Madiga

Madiga is a social group or caste mostly from Andhra Pradesh and neigbhours. Along with Malas they form the largest segment of what is considered to be the Dalit castes of Andhra. They are also no parallel castes found in north India. Chamars in Hindus and ravidas or raidas in Sikhs in North India are different from Madiga even though leather working is one of the professions of Madigas. They are manual scavengers in southern Andhra, leather workers in some parts and agricultural labourers in some regions of Andhra.

Origins

In general they are considered to be indigenous people of the region descended from Neolithic settlers who have been incorporated into the castes system as scavengers and leather workers.

Sanskritic roots

Like all castes in India, today they generally believe in prestigious origins (see Sanskritisation). One such theory speculates that Madiga is derived from Sanskrit word Maha-Adiga which can be loosely translated as great and oldest.

Accordingly they sometimes call themselves as Arundhathiyar based on myth of Madiga, Vashista marrying a daughter of a Madiga sage named Arundathi. This myth is also used by another castes called Chakkili in Andhra and Tamil nadu to call them asArunthathiyas. ^[1]

There may be ethnic and linguistic relations with Mang in Maharastra, the Chakkalli in Tamil Nadu and possibly the Matang in North India. ^[2]

Past conditions

Madigas were pushed to the fringes of village settlements where they live in hamlets. Their huts in the hamlets, usually referred as the Madiga gudem, were loosely connected to a narrow path that would guide to the main road of the village but they are not allowed to walk into the village. Their entry into the Agraharam was strictly prohibited. They were not barred from entering the village lest they spread an atmosphere of pollution around them to the distance of seventy-four feet. Their shadow, it was believed, was capable of polluting the whole water of a well. Therefore, they could not come close to the wells used by Hindus. The sound waves from their mouth were considered polluting and they had to cover their mouth with a little pot when they spoke with a Hindu. By the twentieth century both British administration and Nizams’ administration began to employ them as village messengers. The smoke from their pyre was feared to contaminate the village and hence instead of cremation they had buried their dead. Pushed to the margins each family lived in their "mud-walled, one-roomed, mud-floored, thatched-roof hut."

Madigas lived by tanning the leather like Chamars in the northern states. They fed on the carrion, just like the Malas. They were skilled in beating drum like Pariahs of the Tamil nadu and Kerala . With the leather tanned they stitched shoes, prepared leather accessories for agricultural works. They were allowed in the streets to sweep and to remove the dead animals.

They can be better described in the words of Sackett, an Anglican missionary, "He (Madiga) was a leather worker. He cured skins and made shoes. He also fed upon carrion. No carcass came amiss to him, no matter how it died. The skin for shoes and the flesh for food was his dictum, Moreover, he was the drummer at festivals," ^[3]

Culture

Madigas contributed a lot to the music and dance. The origin for the Jaaz drums comes from the primitive but exact rhythm and beat producing "Thappeta" tanned skins covered on the wooden round frames and were played by beating them with two sticks. The sound variation they bring by warming them when the weather is wet and humid.

"Sindu", the same words used for "Chindu", is the warrior dance because only men will dance in that according to the drum "thappeta" beat. They tie the "gajjelu" to their feet like all the other dancers (bharatha natyam, kuchipudi in India) and dance. It is similar to jugal bandhi in Hindusthani music, a competition between the drum beater and dancer to overcome each other.

The "Thappeta" beat is so powerful that it can be heard up to two miles away on a calm and quiet night.

Subdivisions

Madigas had their kin-communities such as Pogu means that person belongs to Madiga Caste

• Vesa"Pogu"
• Lakke"Pogu
• Beera"Pogu"
• Parisi"Pogu"
• Palle"Pogu"
• Ram"Pogu"
• Kesa"Pogu"

• Kukkala
• Manda
• Bandela
• Sindhollu
• Madiga Dasoo
• Ddekkali
• Chamar
• Samagar
• Hadagar
• panchamasali
• Raidas in north

Madiga saw themselves as "higher" in the ladder of community hierarchy. It might be because of the influences of sanskritization that crept into Dalit culture. Sindhollu were itinerant dramatists. Madiga Dasoos were the counter-parts of Mala Dasoos in the Madiga community. Dekkalis or Dekkalolu were professional beggars who traveled from one Madiga settlement to another living at the mercy of Madigas. Mattitolu was another community engaged in begging. They were given a cluster of forty to fifty hamlets to go begging. Dekkalis too entitled to the generosity of Madigas. They go to each hamlet and stay there for a short duration and narrate the Madigas the stories concerning their roots. It was through these the oral traditions of the Madiga history were carried on from generation to generation.

Supernatural world

Dalit religion could discern the divine in natural objects and the presence of supernatural in natural forces. For Madigas or generally all Dalits, beneath every object, whether a growing tree or a static stone, there is life supernatural. As symbol of this kinship of nature and the supernatural innate they have deified objects like stones and trees. In every hut or outside every Madiga hamlet a stone or a tree had been dedicated as representation of the Deity. The worship of nature resulted itself in the preservation of the nature.

Clarence Clark, in his Talks on an Indian Village, describes this phenomenon to children in the West in following sentences, ". . . there were evil spirits all around him (a Dalit) living in trees and streams and large stones, and they would do him a great harm if he is not careful." Clarence continues to ‘talk’ on how offerings were made to the ‘special’ stone outside the hamlet smeared with red plant as follows, ". . . (Dalit women) would take a little grain or a few marigolds and put them down in front of this stone, so that the spirit would not be unkind to her. . ." About the deity in the hut which usually was a rough wooden image painted with few colors placed in a shelf at the corner of the hut he says, ". . . some rice was put in a bowl in front of her in case she should be hungry, and some times thread for sewing. But strangest thing of all was this -- as well as food and drink and thread, there was a stick in case she needed to be kept in order."

The symbolism involved with food, thread and stick suggests they believed in God (Dess) who can be hungry and thirsty, who is industrious and who is vulnerable. Madigas saw behind every natural calamity the divine wrath and behind every bounty the divine blessing. Often offerings were made to propitiate the Deity who withholds the rain. Even as construction of canals and dams were shown as the means to water the lands and provide livelihood to Madigas during the famine.^[4]

Dalit Goddess

The rituals and ceremonies of the Madigas mirror the space that women occupied in the society. Dalits had recognized the feminine dimension of the Deity and it is evident in the fact that in most cases Deity manifested Her (Him)self in the form of feminine. They worshipped Goddesses like all other Hindu community worhipped kshudradevathalu each village has its own goddess (grama devatha) and in Hindu religion there is a story like all theses goddesses were sisters and one brother to them names poturaju. Throughout India these goddesses were worshipped in the name of Durga, Kali, Renuka, Poleramma, ledotamma, Sammakka, Sarakka, Yellamma, Kaamma, Morasamma, Matangi, Somalamma and Moosamma. There were also Gods in the Madiga pantheon but they only played a secondary role.

And in the list of Goddesses there were many victims whose past was characterized by the experiences of pain and humiliation. Women victims regardless of their caste and creed were not only given shelter but were later deified by Madigas. Madiga cult had both men and women as priests and priestess to mediate with the Deity and to officiate at the sacrifices. But it was women who had the lead in the cult.^[5]

Madiga priestesses

Coyler Sackett, an Anglican missionary, for whom possibility of women-priest was an anathema, describes the attire of Dalit priestess. Mark her bold manner, impudent stare, fine figure, and the roll of matted hair lying as an ensign of her trade upon her proud head. She was given to the service of the gods early in life, and what she does not know of immorality, bestiality, and brazen-faced evil can be learnt. Her body belongs to the God. See her in her mad frenzy as, with hair flung free, she serves the deity, face aflame with ungodly lust. Madiga priestesses were consecrated for the purpose early in their life and no restriction of propriety was imposed on them throughout their life. They were free to choose their mates but they usually settle with Baindla priests. The role these priestesses play can be illustrated in the narration of P.Y. Luke and John Carman about a ceremony of sacrifice to Goddess of cholera

A winnowing fan is put on the pot and clay lid on the fan; some oil is poured onto it. and then a wick is put in and lit. A Kolpula woman sits facing this light inside the enclosure, and she stares steadily at the light. All the goddesses were thought to appear to her through that light. Outside the enclosure, the Baindla priests stand and invoke the goddess, beating their special drums. The Kolpula woman goes into trance, closes her eyes, and is taken possession of by one of the goddesses. The people outside break a coconut, kill a chicken and pour a libation of toddy on the ground where the sacrifice takes place. The women’s face is washed with toddy. Before she becomes unconscious she utters the name of the goddess

In the following rite, the Kolpula woman gets into the platform near the shrine to the goddess Uradamma. A sheep is let loose as an offering to Uradamma, and priestess pierces its stomach with her sword. The entrails, liver, and the lungs are removed. The lungs and liver will be put in the Kolpula woman’s mouth and the intestines around her neck. A new sari and blouse are dipped in the blood of this sheep and then the Kolpula woman put them on. Lime, vermilion, black ash bottlu are put on her whole body, a broken pot on her head. She holds a broomstick in her left hand, a winnowing fan in her right hand, and goes through all the streets of the village, starting from the shrine of Uradamma. Her brother and the Baindla priests follow her, and the Magidas beat drum in front of her.

Madigas also incorporated some of the Sanskrit heroin into their pantheon and deified them. Goddess Gonti or Gontellamma is Madiga version of Sanskrit Kunti. While in Hindu mythologies these women loyally serve their gods, in the Madiga interpretation gods serve these deities.^[6]

Madiga protest

To a Madiga protest is lifestyle. There were several ceremonies that reflect the element of protest and some of them were incorporated into the Hindu culture. Theodore Wilber Elmore in his ‘Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism: A Study of the Local and Village Deities of Southern India’ identifies some of such ceremonies. One of them was associated with the Goddess Matangi who was worshipped by Madigas of Kurnool. It was of an annual festival when a Madiga priestess spits at caste people.

"As she rushes about spitting on those who under ordinary circumstances would almost choose death rather than to suffer such pollution from a Madiga, she breaks into wild, exulting songs, telling of the humiliation to which she is subjecting the proud caste people. She also abuses them all thoroughly..."

Moreover, this ritual has been well integrated into the religious life of Hindus. Though she humiliates them by spitting, it was said, the caste people would eagerly wait for their turn and would not be satisfied "without a full measure of her invective".

It had also been a custom among Madigas to clean their streets with water mixed with turmeric whenever a Brahmin happens to pass by their hamlet. Though it was rare having a Brahmin pass through their hamlet, it was customary to purify the street from his polluting footsteps. It was a form of protest against Brahmins who did the same when Madigas walked in the village.

On certain days in a year, especially after the grains were gathered and stored, a couple of Dalits were permitted to beg in the village. This procession was called ‘garaga’. A Mala and a Madiga who in ordinary circumstances do not socialize had made the pair to go begging. While the Mala was to collect the grains in a container placed above his head the Madiga joined him to beat the drum. Mala would go each doorstep abusing the family with the filthiest language known to him. The rhythm of the drum heightens the Mala’s fury to abuse them more. And caste people were to reciprocate this gesture politely by giving a winnowful of grain. This indicates the amount of space Dalits could make for themselves in Hindu religion to express their protest.^[7]

Mala-Madiga conflict

Presently due to affirmative action the Madigas are rising rapidly, though not to the extent some other scheduled castes are. This has led to a curious rivalry between the scheduled caste communities for government benefits. The rivalry was fuelled by the uuper castes of Andhra to create a wedge between Malas and madigas which is manifested clearly in national and regional politics. It used to be called the division between right hand and left hand communities (Based on occupational artisan castes vs. agricultural labor). Unfortunately this is also very useful for the exploiting groups to keep down both the scheduled communities.

Current conditions

The present generation of Madigas are highly educated and are serving in many important positions around the world.

The Madigas are said to be backers of the Telugu Desam party, mainly because their Mala rivals support the Indian National Congress Party.The Madigas lead by Krishna Madiga are now bought over by the Congress Party of Andhra. The madiga support has shifted away from Telugu Desam party to Congress. The Madiga agitation for splitting reservation benefits is likely to damage the dalit movement created by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar and destroy the national character of dalits as a asingle group. Madigars are not very keen towards Ambedkar and Buddhism are used as political icons by their rivals i.e., Mahar and Malas and have adopted another dalit leader Jagjivan Ram as their icon who was called a stooge by Kanshi Ram the folunder of Bahujan Samaj Party.

Mr. Vundavilli Arun Kumar, MP of Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh holds a good influence on both the Mala and Madiga Factions of the Dalits in Andhra Pradesh and his efforts to forge unity between the two communities is worth a Special mention .

Vundavalli Arun Kumar is a castiest brahmin who is totally against the ideals and goals of Dr. Ambedkar. He has no interest in the upliftment of madigas. Please see http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/26/stories/2008022657980100.htm

Eminent personlaities

• Sri.Nandi Yellaiah,M.P
• Sri.Sarve Satyanarayana,M.P
• Sri.Manda Jagannadham, ex M.P
• Sri.Manda Krishna Madiga
• Sri.K.H. Muniyappa - Union Minister of State for Shipping & Road Transport and Highways.

References

• ^ Jumba Puranam –Caste Origin myth

• ^ A brief note on the MADIGA community of Andhra Pradesh

• ^ Liberative Motifs in the Dalit Religion

External links

• Madiga Genetic studies
• Violence against Madigas in rural Andhra
• Caste, Class and Social articulation in Andhra Pradesh