The euphoric 5-day ‘Renuka Yellamma’ fete, celebrated once in five years by the Gowda community in Jakranpally village of Nizamabad district, 75 km from Hyderabad, has become a dull event this year.
What used to be a fiesta filled with traditional ceremonies, pulsating drum beats and religious fervour has become an ugly spectacle of discrimination displayed by the villagers against the Gowda families in the village.
The row
The row was triggered with the Jakranpally Village Development Committee (VDC) issuing a diktat to the locals to socially boycott the Goud community for not paying ₹5.5 lahks for the renovation of a local temple.
Prem Gowd from the village explained that the Gowdas in the village are all licensed toddy tappers and earn a living by selling the toddy drawn from the trees in the village. No law mandates them to pay anyone for this work, he said.
However, sometimes, they lease out one-year contracts to outsiders who pay them in lumpsum, which is shared by all the members of the Goud community.
They leased the contract last year too. But this year, they decided to do the toddy tapping themselves. “The contractor paid ₹3.5 lakh to the VDC last year. On learning that the local Gowdas decided to tap the toddy themselves in 2023, the VDC urged them to pay ₹5.5 lakh,” says Prem.
Unyielding, the Gowdas stood up to VDC and after a series of deliberations and some altercations, the VDC imposed social boycott on them.
Any villager violating the fiat would have to pay a fine anywhere between ₹10,000 and ₹15,000. Fearing the penalties, none of the villagers outside the Gowda community even attended the ‘ammavaari katha pathanam’ (ritual of narrating the deity’s history from a dais), let alone enter their houses.
“We pleaded with all of them not to spoil our sacred celebrations. Citing the VDC’s social boycott mandate, they avoided us,” recalls a dejected youngster Sai Prasad.
The isolation and humiliation did not end there for the Gowdas in Jakranpally, which is also the mandal headquarters.
Funeral boycott
It took an ugly turn on the intervening night of December 22 and 23, when Akula Chinna Shiva Goud died in his sleep, reportedly of cardiac arrest. The 46-year-old was mentally challenged and unmarried.
The social boycott hampered the final rites of Mr. Shiva Goud. The ‘dappulu’ team, despite repeated requests from the family, did not turn up. The man who prepares the funeral pyre also said no. The potters flatly refused to provide the mud pots required for the final rites, the local band parties declined cooperation, and even the lighting decorators denied them the material.
“Those who make the bier also refused to come. So we ourselves made it,” Shiva’s sibling Nadipi Shiva said, sobbing.
Not a single villager outside their caste attended the funeral.
“This social boycott is not allowing us even to perform the last rites with dignity and in peace. Damn the system,” a frustrated member of the bereaved family said.
After silently suffering humiliation and isolation for weeks, some members of the Gowda community knocked on the doors of the Telangana High Court by filing a writ petition.
Court intervention
On January 2, Justice Vijaysen Reddy of the HC directed the government to initiate action against members of the VDC responsible for imposing social boycott.
Swinging into action with the HC’s order, police and revenue authorities deliberated with villagers, VDC members and members of the Goud community.
“A First Information Report has been issued. We had bound over 11 members of the VDC,” said Nizamabad ACP Venkateshwarlu. Each bound-over VDC member had furnished a surety of ₹5 lakh. Stringent action would be initiated against them if they indulge in such activity further,” the ACP said.
While the police officials are boasting of serious action, the victims see little or no respite. For middle-aged Vasantha, the trauma of the social boycott is clearly not over.
Livelihood at stake
The woman running a small grocery shop from her house in the village says that despite assurances from the authorities, none buys anything from her shop.
Her relative Sai Prasad has made even more startling charges against the VDC. According to him, even a chicken supplier, a cool drinks shop owner, or the snack seller of the village has to pay the VDC annually. The sum would be hiked by a certain percentage yearly as per the VDC’s will.
However, he was unable to show any proof of the VDC collecting money from vendors. “Sir, no individual would dare to speak against VDC when an entire community like ours is socially boycotted,” he said.
Tracing the evolution of VDCs, advocate Ponnam Ashok explained that in the good old days, the VDCs were formed with the complete consent of all villagers to take collective decisions on what was good for them. If there were a religious celebration or there occurred financial hardship to someone, the villagers would voluntarily contribute in kind or cash. Over the past few decades, the situation started changing with a commercial mindset seeping into every aspect of life. The VDCs began insisting on compulsory contributions for the ‘progress of our villages’.
There is a social angle to it as well. Due to reservations in local bodies, persons from weaker sections got elected as sarpanches (panchayat presidents). “Apparently, this was not to the liking of some members of ‘dominant, rich and powerful’ castes and groups”, said Mr. Ashok, former president of Telangana HC Bar Association. These powerful gangs with traces of feudalistic approach searched for means to continue their supremacy.
“VDCs came as handy tools for them,” said Mr. Ashok. By inducting one or two representatives from each community into the VDC, they presented the Committees as real representative or voice of the village. Having secured an image of representing the village without any legal basis, the Committees began insisting for collection of money in the name of ‘village development’. “This is nothing but extortion of money keeping the citizens in the dark,” the HC advocate said.
Interestingly, not all villages in the district are like that. Siddapur of Nandipet mandal is an exception. The VDC and village panchayat sarpanch Narsaiah work in tandem for the overall progress of their area in all spheres. People of the village, who landed Government jobs, joined hands with them. Together, all started Siddapur Educational Welfare Association, raised funds and invested the money in the local government school providing it best infrastructure possible.
That village is fortunate to have such Good Samaritans, but some VDC members are worse than that of Jakranpally, says Mamidikindi Mahipal of Nyavanandi village in Sirikonda mandal of the district.
The Nyavanandi case
Claiming that he had been waging war against illegal sanctions of his VDC for nearly two years, the farmer in his mid-40s said he was afraid he could continue the struggle anymore. His is a different story of his own caste association socially boycotting him “under pressure of the VDC”!
In December 2020, he brought three loads of sand from his friend’s place in neighbouring Sirikonda village for some construction purposes. Nyavanandi VDC members objected to this, saying when sand mining in their village was leased out to a contractor, he should not bring sand from outside. A few weeks later, the VDC imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on him.
“A group of men owing allegiance to the VDC assaulted me at the panchayat office when I questioned their power to impose the fine. My elder brother suffered a fracture on his hand in that attack on 5 January 2021,” he recalled.
That day, he called 100 and complained to the district Collector over the phone. At the Collector’s direction, the police agreed to register a case. “But the police wanted me to give a fresh complaint without mentioning anything about the VDC giving sand mining rights to a contractor and that being the starting point of the dispute,” Mahipal said.
During subsequent deliberations and mediations, the VDC members agreed to cancel the fine if he withdrew the complaint. Interestingly, the VDC members got a countercase registered against him over the clash at the panchayat office.
“As I refused to pay the fine, the VDC members pressurised my caste association to pay up that sum. Yielding to their pressure, the association paid a ₹50,000 fine and socially boycotted my family and me,” cries Mahipal. He went on giving representations to Revenue and Police officials since then. But none came to his rescue. “My community members do not invite me to any function, programme or ritual. They will socialise with me only if I return that ₹50,000,” he said.
Mahipal claimed that the VDC had threatened to impose ₹1 lakh fine on the villagers if they cooperate with police in the investigation of the case and ₹5 lakh fine if anyone deposed evidence in the court against the Committee.
With his elder brother’s daughter’s marriage scheduled in February, the farmer and his family are apprehensive if they would be allowed to attend the marriage.
“Death is only solution for my family in that case. It is better to die with dignity instead of facing the boycott by my own community,” the dejected farmer said.
officials’ knee-jerk response
The district administration was aware of the atrocities of VDCs yet they were not responding seriously for reasons best known to them, said Balla Ravindranath, HC lawyer who appeared for Jakranpally villagers in the HC.
“Officials say that the social boycott by VDC in Jakranpally is over. But unofficially, it is continuing with many members shunning the Gowda community in day-to-day activities,” he said.
The officials’ response to the brutality inflicted by VDCs was knee-jerk and their actions are nothing more than an eye-wash, he remarked, adding that holding deliberations would not be of any use when the situation at the ground remains the same.
It is high time the authorities cracked the whip to ensure the barbaric social boycott evil is wiped out for ever.
Info-graphics
*Village Development Committee is not a legal entity.
*Legally, VDC has no authority to impose any sanctions against anyone in a village.
*All VDCs ensure no traces of evidence like documents, records, videos or pics confirming their existence are left.
*In some villages, VDCs wield more power than elected panchayat sarpanch.
*VDCs impose social boycott against individuals, castes, communities and compel other villagers to follow their diktat.
*Instances of securing conviction against a member of any VDC are nearly nil.
*Allegations galore that VDCs collect annual fee illegally from hawkers to shop owners to businessmen.
*No special drives undertaken by authorities to crack whip on VDCs.
*Many victims of social boycott complain inadequate action by police.
*Even to lift social boycott, VDCs collect additional sums of money describing them as fines (danduga).
*For some, VDCs are invisible extortion gangs.
*Investigators not probing the angle money extortion by VDCs.
*System of VDCs are reducing village panchayats to helpless institutions.
*No special mechanism in place to handle social boycott cases.
