SRIKAKULAM: Every village has its own grama devata (community deity). So does the sleepy village of Kedaripuram in Palasa mandal, 70 km from the Srikakkulam district headquarters. But the peculiarity is that the deity is not mythological, but Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation.
This not all, Gandhi is also worshipped as a goddess here. For decades, the residents of this village have been organising the Gandhamma festival before the beginning of farm operations every kharif season. The belief system has it that propitiating Gandhi ensures a bumper crop.
Village elders say their forebears started the ritual after Independence in 1947. But the festival has its roots in the era of the Inamdari system. The then rulers had gifted 250 acres of land as inam to local landed gentlemen Parasuram Chaudary and Venkata Rama Chaudary, who used to make the farmers work the land and keep the harvest.
"Our elders, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, then staged a satyagrah and got the land freed. A Gandhi Youth Association and a Gandhi-aided school were built in the villages," says 65-year-old K Falguna Rao, sarpanch of Kedaripuram.
But why Gandhi is a goddess here? "The villagers used to organise a festival before starting cultivation in the inam fields to showcase their unity against the Inamdars. Villagers in north coastal Andhra usually worship goddesses before beginning farm operations. So we consider Gandhi as a goddess who blesses us with bumper yields. Thus we named the festival the Gandhamma Sambaram," says Falguna Rao.
As part the festival, which is observed on a Thursday two weeks after the Jagannath Rath Yatra (chariot festival in Odisha), the villagers take out a procession with a plateful of fruits and sweets, carrying holy turmeric water on their heads. The procession culminates with a puja performed to a photo of Mahatma Gandhi. Traditional songs and dances are performed. And then the villagers distribute prasadam, marking the end of the festival.
"Not only at Kedaripuram, but the nearby villages of Ganguwada and Edurapalli also follow the same rituals," says P Appala Naidu, a resident of Kedaripuram.