When I heard about the Paniya slave tribes in Wayanad, I started researching more about their location, heritage and history. To my surprise, I found that they have been around long before the locals starting living among them, mainly in the mountains. The main ethnic group was the Paniya tribes, also the Kurumar and Adiyars. The locals called them Adivasi meaning tribes.
I’m not going to tell you the past history or how bad their lives are today, most of them have been given a place to stay, homes rebuild into modern communities and all the basic needs which the modern man, or those in power felt was needed for them to survive among the rich locals.
I will tell you this, of what I’ve seen with tribes all over Asia, mainly South East Asia, and the story is always the same. Modern man in power deciding on what’s best for ethic groups, by taking away their lands, putting modern law and order into their lives, taken away their identities and deciding what’s best for them like pets or animals in a zoo. Sorry, yes I said pets. So how did the slavery end?
Does anyone decide for you, where your housing colonies should be, what should be your job based on your cast, what should be your value into society and how much education you deserve? If not, why are tribes in Asia treated this way? Are they not human enough to enjoy the same as us.
Not just the basic needs, but everything else as part of a society. Just because we have the modern power to build societies, doesn’t give us the right to take away the heritage of others. Why discriminate someone just because they look or live differently.
“I am a proud adivasi, myself and sadly we are everywhere but yet we don’t know our origin and have to fight for our rights in a place like India where we have been living since ages even when the trade wasn’t new here… I am ashamed to have been deprived of what I deserve and feel the same for these long living adivasis.
Kharia tribes are basically every where and yes this generation gap is there also because of better standard of living due to which people hesitate to get back to their root… They don’t want to be called primitive and as modern as a girl from our tribe gets boys prefer to remain backwards”. – said Anjali from the Kharia tribe, comment via Facebook.
Did you know the tribal language is passed on to the next generation via speaking only, the written language doesn’t exist. Today it is slowly disappearing as the new younger generations adapt to the local language, Malayalam, English and do not speak the own tribal tongue.
Language is the key to culture and heritage, once it’s lost, everything else disappears with it.
“I feel no different from whatever you had just shared. But, I have started to focus more on the diminishing traditions which, we tribals have started to get away from, by our own will. For instance, our language, Kharia which I speak only with my father and grandmother, but with none of my cousins or Kharia friends because they have not been taught anytime nor have they themselves taken seriously to learn it and pass on.
There are many other things which are at the verge of getting wiped out. I am sure you have a choice to go back to them and enliven it.” says Evanjelina, from the Kharia tribe, via Facebook comments.
Names given to them by modern man like the Paniya for example means ‘Worker’ or ‘Slaves’. The Paniya tribe are among the highest population here in Wayanad and parts of Kerala, mostly living as gatherers and farmers deep inside the forest areas. Decades ago, when modern man starting coming into their lands, they were taken away or sold as slaves to the rich, as workers, farmers, maids and ‘kulis’.
I asked a local Paniya tribe girl, “Did you give this ‘Paniya’ title to yourself, what do you call yourself?”
“We don’t call ourselves anything, the modern people gave us this name, Paniya means ‘worker’.”
Share the post of these tribe women so it will be seen by more. They still exists from the Kurumar tribe in India, holding on to their heritage.
With our ‘Give Light’ project, we wish to empower more tribes, raise awareness and support the under privileged communities living in Asia.
(Wayanad, Kerala)
