It has been nearly a year now since my last article. I had ended it with the words of Jane Goodall, "Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right". And right now. I don't think anything is right when it comes to my hometown, Kodagu.
Two issues have grabbed the attention of the people of Coorg in the last couple of months. And both these issues actually affect the very identity of Kodagu as we know it. One is the proposed railway line which affects the environment and the other is the Court order against certain traditional practices. And both these issues have got dramatically different reactions. While the former has garnered a lot of attention online with people of all ages using different means to raise awareness, the latter has sadly been brushed under the carpet almost as a sort of acceptance.
We fortunately have learnt a lesson after the failure of the campaign against the Power Line project. This coupled with the awareness on the need to protect the environment has ensured that people from all walks of life are now supporting the various groups involved in the fight against the railway line. It is heartening to see the communication centered around Mother Cauvery and I believe that this has helped garner widespread support from all over the World. However, all the online campaigning will not help much if we do not see some action on ground, And by action, I do not mean violence. I mean galvanizing enough forces on ground to cripple normal life. For until and unless we get people to come and support these causes on ground, we will not be able to make much of an impact. The Railway Minister has reacted to the campaign and has tweeted that he will look into it. But what is he going to look at when our elected representatives have not even given a single statement either supporting or opposing the project. Why do we even call these people our representatives if they are not going to understand and stand by the pulse of their electorate?
I am no saint nor do I think I have the answers to all the problems plaguing us. But I believe that if we do not start speaking about it, we will only fall deeper into the pit that we have dug ourselves into. I blame us, the people for we have brought this upon ourselves. We are a society that thrives on arm chair activism. Almost anybody and everybody in or from Coorg has an opinion on anything and everything. We criticise every single thing around us but when it comes to taking a stand publicly or going for a protest, we somehow have no time for any of it. So while we comfortably share and write about issues on social media platforms, the time has come for us to hold a mirror and look long and hard at ourselves and see the truth for once in our lives.
The campaign against the Railway Line started to make waves after the "Toast to Cauvery" initiative where one holds a glass of water and raise a toast to Cauvery. It is a brilliant campaign and helped strike a chord with friends from outside Coorg especially in cities or places that depend on the river. However, while it is nice to think innovative for a campaign, it is time to ask ourselves if we really hold the river in the same esteem that our forefathers did before us. How many of us Kodavas have gone to Talacavery in the recent past? How many of us celebrate Kaveri Sankramana in the true spirit of the Festival? I for one went to Cauvery after nearly three years because I had to go and barely make it home to Coorg for Kaveri Sankramana. We have become tourists to our own practices and places of identity. And that is the hypocrisy. We say it is ours but don't show it.
I love the fact that our Culture is very different from a large part of the Country, but while we have opened up and become liberal; we somehow seem to be identifying ourselves to be that of pork eating guzzlers with a short fuse. Of course, it is all about individual choices. I truly respect the fact that each individual has the liberty and freedom to make choices that they think is right. For that matter, I do not like the Kodava Samaj or any other body to tell me what makes me a Kodava. But a time has come for us to feel the need to preserve what is left of us being an indigenous community.
These practices are what makes us who we are. The past three odd months has seen authorities clamp down on centuries old practices to implement a Court order. A Court order that most of us did not know about until it was implemented. The said Court order banned animal sacrifice in places of worship in Coorg. Every temple Festival this year saw a huge contingent of Police around the premises making sure that no animal sacrifice took place. So much so that people wee intimidated and hurt that they were not allowed to practice what they truly believed in. I have an issue with this attitude of the Courts and the system in general where individual rights and practices have no voice. The whole media is going to town about Freedom of Speech and so on but what about my rights. There are some people who will argue that animal sacrifice is cruel and we need to have more humanity and stop this but that change if at all needs to come from inside the Community and not by the high hand of the law.
So will they then go on and tell us that we cannot offer Karana to our ancestors? Today, it is about animal sacrifice, tomorrow it will be about our rights to own guns and day after our right to our land and it will only continue to get worse. Our language and a lot of our traditional practices are already dying a slow death. As a society, we have always been open to adapting and moving with the times but of late, we seem to be adapting better to those things that dilute our practices. As an indigenous population, we need to preserve whatever little is left of our place and our Culture.
Of course, everybody has a right to go to Court but It baffles me that we somehow seem to miss all that concerns us, especially in the legal or political fields. The need of the hour is a body, a think thank of the young and the old that brings the various organisations in Coorg under one platform. A body that is not just a committee of power and prestige but a body of individuals from all walks of life that helps the various groups get maximum traction for each of its causes. Judicial overreach and unnecessary judicial activism needs to be curtailed. Every single one of us needs to get our hands dirty or at least support those who are willing to get their hands dirty. We need an organisation that will work with the Officials and against the Officials, from solving individual problems to regulating tourism and land laws. It is time for us to be assertive and take control over our lives before we get run over and don't even realise what hit us..
So its time to wake up and smell the Coffee!!........
