Tuning into better future: When 'The Kattunayakkars' outgrew token tribal festivals

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Twenty years ago, Jenu Kuruba (J) B Ramesh, all of 26 years old then, tur ned to music to vent out his frustration against injustices meted out to his tribesmen.

He and his friends grabbed whatever they could find – discarded plastic drums and satellite disks, as well as a motley of musical instruments made of bamboo and dried bottle gourd that were passed on by his ancestors – and formed a "band".

The Jenu Kuruba community, a traditional honey gathering tribe, is among the original inhabitants of the forests of the Western Ghats that stretch over three states – Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Majority of the Jenu Kurubas are from Karnataka and post 1970s, they are relocated around Nagarhole and Bandipur forests to enable tiger conservation project.

"Initially, our songs were about how badly we were treated by the government. We were seething with rage – we were not only ripped away from the Nagarhole forest – our home for generations – but we were also denied the rights to the land where we were relocated," said Ramesh.

His family was among those 74 families relocated to Nanachi Gadde Hadi, one of the Jenu Kuruba settlements on the periphery of Nagarhole forest in the Coorg district.

"We were not allowed anything here – we could not cultivate nor build pucca houses; we still don't have access to proper water or electricity," added Ramesh.

At Nanachi Gadde Hadi, home to Ramesh and his band mates – about 15 of them at present, including four women singers – ‘development' is yet to make inroads.

Everything is introduced with huge fan fare, said the musicians, pointing to the few solar panels installed by the government and the foundation stone promising tapped water.

But it is never followed through, they added. In the last 20 years, nothing really changed for Ramesh in many ways – just like him, his children are now trying to cram the books under the flickering light of petromax lamps.