Vulnerable Didayi tribe, ‘wrongly’ bracketed under Poraja group, craves for identity

Roton treks 15 km every Fri to sell pumpkins & check if his name is included in PVTG list. He's from Didayi tribe, which along with Pengu, are listed under Poraja, hurting their identity. Didayis live in Rangabayalu hill range, trilingual & culturally distinct. They face discrimination & lack access to govt welfare schemes. UNPFII 2010 sought to redefine agenda of dealing with tribes. Proposal for inclusion must originate from State govt. Didayis are different culturally & face discrimination. Enumeration of Didayis done & recommendations submitted to authorities. Didayis need their own identity.

For the past ten years, every Friday, Roton (52) (name changed) treks about 15 km carrying a head load of pumpkins he grows on his half-acre land to do two things. First, sell the pumpkins at the weekly shandy, and second, check the list at the Village Revenue Officer’s (VRO) office to see if his name is included in the list of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG). Every time, however, he comes back dejected and angry, as he finds that his name has been included under the tribal group of Poraja.

He hails from the tribe called the Didayi and both the Didayi and another tribe, Pengu, who, despite being different from the rest of the tribes in the Eastern Ghats, find that they have been listed under the tribal common head of Poraja, hurting the very existence of the Didayis and Pengus.

“We are different from every other tribe inhabiting the Eastern Ghats valleys. Our language is different, our culture is different, and we are geographically and economically secluded. Then why include us under the Porajas? We should have our own identity, and we have been fighting for it for over a decade,” he says.

There are about six PVTGs in Andhra Pradesh, four of which live in the Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district. The ASR district was recently bifurcated from the erstwhile Visakhapatnam district.

The total area of ASR district is around 12,251 sq km, and about 6,800 sq km of this was carved out of Visakhapatnam district. Covered by thick and pristine forest, the area was called ‘Visakha Agency’ by the British since its administration was under an English Agent. The term ‘Agency’ has stuck, and to date, it is called the agency area, where once the banned LWE (left-wing extremist) group of the CPI (Maoist) had held considerable sway.

Appanna hails from a village called the Rangabayalu, located on the Rangabayalu hill range, perched at about 910 Mean Sea Level (MSL). The Didayis live on the Rangabayalu hill range, which houses about 11 Didayi villages or hamlets, and the total population is between 1,900 and 2,000. The Pengus, on the other hand, inhabit the Lakshmipuram hill range, which has about 14 Pengu villages with a total population of about 2,400. Most villages in both the hill ranges have no road connectivity, and the tribals have to trek about 18 km to reach the nearest road point.

For Appanna, the nearest public health centre (PHC) is about 21 km away, at Laburru, and the sick are forced to either trek all the way or be carried on ‘dolis’. The geographic seclusion also hinders them from availing of many government welfare schemes. That is why Appanna has to trek for about 15 to 18 km to sell his produce at Munchingput, the mandal headquarters, says Professor P.D. Satya Pal, chairman of the Department of Anthropology, Andhra University, who has done considerable research on the tribes in the Eastern Ghats and in the State.