Malainadu, a tribal administrative unit that was mooted, but did not take off

Proposal for a Malainadu as a tribal administrative unit in Madras Province, focusing on intense development for hill tribes.

While Tamil Nadu people are familiar with Nanjil Nadu, Kongu Nadu, and Chera Nadu, it would be interesting to know that at one point the establishment of a Malainadu, as a tribal administrative unit, was mooted in the Madras Province. V. Subbarayan, an Indian police officer, had proposed to the Aboriginal Tribes Welfare Committee, constituted in 1946, that the hill tracts of Salem, South Arcot (Cuddalore), North Arcot (Vellore), and Tiruchi “may be constituted into a separate tribal administrative unit — Malainadu — for intense development purposes”. The region comprised tribes belonging to the Malaiyalis and Shevaroys (both hill tribes), who were mainly into agriculture and suffered from chronic indebtedness. “Those who are landless among the tribesmen work as labourers under farmers or as estate coolies. Their problems are similar to those of other hill tribes who have developed an agricultural economy,” secretary of the committee A. Ayyappan noted in his report on the Socio-Economic Conditions of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Province of Madras, shortly after Independence.

The Malaiyalis lived in Kollimalai and Shevaroy Hills in Salem district; Kalrayan Hills in then South Arcot district; Pachaimalai in Tiruchi district; and the Javadi Hills in then North Arcot district. The Tamil- and Kanarese (Kannada)-speaking tribes lived in the Nilgiris and Coimbatore. The committee, however, did not get any material worth mentioning in its report about the tribes in the Nilgiris and Coimbatore tribal block. Subbarayan, who was the former secretary of the committee, in his notes for use of the committee, had also elaborated on a scheme for the creation of new administrative divisions, talkus, or sub-taluks, from the undeveloped tribal areas. He suggested that self-sufficient ‘gramas’ (village) or ‘communes’ for the tribes might be organised in these areas. “The natural resources of the locality should be ‘owned’ by the communes subject to the control of the Government and their ultimate ownership. The tribal institutions are to be the centre around which to build up the commune. The administrative unit will be the tribal panchayat, but the executive officer will be the welfare officer appointed by the Government and all Government departments concerned with land, forest, industries, etc., will work through him. The Panchayat will be the modernised version of the council of tribal elders,” he had said.

He had conceived taluk panchayats of which functions would include the maintenance and administration of a warehouse and stores, granary, a credit and saving bank, police station, hospital, court of justice in small causes, and a sylviculture farm with a forest range officer. “A few such taluks in the four tribal blocks and the agencies will constitute a ‘Nadu’,” with public servants, including an Assistant Commissioner of the Welfare Department; a medical officer; a Revenue Divisional Officer; a Superintendent of Police; and a Munsif Magistrate.

According to the report, these tribal ‘Nadus’ “may remain now within the districts to which they are attached, subject to the autonomy of their villages and taluks being maintained. The ‘Nadus’ shall be excluded from the district boards or other local boards”. The report said: “The case of Malainadu is an exceptional one. It is now divided up and parcelled out among the four districts: Salem, North Arcot, South Arcot, and Tiruchirappalli. The whole of the ‘Nadu’ should eventually be a district and for the present may be attached to the Salem district. In the alternative, the four district administrations must act in their respective spheres through the Assistant Commissioner of the ‘Nadu’.”

Ayyappan, in his final report, described this as a rough outline of “Mr. Subbarayan’s bold scheme”. “It has much to commend itself to the attention of those interested in the tribes. Our districts have not been demarcated on any rational principle, and their present boundaries are the result of historical accidents or political exigencies. Bold thinking and planning and vigorous action are necessary to implement the suggestion, but it is worth serious consideration. If lasting and quick results are to be produced, boldly conceived plans are absolutely necessary,” he said. However, he added, “It is a great pity that the committee, as a whole, could not discuss Mr. Subbarayan’s suggestion.” Thus, the idea of a Malainadu remained a non-starter. Nonetheless, the committee noted that tribal areas had not got much of government-governmental activities. “The tribesmen just exist and the Government does some policing and financiers and exploiters use the tribesmen to their personal advantage. Local self-government institutions are far from them. Mr. Subbarayan’s scheme would introduce real local self-government in these areas and put some self-respect in the tribesmen; it will be real nation-building in the backward areas of the Province,” the committee noted.

A copy of the report was re-published by the Commissioner of Museums about 24 years ago.