When Ibrampur’s drummers refused to follow the dictates of the temple Mahajans vis-à-vis beating the drums, they were pioneering a breakthrough in Goa’s deeply entrenched caste system. As in every location in Goa, the Managers, who have styled themselves as the Mahajans (the great people) of many well-known temples of Goa are designated as the gaonkars (first citizens) of the village. It appears that the mahajans hailing from dominant castes have harnessed their power to then appropriate lands, which were owned by temples or the temple-workers, for the local communidade (institutionalised village community), of which they themselves are members and attorney-holders.
In so far as Ibrampur village is concerned, the Orders of the Governor General of Nova Goa of 16th June, 1909, clearly recognise that the land was given to the Farazes (a post currently served by certain named persons of the community termed ‘mahars’ and collateral relatives) for playing the drums (Dhol) in festivities and performing other services, that they were obliged to perform as per the mahajan-community-set-tradition.
According to this tradition, the playing of the drums is assigned to the mahar community. Whenever a festive occasion requires the beating of drums, the mahars had been traditionally doing so – sometimes in the temple and on occasions door to door. On one such occasion in the year when they were beating the drums door to door, they were told not to beat the drums in front of the Teli households, around twenty years ago.
The Teli community, which is required to do the function of pressing oil, comes low in the rung of the entrenched village caste hierarchy. The community had just won a prolonged battle for land rights. Like the mahars, the mahajans were denying the Teli community land ownership rights. They had fought their way through the maze of the law and had secured the same. This success had irked the mahajans who perceived a threat to the power they wield in managing the temples by virtue of the large resources of land and monies under their control. They wanted the Telis to be boycotted in retaliation. They used the mahars to settle their scores.
Members of the ‘mahar’ community say that while they have been tormented by the caste system for centuries, this was the ultimate moment of realisation – the moment when they clearly saw the slavery of caste, the slavery of being imposed with the task of drum-beating and being controlled in the carrying out of the task. It was not about being an artisan and being recognized as such. It was about control through carrying out the functions which were dictated to them by a casteist society, and which functions have been shorn of their dignity. It was about keeping them as bonded labour, beating the drums as condition precedent to stay on the temple land and till it.
There was a flashback of the years of inequality, discrimination, oppression and exploitation, which the mahars had endured – not being allowed in the temple, not being paid well enough in ‘kind’ to be able to have adequate resources for duly maintaining themselves and leading a dignified life, being treated as second class citizens and restricted to a temple called the Maringan that they themselves had built and run, and which is invisibilised, in that its name does not to this day even get reflected on the signboards of the village, with the names of the other temples.
It is as if the maringan temple and the people of the mahar community do not exist. Even the effort of the community to give their vaddo (ward) a more empowering name has been met with cold indifference.
When the mahars stopped beating the drums as a sign of their breakaway from slavery, the mahajans hit upon the idea of purchasing a banjo and getting banjo players from another village to play. But this engagement with the banjo players was short-lived. Superstition has a strong role in village life. The banjo players felt that evil will befall them because they have bypassed the mahars and discontinued playing. The mahars were being asked to play again, but they were steadfast.. “We will not beat the drums”. They do not beat the drums to this day in defiance.
Predictably, the mahajans wanted to retaliate. They saw that opportunity for retaliation in the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana under which Ibrampur was selected to be a model village. The mahajans control the Panchayat which has just one member from the ‘mahar’ community and that too currently. The demands that the ‘mahars’ scribbled as their aspirations for Adarsh Gram (Model Village) were already erased – in fact blackened, even before the inaugural programme. Raising the issue at the gram sabha has been futile. Their demands were simple. They wanted toilets, a playground, and they had pointed the locations where this was possible.
The panchayat said establishing these facilities requires an NOC from the land owners, that is, the Communidade, whose name has wound its way in the survey records as the occupant of the land. One wonders about the double standards of the State, where NOCs from owners and holders of land are not sought when land has been acquired for highways and bridges, and so-called development projects – not demanded by the people, in the face of mass destruction and consequences for both the owners and tenants of those lands, with no apparent advantages for local people.
Therefore, the gross appropriation of land from the mahar community and the refusal of concerned authorities to address the public purpose of amenities and community activities for a community that is being isolated by the dominant communities, is tantamount to systemic institutional discrimination against the ‘mahar’ community of Ibrampur and merits censure. Privileged communities must acknowledge their privileges and in their own interests of attaining their own equanimity, must make amends for social and economic injustices inflicted on the community.
(The writer is a lawyer.)
