hatti based], no dowry, divorce without any discrimination, widow remarriage, all villagers taking responsibility for the cost and conducting rites of death/funeral that may occur in any part of the ‘world’ -when the body is brought back to the village, etc etc. The legendary Badaga hospitality has been accepted by no less than the world body UNO.

But as said earlier, what we know about Badaga – both language and people, is less than what we do not know about them. Let us put our heads together to bring out the great history of Badaga in all its glory and be an example of what a community should be, even with our short comings.

Hethai, ellagu, olagodha elli iddhalayu Naalu,kodali – Wg Cdr JP

I was flying from JFK New York Airport to SFO San Francisco Airport CA to attend a meeting at Monterey , CA .

An American girl was sitting on the right side, near window seat. It indeed was a long journey – it would take nearly seven hours.

I was surprised to see the young girl reading a Bible unusual of young Americans. After some time she smiled and we had few acquaintances talk.I told her that I am from India

Then suddenly the girl asked: ‘What’s your faith?’ ‘What?’ I didn’t understand the question.

‘I mean, what’s your religion? Are you a Christian? Or a Muslim?’

‘No!’ I replied, ‘I am neither Christian nor Muslim’.

Apparently she appeared shocked to listen to that. ‘Then who are you?’ ‘I am a Hindu’, I said.

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Dalai Lama on M A N

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I love watching the Badaga dance in Coimabatore. Two years back when Amma last was here, and again during Amma’s 53rd birthday celebrations in Amritapuri, they
also enchanted the crowd – inspiring westerners, students, and Ashramites to join in . The same happened again this year. Young and old, men and women. Their rhythmic movements, graceful flowing hands and bodies, the beating of drums and call and response voices calls to the dancer inside us. It’s so primal, so natural, and so beautiful.

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The story of Ariya Gowda 

by Sriram V [The Hindu – Chennai, May 1, 2012]

Ari Gowder was President of the Backward Classes League and leaned towards the Justice Party

The chances of anyone travelling down Ariya Gowda Road in West Mambalam, and stopping to wonder about the identity of the man who gave the thoroughfare its name, are slim. For when you are on Ariya Gowda Road, you are focused on getting out of the road alive, given its traffic.

He was not Ariya Gowda. He was HB Ari Gowder, a great visionary and leader of the Badaga community of the Nilgiris. And his life, as gleaned from various sources, including a 1935 Who’s Who and the internet, makes for interesting reading.

Rao Bahadur Hubbathalai J Bellie Gowder, made his fortune in laying the tracks of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, which was completed in 1908. His wealth made him a leading member of his community, and his clansmen came to him for advice on several issues. Bellie Gowder founded a free school in his native village, Hubbathalai, an institution that still functions. He passed away in 1935.

Bellie Gowder’s son, Ari, was born in 1893. His father ensured that he was educated in the modern sense and he graduated from Madras Christian College. Though he was to consider himself a contractor and a planter, it was in politics and social uplift that Ari Gowder was to make a mark. In 1923, he became the first Badaga to be elected to the Madras Legislative Council of which he was a member until 1934. In the 1940s, he was elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly. When the Rajaji government introduced Prohibition in 1937, he led the challenge of enforcing it in the Nilgiris, of which area he was also the first non-official to become District Board President. Ari Gowder was also active in the Scouts Movement. Another contribution of his was the establishment of the Nilgiris Cooperative Marketing Society, which eliminated the stranglehold middlemen had over the simple mountain people. He was also a Director of the Badaga Land Mortgage Bank.

While the sympathies of most of his community lay with the Congress, Ari Gowder, given that he was President of the Backward Classes League, leaned more towards the Justice Party, which was active till the 1930s. That probably explains the road in Mambalam being named after him. Neighbouring Theyagaroya Nagar or T Nagar, developed in the 1920s when the Justice Party was in power and most of the roads, parks and streets there are named after its leaders. Legend also has it that a large chunk of land adjoining the Mambalam Railway Station was his, which he donated for developmental work. Like his father, Ari Gowder too received the title of Rao Bahadur from the British Government, in 1943.

In 1946, Ari Gowder was defeated in the Assembly elections. But in 1952 he contested successfully as an independent. He was to remain an independent for the rest of his career. He passed away in 1971.

How did Ari Gowder Road morph into Ariya Gowda Road? And should it not be just Ari Road?

The Hindu : Cities / Chennai : The story of Ariya Gowda.

Naren (vijayarajnaren@gmail.com) has sent me the following email through a comment and raised a very important issue of urgent nature :

Sir, Thank you for a such wonderful site. Though a regular reader of this site, I have yet to comment on such wonderful  info in these blogs.

It is evident that caste enumeration is conducted now in Tamil Nadu. Each and every caste is trying to mobilize and clarify nature of the sub-sects of their caste during enumeration. Is there any awareness created in the community in respect of how to answer the caste enumeration. Is it necessary for Badagas to state their sub sect like Haruva, Badaga, Thorraya during the enumeration?

I hope you will create the awareness in the above aspect.

Thank you very much Naren.

Since the 1981 census Badagas are not shown as a separate community but have been clubbed with ‘Kannada Speaking groups’. This, to say the least, is – atrocious. Badaga is a separate and unique community with rich language and ‘richer’ rituals, customs and traditions.

Now is the chance for us to proudly say that we are Badagas (Badagar) and our mother tongue is Badaga ( Badagu). The other important issue about sub sect :- our history has quite a few instances where we, as a community, divided ourselves into Odaya,Haruva, Badaga, Lingayat [Lingakatti],Kanakka, Adikari,Thoraya etc and created a lot of bad blood. (I am surprised, though, to learn that Thorayas are given the MBC classification while Badagas come under BC,) let all those who speak Badaga (Badagu) be considered as Badagas (Badagar).

I have just spoken to the  General Secretary and Treasurer of the Coonoor Badaga Welfare Association about this and have been promised that they have already put out ads in local TV and soon in the news papers to request all Badagas to give, when the caste census is taken, their cast as BADAGAR and mother tongue [language] as BADAGU when the caste enumeration is undertaken. This applies to all  Badagas wherever they reside, be it in the hattis, towns or cities.

So, all you  Proud Badagas out there,

please ensure that we give our identity [caste/’jathi’] as BADAGA(r) and Languge spoken as BADAGU/Badaga

– Wg Cdr JP

Recently I had the pleasure of receiving  Anandha Raju [inventor of Badaga Anandha script] with his charming wife and children at our place and had a pow wow on Badaga, the great language.. Anandha feels that there is no ‘sh -ஷ ‘ sound in Badaga Maathu [language].

I disagree. What about barasha (year), baashay (language), Kashta (difficulty), nashta (loss) and ishta (wish)?

Another ‘sound’ of interest is ‘zha – ழ‘ – the only word that comes to mind is ‘eizhu‘- (seven).

What do you think?

Dear JP anna…

MK Nanja Gowder, the younger brother of MK Bellie Gowder, was my maternal grandfather. Right from my childhood, he used to relate stories to me from Bellie ayya’s works. He told me that, Bellie ayya had one day called him (Nanja ayya) to discuss in private about one of his manuscripts. He had asked Nanja ayya to go through the entire manuscript for his personal consumption and at the end of which, he requested Nanja ayya to destroy the manuscript. Nanja ayya, told me that it was the History of Badagas. The reason, he said, why Bellie ayya wanted it to be destroyed is because he believed that it would bring undesired division among’st Badagas.

Now I am not sure if the manuscript that I am talking about (History of Badagas) is different from the Badaga ‘clans/kolas’ manuscript that you say could probably be in possession of Dr Hockings. It would be great service to the Badaga community if the original manuscript is made public, if it does exist.

Regards … PADMANABHAN

Hi Paddy, Thank you very much for this great info. When I mentioned that Prof.Paul Hockings ‘papers’/books could have taken a lot of info from Mr.Bellie Gowder’s manuscripts, I am only ‘guessing’. Though, Mr.Bellie Gowder might have had ‘some’ reasons to destroy his manuscript, I hope and pray that the original has survived. It would be a great source to learn about our Badaga Community. – Wg Cdr JP