South Asia’s largest biennial gathering of Tribals: Conferring sacredness upon their ancestors during the Sammakka Saralamma Jatara – Telangana

The Day of the Goddesses

Open Magazine, 09 February 2018Read the fully story by V Shoba and view more photos by Harsha Vadlamani >>

ARRIVING IN DUSTY, sun-scorched Medaram in Telangana at the end of a six- hour ride on a special state bus service from Hyderabad, you are acutely aware of entering a vast non-dimensional space. As you walk the raucous grounds hosting the Sammakka Saralamma Jatara, woodsmoke, dirt and warbled music swirling all around you, the broad strokes of the festival seem familiar enough: millions of devotees come to take a holy dip in the Jampanna Vagu, a muddy stream of the Godavari now equipped with showers, and to offer coconuts and mounds of jaggery at an open-air shrine to local tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma. But there’s more to it. […]

The story goes that nearly a thousand years ago, Pagididaraju, a Koya Tribal chief, his wife Sammakka, their daughter Saralamma and son Jampanna, rose up in revolt against the taxes imposed by the Kakatiya rulers on forest-dwelling communities, and died honourable deaths. To celebrate their rebellion, the village of Medaram, nestled in the Dandakaranya forests and two-and-a-half hours from Warangal since the road was asphalted in the 1970s, explodes in a festival touted as south Asia’s largest biennial gathering of Tribals.

The festival is symbolic of the culturally, if not historically, inflicted oppression on the tribes of central south India. The context may be somewhat lost in what has become a state-run event with tents and dinner buffets for visiting VIPs—among them the chief ministers of Telangana and Chhattisgarh, MPs, MLAs and minor actors—but in an India marching under the banner of religion, the jatara remains a rare refuge for communities who constantly invert accepted cultural, moral, social and sexual mores and confer sacredness upon their ancestors. […]

Source: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/dispatch/the-day-of-the-goddesses
Accessed: 5 May 2018

Up-to-date reports by Indian journalists and commentators

List of Indian magazines and web portals covered by the present Custom search engine

https://caravanmagazine.in

https://countercurrents.org

https://frontline.thehindu.com

www.indiatoday.in

www.india-seminar.com

www.livemint.com

https://openthemagazine.com

www.outlookindia.com

www.ruralindiaonline.org

scroll.in

www.sanctuaryasia.com

www.thebetterindia.com

www.theweek.in

https://thewire.in

To search Indian periodicals, magazines, web portals and other sources safely, click here. To find an Indian PhD thesis on a particular tribal community, region and related issues, click here >>

Search tips

Combine the name of any particular state, language or region with that of any tribal (Adivasi) community.

Add keywords of special interest (health, nutrition endangered language, illegal mining, sacred grove); learn about the rights of Scheduled Tribes such as the “Forest Rights Act” (FRA); and the United Nations “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, “women’s rights”, or “children’s right to education”.

Specify any other issue or news item you want to learn more about (biodiversity, bonded labour and human trafficking, climate change, ecology, economic development, ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, global warming, Himalayan tribe, hunter-gatherers in a particular region or state, prevention of rural poverty, water access).

For official figures include “scheduled tribe ST” along with a union state or region: e.g. “Chhattisgarh ST community”, “Scheduled tribe Tamil Nadu census”, “ST Kerala census”, “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group Jharkhand”, “PVTG Rajasthan”, “Adivasi ST Kerala”, “Adibasi ST West Bengal” etc.

In case the Google Custom Search window is not displayed here try the following: (1) toggle between “Reader” and regular viewing; (2) in your browser’s Security settings select “Enable JavaScript” | More tips >>

See also

Audio | Santali Traditional and Fusion Songs: Ghosaldanga Bishnubati Adibasi Trust – West Bengal

Crafts and visual arts | Masks

Cultural heritage

India’s tribal, folk and devotional music: Secular and ceremonial songs

Memory of the World Programme – Unesco

Modernity

Music and dance | Musicology | Adivasi music and the public stage by Jayasri Banerjee

Performing arts

Revival of traditions

Seasons and festivals

Success story

Video | Banam lutes and fiddles of the Santal people – Jharkhand & West Bengal

Video | Celestial Dancers of Manipur

Video | Cultural traditions of the Halakki people – Karnataka

Video | Khasi musical heritage of Meghalaya

Video | Kota women’s dance: Shivaratri celebrations – Nilgiris – Tamil Nadu

Video | More than simply a theatre company, set up for a total experience: Trimukhi Platform – West Bengal

Video | Santali video album “Ale Ato” (Our Village, Part 1 of 2) – West Bengal

Video | South Gujarat tribal music documentation by Bhasha – Gujarat

Video | Tribes in Transition-III: “Indigenous Cultures in the Digital Era”

Video | Safe contents for educational use on many topics (music, visual arts and more)