Caste and Conservation - Sunny Narang

 

• Sunny Narang

  Aparna

   a friend sent this today. Forget Varna Jati this is about tribal communities . "In the jungles of central India live a people who loosely call themselves Gonds. Some say there are 72 kinds of Gonds (sub-tribes, clans, call it as you will), others say there are over 400. I live in the faith that there isn't any 1 answer. Each of these sub-tribes hunts, fishes, collects and grows food, even today, is what I am told. But there exists a system where each sub-tribe holds 3 unique species sacred. One is a terrestrial/air-born animal/bird (थल्ली is the Hindi translation for the word in Gondi, their language), one is a water animal/fish (जल्ली) and the third is a plant (I forget the word they use, and hence its translation. But the three rhymed, unsurprisingly). 3 different ones for each of the sub-tribes. Each sub-tribe does not kill, cut or eat the 3 it worships. And doesn't allow others to do so in the area that their own village inhabits - which is many orders of magnitude larger than the modern administrative definition of the village itself (what is a village, really?). But other sub-tribes can do as they please in the soil, air and water they call their home. And these other su-tribes do the same with their 3 in their homelands. And so on... And it is said that the whole world's variety (I suppose it means the world as it is relevant and real for any Gond living in Bastar, India) of all the 3 kinds is covered across the Gond sub-tribes.

  Isn't this a beautiful way of ensuring that there is at least one pocket of the Gond-land where these 3 are revered and noticed, where they can flourish, while others are free to hunt, cut or eat them in other places? Isn't this, in modern terms, a true decentralization of conservation?

  It made my heart fill with wonder, when I heard stories around this in the jungles of mahua, tamarind, saal, mangoes and much much more. 

  PS: Any misunderstandings, misreportings or mis-translations are mine, as I serve this purely from memory."

  

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  •  · 3y
  • Sunny Narang

    My reply was "I was in Dangs the tribal district of South Gujarat in 1993 . That's the beginning of the Western Ghats .

    The region had various tribes Bhils and Kunbis I remember .

    The government had been trying to train the Bhils to start agriculture but they used to lease the land to Kunbis and go hunting and fishing and go up the hills .

    Kunbis were getting more rich and among the tribes the upper caste and Bhils the lowest .

    But each tribe had medicine men who knew how to cure a specific set of diseases .

    Each tribe knew different herbs parts of forest .

    I spoke with quite a few .

    And across tribes they came to the specific healer for a specific disease .

    So I have always believed that decentralization of knowledge systems is one of the reasons for the jati system by region by bioregion niches by material processes .

    And so called knowledge specialization is again that .

    Simply so much to know in the infinity of nature and cosmos and human engagement with both that there is no way but to protect what you worship and hold sacred in your space .

    Gonds and so called advanced civilization for me are same same .

    Just Gonds don't end the source of nature from which they recieve the knowledge modern man is the most stupid ."

    

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  Aparna Krishnan

  In my village of Malas, there are 4 groups. To each group some animals and plants are sacred.

  The tortoise is the 'daughter' of the Edduluvaalu. They do not eat tortoise meat. If a tortoise comes hom, they light camphor before it, place on it a cloth soaked in turmeric water, and pray to it. And release it in the well carefully. Similarly the banyan tree is the 'daughter' of another community.

  The deracinated will never see the nuances of the networkds that sustain this land.

  

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• Narayana Sarma Ghadiyaram Venkata

  Here in Anantapur district also, there are family sacred entities. Some families do not cut some varieties of trees. And do not eat certain food grains or meats.