Winds of change in Karnataka’s Soliga tribal belt

Karnataka

By Chetana Belagere

January 14, 2023

The indigenous people inhabiting the BR Hills, the Soligas, are scattered across 157 hamlets across four protected areas.

Karnataka

Showing a facet of their thinking that runs at odds with the trend in much of India, the Soligas rejoice in the birth of a female more than that of a male baby.

Karnataka

At least one person in each of the nearly 200 households in Kanneri Colony is educated; most are college graduates, three of them have PhDs.

Karnataka

Soligas have actively fought for their tribal rights, their struggles led by the community’s welfare organisation — the Zilla Budakattu Girijana Abhivruddhi Sangha.

Karnataka

The Sangha’s work in the past includes securing forest rights for them that saved the wild honey-gatherers from exploitative middlemen.

Karnataka

Equator Initiative notes that it was the Sangha’s “pioneering effort” which forced the Indian government to pass the Forest Rights Act in 2005.

Karnataka

The act restored land and conservation rights in forests to their original beneficiaries — the forest-dwelling tribal communities — across the country.

Karnataka

This apart, the Sangha has worked on WHO-supported health programmes and imparts financial education.

Karnataka

Earlier, the 1,500 Soliga families in the 65 hamlets in BRT Tiger Reserve depended on forest produce like honey, tubers and amla.

Karnataka

With monkeys and wild boars wreaked havoc on the forest produce, over 600 tribal families are currently involved in coffee cultivation in the BR Hills.

Karnataka

There is one element in the Soliga way of life that is a constant, albeit a tenuous one: the “thammadi”, or the shaminist healer of a village.

Karnataka

Daasegowda is a Thammadi who practices shamanism in Bhutani Podu. This is the place where people come to for any kind of illness. A small temple is present inside the premises of his house . 

Karnataka

Goddess Lakshmi inside the temple of Daasegowda's home. It is here that people are given Dhoolti.

Karnataka