MANANTHAVADI: “It was Varghese who restored our lost pride and though he died, the feudal lords were afraid of the fire he had lit,” says Kariyan (54), the tribal chief of the Adiya tribal settlement of Kaithavally near here.
Unravelling the bundles of harrowing experiences, Kariyan told ‘Express’ that like many other tribals he also was charmed into the spell of Varghese during his student days at SKMJ School, Kalpetta. “We called him ‘Mooppan’, an honour normally conferred on the venerable aged persons of our community,” he said.
Though Varghese was a youth then, his words were wise and he always questioned the injustice and oppression in the society,” says Kariyan.
Kariyan also remembers how the feudal lords shivered when Varghese organised the ‘Kundal Samaram’ (the agitation against an old system of wages).
In those days instead of litre, a local measure ‘ser’ was used. It contained about 1 kg of paddy. The wages for a man for a day’s work was 1.5 ‘ser’ paddy and 1 ‘ser’ paddy for women. Varghese demanded using litre instead of ‘ser’ which was manipulated by landlords.
With his intervention, the ‘ser’ system was replaced by litre and daily wages was increased to 4 liters of paddy for men with an additional 50 paise and 3 litres of paddy for women with 25 paise.
“In those days we were not allowed to wear ‘mundu’ lower than the knee. Off in the bushes, we worshipped Gods secretly, far away from the eyes of landlords,” says Kariyan.
The most harrowing experience was meted out to tribal women. The landlords would send men to guard the crop during night at the treetop huts in the paddy fields.
“While men keep the midnight oil burning to save the crop, the ‘janmi’ (Landlord) would come in search of our women. Our women had no right to resist the lords.
If somebody resisted they would vanish to the endless expanse of marshy paddy fields,” he added. Paying just a paltry sum of `10 or `20, one can keep a tribal family as bonded labourers for many years, he said.
When asked about the law and order system, he said that the ‘janmi’ was part of the government machinery and the police always danced to the tunes of the feudal lords.
It was this system that shaken when Varghese started a series of agitations for tribals.
Kariyan also nourishes the fond memories of Varghese whom he guided umpteen times to distant jungle rendezvous.
For his affinity to Varghese and his comrades, Kariyan was arrested at the age of 17 and imprisoned for seven years in jail. Now Kariyan is a known practitioner of ‘Gadhika’, the art-form of Adiya tribe.
