The Adivasi Gond culture is facing a grave threat owing to the impending end of a glorious relationship between the aboriginal people and the Pardhan tribe in Adilabad. The district in Telangana State is perhaps the last place in the country where cohesion between the two tribes can still be seen and any threat to the culture of the aboriginal tribe is viewed as a serious issue.
Since ages, the Pardhan Adivasis have functioned as bards of the Gonds preserving their myths and stories through oral tradition. In many instances, they even serve as priests and are an integral part of most of the important religious-cum-cultural affairs like the ongoing Nagoba jatara, the annual pilgrimage of the Mesram clan of Gonds.
In Adilabad district, only a handful of Pardhan musicians exist as the younger generation has moved towards education and the livelihood opportunities it has thrown up. Most of these bards are above 60 years of age, which is the cause of worry for the puritans among the aboriginal tribes here.
“We, the patadis, guide the Gond priests or Kathodas in all their cultural and religious activities,” reveals Mesram Tukdoji, the Pardhan from Vadgam village in Indervelli mandal, who has been singing the history of Nagoba, the clan deity of the Mesram Gonds, for the last 50 years. “Without our recital, no ritual will take place,” he states of the importance of Pardhans in the ethos of the Gond tribe.
Famous Austrian Anthropologist Christopher von Furer-Haimendorf made detailed studies of the intricacies of the relationship between the Gonds and the Pardhans. In his book The Aboriginal Tribes of Hyderabad , Vol. III , The Raj Gonds of Adilabad , he noted that the Pardhans play a vital role in the Gond culture as bards and guardians of tradition.
The Pardhans speak Marathi, but are equally familiar with the Gondi and Gondi is the language of epics and hymns which they sing at feasts and for entertainment of Gond audiences, the book says.
In the scheme of things, every Gond family has a rota patadi or house Pardhan who plays music at social functions, it adds.
“This culture will continue for much longer than is being thought,” elder Patadi Mesram Dada Rao of Gundala in Narnoor mandal, predicted, as he answered questions on Pardhan youth moving away from traditions. “The demands of the time will have at least some of our children take up singing on the kingri,” he hopes.
