Telangana: Identity conflicts simmer in the state's underbelly

The trouble between the Adivasi Gonds and Lambadas is a manifestation of how tribal politics is acquiring new shapes through the creation of Telangana

On December 16, the Telangana government hurriedly shifted the district police superintendents and district collectors of Adilabad, Kumram Bheem Asifabad, and Nirmal, all part of the erstwhile Adilabad district, a day after violence erupted in the Utnoor Agency Area between the Adivasi Gonds and Lambadas (Banjara). The government did not expect things would go this far.

The violence involved attacks on the houses and properties of the Lambadas, spread within hours across dozens of villages besides the Utnoor town, and reportedly started after a statue of Gond hero Kumram Bheem was desecrated with a garland of chappals in a remote tribal village.

Just a day before the violence, a group of Adivasis had attacked vehicles of two Lambada members of an 11-member temple trust board, appointed by the state government to oversee the conduct of the biennial Sammakka-Saralamamma Jatara, at the tribal village of Medaram, about 240 km from Utnoor. 

They were protesting the appointment of four Lambada members to the temple committee of tribal goddesses that belong to the Adivasi Gonds.

The temple festival of the twin Adivasi deities witnesses a big congregation of tribals in February at Medaram, located in the remote Yeturunagaram Agency Area in Warangal (rural) district, where a million devotees will turn up at the two-day ritual from far and wide, beyond Telangana.

But the simmering tensions raised serious law and order concerns over the upcoming festival, even though the police were able to quickly take control of the situation.

The communities have been at loggerheads for some time as the aboriginal Adivasi communities, led by the Gonds, accuse the politically influential Lambadas of cornering Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservations at the cost of the most depressed tribal communities in the state. 

The Gonds had even stopped teachers belonging to the Lambada community from entering their villages and instead deputed their own Gond boys to teach children in village schools.

The erstwhile Adilabad district is perhaps the only place where the Gonds and other Adivasi communities outnumber the Lambadas, who otherwise comprise 75 per cent of the 3.2 million ST population (2011 Census) in Telangana. 

A special clause was introduced in the Telangana Agency Areas from 2001 to protect the interests of the local tribal population as there was a continuous migration of the Lambadas from states like Maharashtra, where they are given “backward caste” status. According to this clause, only those who live in scheduled villages are eligible to apply for posts recruited through DSCs (district selection committees), headed by district collectors.

However, a survey found that close to 50 per cent of the over 4,000 jobs in the Utnoor Agency Area in Adilabad were filled by the Lambada community, which was put on the ST list in 1976. 

About eight months ago, the Adivasis (basically hill tribes) started asserting themselves against the dominant Lambadas (once nomadic people from the north and lived in the plains), who have seven MLAs and two MPs, besides a minister in Telangana. That was the time when the state government announced that the ST quota in the state would be increased to 10 per cent (in both jobs and education) from the present six per cent as since the demographics changed after Telangana came into existence.

The rivalry between the Adivasis and Lambadas reached a peak recently after the Adivasi Joint Action Committee launched an agitation demanding the removal of the Lambadas from the ST quota altogether.  K Nageshwar, a noted political commentator and former Osmania University professor of journalism, says it was high time the state government found a solution to this simmering social discontent among the tribals. Creating categories within the ST quota would be one of the solutions, according to him.