Under Trial

Under Trial - The Thigalas of Halekote

By Nidhi Suresh

HaleKote is a small hamlet village of Devarayanadurga, located 20kms off Tumkur, Karnataka. The 60 households of HaleKote are owned by three large families who live there. The residents speak Kannada with interlaced with a tinge of Tamil. HaleKote is a homogeneous village with its entire population belonging to a single caste – Thigalas. But the residents of HaleKote were not born Thigalas. The origin of the true Thigalas themselves has been highly debated through time.
A search on Wikipedia reveals that it was King Hyder Ali who encouraged and brought the Thigalas to Bangalore so that they could plan and construct Lal Bhag – the mighty flower garden. In another article published by ‘The Hindu’, Niranjana Ramesh states that Thigalas were responsible for the popular inscriptions on the walls of the Begur Temple. She goes on to claim, that it is a sadly less known fact that these inscriptions were carefully carved out by the Christian community of Thigalas who resided there more than four centuries ago. In due time, it was Tipu Sultan who brought the Thigalas to Bangalore, who eventually became responsible in transforming Bangalore into – The Garden City. On the contrary, some believe that it was Kempe Gowda, the feudatory ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire, who led the Thigalas into Bangalore. Kempe Gowda established Bangalore as his capital and intended for the Thigalas to help him convert the city into a city of flowers. The most factual record of the Thigalas so far is that, in 1994 a Karnataka state government order issued that all Thigalas were a sect of Backward Hindu Caste. Although it was only in 2001 that the residents of HaleKote were included into the Indian caste system by casting them off as Thigalas. So who were the people of HaleKote before 2001?
Most current residents of HaleKote vividly recall their grandfathers and granduncles being hunters. They also recall of hearing stories of being descendants of people of the hills, the tribals. They told me that their ancestors lived on the hills, whose foot they now live on, and hunted for food. The only reason why they would occasionally come down had been for water, which a mighty well at the bottom of the hill provided. But eventually, due to urban invasion the tribals were forced to come down and settle down as villagers in HaleKote and soon enough got engulfed into the Hindu system as Thigalas.
It has only been about 60-70 years since they have made their way downhill and settled down as villagers and already, they are faced with the enticements of the city of Bangalore. Most villages in India face this bait today. But this luring of the city has happened after years of living as villagers rooted in their own unique culture for long enough to establish a sense of belongingness. But this forming of a sturdy identity is what the Thigalas of HaleKote unfortunately have not had the time for. Hence they are stuck in a labyrinth where they have not yet fully let go of their tribal roots, they are still only settling down as rural agriculturalists and already being invaded by the expanding city of Bangalore.
By far their transient transition from tribals to villagers has been consistent and smooth. But although they have been casted off as Thigalas they still remain a distinct sect as their roots differentiate them from other Thigalas. For example, HaleKote residents now worship Goddess Maramma, the Goddess of most Thigalas around the country. But HaleKote has personified Maramma and represented her in the form of a large stone deity whose features are ill-defined. This is in contrast to most Goddess’s in the Hindu culture, who have explicit physical features. The reason for this physical ambiguity can be attributed to the fact that the Thigalas of HaleKote, as tribals mostly worshipped stones and trees as it was these forces of nature that guarded and protected them and hence it made sense to pay homage to them.
When I asked Nagamma ajji, the second eldest woman of HaleKote, of the story of the origin of Thigalas, she had a rather interesting tale waiting for me. This is what she told me:

“One day Shiva and Parvathi were sitting together and Shiva felt hungry. So as Parvathi entered the kitchen, she found to her dismay that there were no vegetables. On complaining about this to Shiva, he requested her to wait for seven days. It was in those seven auspicious days that Shiva created the Thigalas. He asked us to grow vegetables become the source of life to him and Parvathi. I believe that the Thigalas are presently at a very interesting phase. A phase, which we don’t very often get to witness at such a rapid rate. It would be fascinating to watch the direction of the growth of these vegetable and flower growers. Will the Thigalas of HaleKote manage to root themselves into the Hindu system and find their place in it or will they eventually carve out their own distinct niche that sets them apart from the other Thigalas?