Malanis- the Descendents of Alexender the Great

Malana-The oldest Democracy of the World

Shimla- 13 September:

The remote settlement of Malana in the Kullu district of the Himachal has become a focus for worldwide attention as it is considered to be the oldest democracy of the world. Unfettered by the  any rule of government, these people have their own system of governance. Peoples of the Malana’s boasts themselves  to be  the descendents of the Alexigender the Great ( 356-323) , the Greek  invader known for his ambitious imperialism in the world history. The Malana is located at the north-east of the Kullu Valley at a height of 3029 meters from the mean sea level. The village, having settlement of about five hundred houses with the population of about 1500,  is situated at a plateau and is surrounded by Chandermukhi and Deotibba mountain ranges. The area remain cutoff from the rest of the state due to snow fall for about eight month in a year.

Village :

To reach the Malana one has to go on Bhunter-Manikarn road and near Jari a link road takes to Malna hydel power and about 1.5 k.m backward from project a straight upward path of about of one hour walks leads to the village. The village is known for high quality charas called Malana’s Creame. That’s why the village has been visited by  foreigners for many years. But with the strictness by the police has now put restrictions on the villagers on growing cannabis and the villagers in stead of cannabis now grow vegetables and pulses and cash crops.

The Malana village is devided into two parts, one is upper Malana and the other is Lower Malana. The people of  the Malana  belongs to Rajputs dynasty and only few families of the Julaha and Luhar is settled in the village about five decades ago. The houses of the Malana village are of the two or three stories. The ground floor is used as cattle shed and fodder for sheeps, goats and fuel wood are stored in the this floor. The second floor is used as store for eatables and wood.

The third or top floor is used for living. The houses of the village were  built of alternate bands of the timber and stones and the inner walls of the houses are plastered with mud.The Malanis regard them selves unique and the people outsider are untouchable to them. No body is allowed to touch Malanis and their houses and those who incidentally or knowingly disobey, they are fined 12 dollars. The village has a temple of Jamdagni Rishi which attracts pilgrims during festivals.  A Dharmshala (Rest house), carved with the rich craft is available to the visitors to stay during their visits.

The devastating fire that out brooked in Jan 2008 gutted about 150 houses, 6 temples and Bhandars (temple store) of Jamlu Devta.

Swedish University conducting a research:

The Uppsala University of  Sweden in collaboration with the Institute of Tribal studies of the Himachal Pradesh University is conducting a research on origin of these people. The research  project has two objective –one to trace out the origin of the language, the people of Malana spoke and second to trace the origin of the people of Malana.

The society of the Malana is Endogamous and the inhabitants marry within the village. No girl is allowed to marry out side the village and boys of the village are not allowed to marry a girl who doesn’t belong to the village.The polygamy is allowed but polyandry system don’t prevail in the village. The men are restricted to marry only ten to fifteen times but there no such restriction on the women as they can marry as many times as they wish.

The Village Council:

So far the Malana is considered to be the oldest survived republic in the world. There are eight clans and 500 families in Malana and they are not bind to any rule of the government. They have their own system of governance and the power is vested in their deity called Jamlu Devta. The Jamlu Devta rules the village with the help of the Village Counci called Hakima. The Village Council consists of  upper court and the lower court. The  upper court comprises of a Goor ( the main disciple of  Jamlu Devta), Pujari and Kardar. The Pujari and Kardar are considered the representative of the Jamlu Devta and their posts are hereditary. The Goor is said to be the sprit of the Jamlu Devta and  can be a person from the any family from  the village. The lower court consists of the four members and they are called Jestha. Each  member can choose one more member and total number thus becomes eight. Among these eight member choose one member as Pradhan (Chief ) and other as Uppradhan (deputy Chief ) .

Judiciary System:

The Malana has its own system of judiciary. In Malana the property and social disputes are rare and if some how these occur, the villagers  don’t take the help  of the police . No rule of the government don't bind them, they are ruled by their own oral constitution.  The Malana has its own judicial system and its own court which resolve the disputes among the people and these people never go to any court of government. There are unique penalties for offenders and those who stole other’s wife have to pay 600 dollars as compensation and if the women in turn left him for another then he would receive the double the amount he paid. The offender of rape must marry the victim and if victim do not wish to marry him then she is entitled to receive food and clothe for at least one year.

They have a unique system of proving some one guilty. If there is a complaint from any body, the matter is solved by the Goor ( the main disciple of the god) of the village. On a complaint, both the plaintiff and the defendant are asked to bring lambs. And in the right legs, of the both lambs, a cut is made with the knife or blade and then Jahar (local poison) is applied in this fissure which is then sown. Then the owner of that lamb which dies first is declared guilty and the owner of the survived lamb is is declared victorious.

The social and civil disputes does'nt happen there and if some how they do occur then police intervention is not sought. If some one try to engage the police in the spat then he has to pay a fine of 1000 Rs. In case of theft the stone is tied to the offender and he is rolled down from hill. If some one disobey the decision of the  council, he is thrown out of village

Occupation:

The main occupation of the villagers is cultivation but as the lands are not much fertile, therefore these people are engaged in the cattle rearing and collection of medicinal plants. The whole land of the village is considered to be of the deity Jamlu and the peoples cultivating this land are considered Mujaras (Tenants). The villagers after harvesting donate a part of their crops to the deity. This is stored and is used in various religious and ritual ceremony. The Malanis are nature loving and environmentalist by nature. To protect their nature they have put restrictions on the nailing green trees and burning of the fire in the forest.Only dry trees and branches are allowed to  bring  from the forest.

Thus the village has many things unique and it is a matter of research who actually these people are ?  With the ongoing research the mystery will be unveiled in the days to come.

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCE STUDY-SHIMLA

IIAS-The Viceregal Loge- A Place of Attraction  

Shimla, 29 August-

The Viceregal Lodge, once the glory of  the British empire in India, popularly known as Indian Institute of Advance Study, is the attraction for thousands  peoples visiting Shimla. Any one can fall in love, at the very first sight, with the edifice of Viceroys Lodge which is  a blend of Elizabethan and Scottish architectural forms  built  with grey Himalayan sand stone. The Institute is located at the west of Shimla city, atop Observatory Hill at a height of about 2000 feet from the sea level. The Institute came into being in 6 October, 1964  with the formation of a Society and was  inaugurated in 20 0ctober 1965 by then President Pro. S. Radhakrishnan. The Institute  located amid idyllic surroundings catches everyone’s eye from long distance. Covering an area of about 110 acre, the Institute has  spectacular building , Lawns, exotic plants and numerous grasses. The beauty of this Institute is so much that the people coming to Shimla could not resist themselves to visit  this edifice. The popularity of the Institute  could easily be judged from the fact that every year about one lakh people  from different parts of the country and across the world pay visits to see and know about the Institute. Besides liked for  its beauty and glamour the Institute is also known  for it’s researches and as a forum of discussion on the international and national issues.

History:

After the Shimla town became the summer capital of the Britsh India in 1864, there was a need felt of  a residence for  the then Governor-Generals and Viceroys, where they could live and carry their administration comfortably. But with no proper place, initially these dignitaries had to live and change their residence from one to another frequently. It was lord  Lytton ( 1876-80 ) who conceived the idea to build a residence of Viceroy at Observatory Hill and this idea turned into reality when during the reign of Lord Dufferin ( 1884-88) this project got sanction from the then Secretary of the State for India Lord Randolph Churchill. The estimated cost of the eastate was then 38 lakh Rupees and an amount of 1.5 lakhs was to be spent on it annually as a recurring cost. Architect Henry Irwin designed  the building and it finally got built in 1888.

During pre-independence era,  the Viceregal Lodge witnessed the historical events related to  the India’s freedom movements. The round table meeting as well as the Shimla Conference in the Viceregal Lodge drew the attention of the Indians as well as the people across  the  world.  In  June 14, 1945  the famous Shimla conference was convened here by the then Viceroy  Lord Wavell with a objective what he termed a meeting “ to advance India towards her goal of full self-government”.

The conference was held from 14 June to 25 July in which all the top brass of Indian leadership,  Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Maulana Ajad, C.Rajagopalachari, Master Tara Singh and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, were present. This conference failed because the British regime contrived a plan to devide Indians on the basis of religion as it proposed to give seats in Viceroy’s Executive Council to Muslims and Hindus in proportion to their populations.

In March 1946 a tripartite meeting between the British , the Congress and the Muslim League to discuss the modalities to hand over power to Indians held  in Viceregal Lodge and  which also failed due to League’s tough stand.

 After indepence, in 1947  the Viceregal Lodge was handed over to President of India and it was renamed as Rashtrapati Niwas. In 1964, the then President Dr. S. Radhakrishnan gave an idea to setup an Institute of Advance Study in this building.

Academic Activity:

The academics are the main activities of the Institute, this comprises of researches that are conducted by its Fellows besides seminars organized trough out the year. The main objective of  the Institute is to provide facilities to flourish academic activities and to conduct researches in the  field of the humanities and social sciences. Institute awards fellowship to conduct researches and currently there are three categories of research Fellows- Honorary Fellows, National Fellows and Fellows, which are the important parts of the Institute.

Honorary Fellowship- It is given to the renowned scholars for her or his life time. They may visit and deliver lecture in Institute once a year.

National Fellows-These Fellows has a term of two years and could be extended one year.

Fellows- The Fellows has minimum duration  of three months  and maximum  of three years. The Fellows conduct researches on the theme approved by the Institute.

Currently there are 30 Fellows , 5 National Fellows and 15-20 Associate Fellows. Associate fellowship is awarded by UGC to encourage researches. Besides Fellows , others scholars also visit Institute, these are Visiting Professors,, Visiting Scholars and Guest Scholars.

Visiting Professors are eminent scholars invited by Institute to deliver lectures and give presentation in seminars. During this they can avail guest facility in Institute for one month and interact with the Fellows.

Visiting Scholars are also renowned scholars in their fields and they stay maximum for two weeks in Institute.

 The Guest Lecturers also come in Institute 

The Institute organize seminars of the national and international level through out the year on the contemporary issues.

The institute has established the annual  Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture as a tribute to the second President of the India Dr. Radhakrishnan, who is credited with gifting that Rashterpati Niwas to establish Institute.

Inter-University Center for Humanities and Social Sciences :

The  Institute,  since 1991, is running a centre  for humanities and social sciences with the collaboration of University Grant Commission.

The centre selects the teachers from universities and collages, who during their stay for one month a year, for three years, pursue their researches beside interacting with Fellows and other scholar in the institute. The centre also run two programmes , “Research Seminars” , and “Study Weaks”. The research seminars are on the humanities and social sciences and are primarily for young researchers of the universities and collages. While the study weaks are the programmes meant for senior teacher in collages and universities and other eminent persons , wherein the problems of the national and international concerns are discussed.

Administration:

There is a Society and a Governing Body to administer the institute, which are composed of eminent personalities of all fields. Planning Commission Member and renowned economist Professor Bhalachandra Mungekar is currently heading these bodies. A finance committee is constituted to advise the director on the financial matters. The institute is headed by a Director and Professor Peter Ronald deSouza is currently helding this post. The Institute is aided by The Ministry of Human Resource, besides the Institute generate revenue by selling it’s publications and entry fee paid by the people who visit this institute.

Library:

The Library of  the Institute is one of the best in the country. There are about 1.5 lakhs volumes of books, journals, microfilms and other documents. There are presently 460 journals. The collection of the library includes the areas of Philosphy, Religion, Fine Arts, Socio-Linguistics, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Socio-Economic Planning and Development, Third World Economics, Ancient and Medieval Indian History and culture and Modern India. The database of  regarding the books is accessible through the DELNET.

Publications:

The Institute has over 450 publications. These include monographs of its Fellows, proceedings of Seminars,

Symposiums and Conferences held at institute and lectures delivered by Visiting Professors and papers presented by Fellows and visitors to the Institute.

The Institute also publishes two biannual journals. The first one is – Summer Hill: IIAS Review and Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

The second one is the hindi journal– Chetna: Manav Anusandhan Patrika.

Recreational Facility:

To provide a healthy and friendly environment in the Institute there is  a sports club that provide facility of badminton, billiards, table-tennis, carom and squash. Fellows and visitors enjoy these activities.  

Wild Animals a big threat to Livelihood .

Wild Animals cause 2000 Crores loss annually in Himachal Pradesh

Shimala-19 August:

The wild animals has become a big threat to the agriculture and horticulture in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh .The vagaries of the weather has already made the farming uncertain and now the menace of wild animals have worsened the situation .The crops sustaining conditions of insufficient and untimely rains had being destroyed by the wild animals leaving nothing with farmers to feed their families. Due to wild animals the problem of the livelihood have aroused before farmers and there is no one who could allay their concerns and make their crops secure from these animals. Having Lost hopes that governments on its own would understand their plight and do something decisive, these farmers with absolutely no political ideology have been gathering together and raising their voice against the callous attitude of the successive governments of the state as well as of the centre.

In a move to press the government to address their problem the dharnas, ralies have became common but nothing concrete has come from the side of the governments.

The severity of the problem:

The very fact that the ten districts out of twelve in the state are worst affected by these wild animals ,is enough to tell the graveness of the situation. These animals have been visiting frequently the farms and destroying the crops raised by the farmers with hard work of the months. The monkeys, wild bores, blue bulls, porcupines, jackals, bears etc. are proving fatal to the farming in a scenario wherein about ninety percent of total population of the state is residing in rural areas and is mainly dependent on the agriculture and horticulture for its livelihood. There are about ten lakhs families in state engaged in agriculture out of which about five lakhs families are directly affected due to crop damaged by these wild animals. In state about 2301 Panchayats, two-third of total 3243 Panchayats, have been directly affected by wild animals. These Panchayats are mostly in Kangra, Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur, Sirmour, Solan , Kullu, Mandi and Shimla districts. The rampant damage to crops by wild animals have left the farmers in distress and have forced them to abandon the agriculture. This situation if continues could create a problem of food security in the future to farmers who has no other alternative .

Loss to Agriculture:

As being a hilly state, the Himachal Pradesh has limited land for cultivation and as a matter of fact only ten percent of the total geographical area of the state is cultivable. Finding no solution on their own the farmers have been leaving their cultivable land barren and as such forty percent of total cultivable land have become barren due to wild animals menace. The farmers are in no position to take more risk of raising crops as they have already suffered huge loss due to these wild animals. The loss due wild animal menace is estimated tune to 2000 crores rupees every year in Himachal. Besides near five lakhs affected families have been engaging themselves in safeguarding the crops in their fields and family had to keep at least on person on watching for twenty four hours in a day for about two months of crop season. This figure seldom comes in the mind of the animal rights organizations who fight for the animals and ignore the difficulties of the farmers. As is evident that damage to the raised crops is not only done through feeding but also a large part of the damage constitutes of trampling and rooting the crops by these animals.

Increasing population of Monkeys a big threat:

The problem of the crops damage has been become alarming because of the increasing population of the monkeys in the state as in the past thirty years their numbers have shockingly increased about 530 percent. Total estimated population of the monkeys was 60000 in 1980 which on basis of survey of 2004 had increased to about 3.17 lakhs. According a estimate total number of monkeys and langur in Himachal has gone more than five lakhs which would further increase in alarming proportion if the government does not initiate steps to control their population. The numbers of animals are more than the carrying capacity of their natural habitat and therefore they are running towards human settlements to satiate their hunger which has lead a conflict between human and animals.

Efforts by government are insufficient:

Though government claims to have taken steps to control the population of the monkeys by sterilization and making a provision of scientific culling of wild animals but with the general inertia on its part has not led much progress on these front. Sterilization programme to control the numbers of these herbivores have not yielded the desired results. Farmers organizations say that sterilizations of monkeys started by the state forest department could not be immediate solution to this problem as the number of these animals are large, on the other hand the process is very tardy. For the last four years the department had sterilized only 19500 monkeys.With the average of about 500 hundred sterilizations per year the claims of initiatives on the part of government repudiates it self. According to specialists the population of the monkeys could only be stabilized if the seventy percent of the total numbers are sterilized. This means that about 3.5 lakhs of the total population of the monkeys and langurs are to be sterilized to attain a condition of stabilizing. With this slow pace of sterilization it would take decades to reach this proportion till that time the agricultural activities would completely be halted.

The setting up a primate park for monkeys in Tara Devi near Shimla also proved to be impractical as the costs on feeding and rearing them was so high that government preferred to abandon that noble idea with in a few days of inauguration of this park . As in this park about ten thousand monkeys were to be kept, on which the government would had to spent crores rupees per year which was not economical viable. More over the keeping this small number in capativity could not have solved the problem.

The move of tans-locating monkeys from Shimla city and along national high way to rural area also was another effort made by government to decrease the pressure of these species, which also ended desperately . The areas where these monkeys were trans located became more prone to the threat of these animals and the situation worsened in those areas. This process was stopped due to inconvenience occurred to the people of these areas.

What the Farmers want:

Farmers and horticulturists of the state have been demanding to evolve permanent and effective solutions to this menace of wild animals. The Kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti, the biggest organization of the farmers in the state, fighting for the cause of the farmers, have been demanding to lift the ban imposed on the export on monkeys since 1978. There are unmatched demands of the monkeys for clinical research in USA and European countries and by allowing export the pressure of these primates could become low on agriculture says Dr. Kuldeep Tnvar, the convener of the Kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti.

Since there is ban on killing of wild animals under the Wild Life and Animal Protection Act-1972, the farmers have been demanding to include ten species of the wild animals in the section 62 of this act, and declare these animals vermin. By doing so the farmers need not to under go the cumbersome process of getting permission for scientific culling of the monkeys, jackals, porcupines, wild bores, black bears, sambars, blue bulls, parrots etc. The farmers, without prior permission, could kill the animals which threats to their lives and crops. In order to avoid misuse of this provision, the culling should be carried out by the forest department with the help of local people, Panchayats and NGOs, suggests farmer’s organisation. As spearheading the culling operation by the department itself is necessitated to avoid any untoward happing because if the people get riffles , the possibility of being misused them is more.

The government should make change in the aforestation policy and should plant the trees which these wild animals could use as their food. No doubt the Himachal has a vast area under forest cover but about 65 percent of this area has coniferous trees which are of no use for these animals. Instead there should be more emphasis on planting broad leaves trees so the wild animals feed on them rather than running to the fields.

The culling of Monkeys :

As there is no progress on this front on the part of the government, the farmer are being forced to take the guns in their hands to secure the their crops. As per the information the culling of monkeys has started in two Panchayats namely Neri and Dummi of the Shimla district. In these Panchayats 61 farmers had applied before the forest department to allow them to start culling of monkeys and out of which a dozen of the farmers has been granted the permission to go ahead. If all goes well the

same could also be replicated in other areas of the Himachal where farming community is facing acute problem of the wild animals.

In 2007 the farmers of the Nauradhar subtehsil of Sirmour district, with the help of the forest deparment, for the first time in the state, started a culling operation of the monkeys and more than five hundred monkeys were killed. After the intervention of the animal rights organizations, especially from Menika Gandhi ,the government withdrew itself from this move and farmers could not continue this campaign and they eventually stopped this .This culling operation had a very positive effect and monkeys fled from this areas which otherwise was one of the worst monkeys affected part of the state. It was after this operation, the farmers of these areas first time in the past 30 years could grow crop of maze

The kheti bachao Sangharsh Samiti of Himachal Pradesh is leading the peasants movement in the state to force the government to take effective measures to rein in the wild animals and devise short, medium and long term plans.The Samiti has decided to organize a rally of the state farmers during the general budget in Delhi next year.