It took 60 years for the Raj Gonds and Kolam Adivasis living on either side of the inter-State border between Maharashtra's Chandrapur and Telangana's Kumram Bheem Asifabad districts to revive their cultural links. In 1956, when India was reorganised on a linguistic basis, the Rajura taluk in the then Adilabad district went to Maharashtra.
Economic reasons caused a cultural rift as the State borders created new shandies for Adivasis living along it — Jivti and the Kerameri mandal headquarters became important centres for Adivasi villages in Maharashtra and Telangana, respectively.
Two village headmen have worked to breach the cultural separation that occured thereafter — Athram Laxman, the Raj Gond patel or headman of the Modi village in the Kerameri mandal of KB Asifabad district, and Sidam Dev Rao, the Kolam patel of Kolam Jhari in the same mandal. For the Dandari Festival, they invited a Raj Gond Dandari-Ghusadi dance troupe from Wadiguda in Maharashtra and a Kolam troupe from Ambe Jhari in Telangana to perform in their respective villages. Wadiguda and Ambe Jhari in Maharashtra are located about 50 km from Modi and Kolam Jhari in Telangana, with the inter-State border roughly halfway between them. The Wadiguda troupe, in keeping with the tradition of ethnic tribes in these parts, covered the 50 km separating the two villages on foot to reach Modi on October 17. Their visit will be reciprocated by a troupe from Modi during next year’s dance festival.
‘No boundaries’
Almost every Raj Gond and Kolam village has its own Dandari-Ghusadi dance troupe, with the Dandari clad in white and the Ghusadi tado dancers sporting huge peacock-feather headgear. “Culture has no boundaries,” says Mr. Laxman, the headman from Telangana. “I had known that our people had cultural contacts with Wadiguda before 1956 and so I invited them when I spotted the Wadiguda patel Jangu Raju Kotnake at Seethagondi in the Sirpur (U) mandal, where he come for a religious event.”
At Kolam Jhari, about a kilometre away from Modi, the Ambe Jhari Kolam Dandari-Ghudasi troupe led by patel Dev Rao Bhim Rao Atram, performed the dances.
“We are happy to revive our ties with our people in Telangana,” said the village headman from Maharashtra. One troupe visits at least two villages and hosts two more. The troupes of the host and visiting villages perform the dances separately and in combination.
Marriage alliances
The renewal of ties between the Raj Gond clans living in Modi and Wadiguda opens them up to alliances in marriage, as Dandari-Ghusadi relations are maintained only among clans that have marital compatibility. Similarly, the Kolams of Kolam Jhari can give a daughter in marriage to the Kolams of Ambe Jhari, or seek an eligible groom from among them. The week-long Dandari-Ghusadi dance festival celebrates Diwali and ends two days after it, on October 21.
