personality

Gutsy gypsy

The Lambada professor is battling for her community’s rights

ARE you gypsy?" Shyamala Devi, 43, has surprised total strangers with this question. Her knack for identifying fellow gypsies has won her many friends in Amsterdam where she is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Asian Studies.
Back home, Devi can spot a Lambada a mile away because of his peculiar gait and the way he twirls his mustache. She teaches economics at the Kakatia University in Warangal and has taught at Greenwich University in London.
As the first and only Lambada with a Ph.D. (Ghors are Lambadas in Andhra Pradesh), Devi has had to battle prejudice against her community.
"Even the encyclopedias consider us robbers," said Devi. "They give the impression that communities like ours are outcasts and can’t fit into any caste structure."
The Lambadas are innocent, dance-crazy tribals who follow simple customs. Probably that’s one reason why they fall easy victim to exploitation. The women are famous for their heavily embroidered clothes adorned with shells and mirrors to catch the sun.
They have a reputation for facing adversity with a song on their lips. Devi had to cross the hurdles placed by an unhelpful society to rise in the world. She hates the Lambada tag and prefers being called Ghor, which means sincere and honest. She is reluctant to talk about her crusades. "Let my work speak for me," She says.
Devi has published several papers on the gypsies around the world and their marginalisation in global development. Andhra Pradesh has recognised them as scheduled tribes: but in several states they are still bracketed with the scheduled and even forward castes. "Basically there is not much of a difference between us in India and the gypsies abroad," said Devi. "They are called by various names such as Roma, Romany, Manush and Kalo. The slight differences are due to geography. But their economic condition remains the same everywhere."
Devi was born to a Lambada family of Thimmapuram in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. She was brought up in the traditional gypsy way and went to school under the influence of Christian missionaries like Bishop Solomon, Who were active in the region at that time.
Incidentally, she was not the first from her family to attend school: that distinction is her father’s. She did well at the Diocesan High School at Dornakal which had a large concentration of Lambadas. Her parents weren’t keen on her education after she turned 16 because they were afraid of losing her to modernity.
But a determined Devi left for Karimnagar and found a small job at a cooperative society. She earned enough to put two of her sisters and herself through college. In 1976 she joined a French team of researchers visiting Vinukonda to study the Lambadas. Their enthusiasm rubbed off on her and she made up her mind to work for her community.
It took some time for Devi’s parents to realise that their daughter was different and cut out for bigger things in life. But despite their confidence in her abilities, they pressed her to marry and settle down. Around this time, Devi met her future husband at Osmania University where she was doing her post graduation. But love didn’t overwhelm the studious Devi.
She met Madan Mohan again when she went to the aid of the cyclone-affected people in Diviseema in 1977. Their friendship blossomed into marriage the next year despite the opposition from her parents as Mohan was not one of them’. The Lambadas do not approve of marriages outside the community though they do not follow rigid marital rules.
Mohan had little difficulty adjusting to the Lambada set-up and made himself acceptable to Devi’s parents. They have a son and a daughter. Devi left it to them to decide on their identities.
But her children faced special problems because of the Lambads reputation. Learning is still a humiliating experience for the children and the drop-out rate is high. They are subjected to all kinds of discrimination and name-calling at school.
It was her paper titled De Lambada’s een volk in Andhra Pradesh published by the Royal Dutch Institute for the Tropics, Amsterdam, that got her a government of India national overseas scholarship. She became a senior research fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies. Her research explores the socio-economic structures of gypsies in Europe and the Ghor community in Andhra Pradesh.
The research in Amsterdam was an extension of her work at Kakatiya University, where she is a professor of economics. According to Devi, the Ghors are one among the 457 tribes of India. Of the 25 million Ghors in the country, three million live in AP. The global population is estimated to be about 40 million.
"EVEN IN What is known as the first world, the gypsies live as third world communities," said Devi. "They are not aware of their rights and nobody seems to be bothered about them." Of course, they get social security in the Netherlands. "But the gypsies have to live outside the towns and are usually uncared for and unrecognised."
The discrimination is worse in countries like Belgium where the temporary settlements of gypsies are fenced off with iron railings. They cannot leave the squalid camps without permissions. Sometimes they are forced to shift from one camp to another up to 20 times in a month.
Many young gypsy girls become victims of sexual harassment and are never sent to school. There are gypsies still living in caves in Granada. These gypsy homes, which are 800 years old, are signposted with municipal noticeboards warning strangers to be wary. Visitors are taken in batches during the tourist season to the decorated caves.
Promoters have long exploited the gypsies’ love for music by having them perform on stage. Music is the soul of any gypsy community, be it in Europe or India. The flamenco music and dance of Spain reminded Devi of the Lambada jig called Jhurlor naach.
Middlemen earn a lot of money cutting open the sheep reared by the Lambadas. These animals are fed on rare leaves which produce a semi-precious stone in their bladders. These stones are exported by the middlemen, who buy the animals dirt cheap. Only the carcasses are returned to the ignorant tribals.
Lambada women faced exploitation of another kind even within the community because of the patriarchal system. It subordinates a woman to her father, husband and even sons. She must have prior approval for simple social interactions.
But the gypsy professor is determined to change the old ways of thinking and turn the world’s attention to the lament of the Lambadas.

LALITA IYER