Yanadis tribe: Less visible and left out in Andhra Pradesh Premium

Ramudu and Gowreswari, two siblings from the impoverished Yenadi community, enjoy a rare feast of a bandicoot in their village near Vijayawada. The family of nine lives in a single-room concrete shed and are subjected to domestic violence. Sanjeev, another child from the tribe, is unable to go to school due to lack of an Aadhaar card.

The bandicoot tries to scoot, but Marre Ramudu’s perfectly-aimed shot at its head with a catapult leaves it writhing. The 10-year-old pins it to the ground, killing it with repeated blows. He throws it on a small fire kindled by little bits of wood in the space outside his home — a shed inhabited by his family and seven others. He roasts the bandicoot whole, as his little sister Gowreswari watches with a sparkle in her eyes. It’s noon; they’ll have at least one meal today.

The siblings relish the feast with their cousin in village Telaprolu Cheruvu Katta (village pond). They drink water here, wash their clothes, and defecate around the water body. The village is in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, about 30 km from Vijayawada city. “When luck smiles, we get to eat the meat of a cat, squirrel, or a monitor lizard,” he says looking at his sister, busy poking the tender meat with her nails.

The village is in Unguturu mandal of Vijayawada revenue division and is home to small settlements of the impoverished Yenadi community, a Scheduled Tribe, who are also called as Yanadi in Andhra Pradesh. They have the highest population among the 34 tribal groups in the State, and are scattered across mandals, with Nellore and Chittoor forming hubs.

The Yenadi dwellings have no drinking water connections and electricity supply. Some of the houses have waste from the road reaching up to their doorstep. The units are mostly four-by-five-foot shelters sufficient to seat not more than five members. The stench of garbage is everywhere.

Ramudu and Gowreswari are two of the seven children of an emaciated Katari Nagamani, sitting on the floor of her home that is an unused Panchayat structure, with her youngest, a two-year-old daughter seated on her lap. There are heaps of old clothes on the floor around her. There’s the stench of human overcrowding and the rain adds to the mustiness of the enclosed space.

The visible parts of Nagamani’s body bear scars of burns, cuts, and wounds, a testimony to the domestic violence she is subjected to by her husband, Paparao, who is addicted to alcohol. “He stopped going to work after his hands were injured in a road accident a few years ago. Now he sits idle the whole day, drinks liquor, and beats me and my children up for no valid reason,” says Nagamani showing marks of head injuries. She too is addicted to cheap liquor.

The families living in the single-room concrete shed of the local panchayat department, are children of Samrajyam, a matriarch. According to the villagers, she made this her home after she was expelled for ‘non-compliance of the rule book’ from the Yenadi Colony, about 2 km away, where about 100 families live.