The Nilgiris district

The Nilgiris district () is one of the 38 districts in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Nilgiri ( en, Blue Mountains) is the name given to a range of mountains spread across the borders among the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. The Nilgiri Hills are part of a larger mountain chain known as the Western Ghats. Their highest point is the mountain of Doddabetta, height 2,637 m. The district is contained mainly within the Nilgiri Mountains range. The administrative headquarters is located at Ooty (Ootacamud or Udhagamandalam). The district is bounded by Malappuram district of Kerala to the west, Coimbatore and Palakkad to the south, Erode to the east, and Chamarajnagar district of Karnataka and Wayanad district of Kerala to the north. As it is located at the junction of three states, namely, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, significant Malayali and Kannadiga populations reside in the district. Nilgiris district is known for natural mines of Gold, which is also seen in the other parts of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve extended in the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Kerala too.

Nilgiris district ranked first in a comprehensive Economic Environment index ranking districts in Tamil Nadu (except Chennai district) prepared by the Institute for Financial Management and Research in August 2009. Tea and coffee plantations have been important to its economy. As of 2011, the Nilgiris district had a population of 735,394, with a sex-ratio of 1,042 females for every 1,000 males. All types of single use plastics are banned in Nilgiris district: it is the first plastic free district in Tamil Nadu.

History

The history of peoples settled in the Nilgiri hills has been recorded for several centuries. The Blue Mountains were likely named for the widespread blue Strobilanthes flower or the smoky haze enveloping the area.

This area was long occupied by the indigenous tribal peoples of the Toda, Kota, Kurumba, Irula and Badagas. The Badagas were also indigenous to the district but were never a tribal group. Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups PVTGs, the dominant land owners of the tribal district. The lower Wayanad plateau in the west of the district had a different tribal population namely Kattunaika and Paniya. The Todas and Kota, who are similar in culture, language and genetic ancestry, were settled across the fringes of the Nilgiri plateau, as sentries to the Central district. They were the ancient agriculturists in the district, cultivating traditional crops such as samai, vathm, ragi. Under British influence they cultivated English vegetables and later moved on to tea.

Unlike elsewhere in the country, no historical evidence is found of a state on the Nilgiris or that it was part of any ancient kingdom or empire. It seems always to have been a tribal land. The Toda had small hamlets ("mund") across most of the plateau. The Kota lived in seven dispersed villages ("kokal"). The Toda had only a few hamlets on the lower Wynaad plateau and in the nearby Biligiriranga hills.

Since the turn of the 21st century, the Badaga have numbered about 135,000 (18% of the district population), the Toda are barely 1,500 and the Kota just over 2,000.

Beginning in 1819, the British colonial administration developed the hills rapidly and peaceably, for use as coffee and tea plantations, and summer residences. The 40 mud-forts in the area had been abandoned. During the British raj, Ooty (the popular name for Ootacamund) served as the summer capital of the Madras Presidency from 1870 onwards. District Gazetteers published by the government (1880, 1908, 1995) were reliable reports on the district, its economy, demography and culture. They with the support of political parties inimical to the natives of Nilgiris have been superseded by the ''Encyclopaedia of the Nilgiri Hills'' (2012) authored by China-based researcher Paul Hockings, who calls the Nilgiris his first home and holds a bias against the Badagas.

According to a 1996 bibliography of publications of this district, it is probably the most heavily studied rural area anywhere in India, with close to 7,000 items in that list. It has been the subject of more than 120 doctoral and master's theses in the natural and human sciences. Indian and foreign scholars wrote these works, and only recently have local people published work about it.

More than a dozen languages are spoken in the Nilgiris, but the indigenous people did not write or read them. After 1847 German and Swiss missionaries opened schools for boys and girls in some Badaga villages, teaching them literacy. Ten Dravidian languages are found only here, and they have been studied in great detail for decades by professional linguists. Local place names are derived mainly from the dominant Badaga language, e.g., Doddabetta, Coonoor, Kotagiri, Gudaluru, Kunda, etc. Ootacamund is of Toda origin, and Udagamandalam is a very recent Tamil-language version of this place.

Before British-owned tea and coffee plantations were developed, the dominant landholders were the Badaga. A great deal of linguistic and other cultural evidence—based on unauthentic interpretation of ballads and stories collected from unverifiable individuals—indicates erroneously with a malicious intent that the Badaga non scheduled tribes have lived in nilgiris thousands and thousands of years ago. Supposedly unnamed Badaga elders have regularly recounted these baseless facts as oral history and cannot be relied upon. Though their language is very close to Kannada, it is a mixture of almost all Dravidian languages and yet unique. The migration theory is now totally rejected by educated Badagas, as admittedly the land holdings of the district majorly indicates the Badagas as owners in almost all Taluks of the district. This land is the major resource amongst the Badagas, which even today most Badagas are ignorant about. The Badagas did not find any representation in independent India's Constituent Assembly; to deprive the unlettered Badaga of their land it was intentionally left out of the tribal list post independence. The result of this socio-economic engineering seems to be bearing fruit for the perpetrators of such engineering.

The district has been intentionally underdeveloped as it is bereft of quality healthcare facilities, universities, environment-friendly industries, affordable quality higher education and basic infrastructure. This underdevelopment has ensured the Badagas need to go outside the district to survive. Certain vested interest have invested in researchers to bring about half-truths about the Badagas. Sadly, these half-truths are being relied on by the regime to deny the Badagas their rightful livelihood. During the early 17th century, the first European is recorded as entering the Nilgiri Hills, an Italian priest/explorer named Fenicio. He interviewed people who identified as Toda and Badega, the latter occupying three villages at that time. The British in India mostly ignored the Ghats for two centuries. Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, conducted a short military operation in the Wynaad in 1800.

During 1804–1818 several East India Company personnel briefly visited parts of the district. John Sullivan, then the collector of Coimbatore, just south of the Nilgiris, sent two surveyors (W. Keys and C. McMahon) to make a comprehensive study of the hills. They reached the site of Ootacamund, but failed to see the complete plateau. In 1812 they were the first British to make a cursory survey of the Nilgiri plateau and produce a map. A more detailed exploration was done in the 1818 survey by J.C. Whish, N.W. Kindersley and Mohammed Rifash Obaidullah for the Madras Civil Service, who reported back that they had discovered "the existence of a tableland possessing a European climate."

Collector Sullivan became the first European resident the next year, when he built a seasonal residence on the plateau. He reported to the Madras Government on the mildness of the climate. Europeans soon started settling here or using the plateau as a summer resort and homes for retirees. In 1870 the practice began of key government personnel moving to the hills to conduct business during summer months in this more temperate climate. By the end of the 19th century, the hills were completely accessible, as several Ghat roads and the railway line had been constructed.

In the later 19th century, when the British Straits Settlement shipped Chinese convicts to be jailed in India, some of these men were settled on the Nilgiri plateau near Naduvattam. They married Tamil Paraiyan women and had children with them. One Chinese gardener was critical to the district's future, for he worked with Margaret B. L. Cockburn in Aruvenu, near Kotagiri, to develop Allport's, the first Nilgiri tea plantation, which started operations in 1863. Her father, Montague D. Cockburn, had opened the first coffee plantation there soon after 1830.

Geography and climate

The district has an area of 2,552.50 km². The district is basically hilly, lying at an elevation of 1,000 to 2,600 metres above MSL, and divided between the Nilgiri plateau and the lower, smaller Wayanad plateau. The district lies at the juncture of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats. Its latitudinal and longitudinal location is 130 km (Latitude: 11°12 N to 11°37 N) by 185 km (Longitude : 76°30 E to 76°55 E). The district is bounded by Coimbatore and Palakkad to the south, Erode to the east, Chamarajnagar district of Karnataka and Wayanad district of Kerala to the north, and Malappuram district of Kerala to the west. In this district the topography is rolling, with steep escarpments; about 60% of the cultivable land is slopes ranging from 16° to 35°. The rolling hills of the Downs look quite similar to the Downs in southern England, and were formerly used for such activities as hunting and picnicking.

The elevation of the Nilgiris results in a much cooler and wetter climate than the surrounding plains, so the area is popular as a comfortable retreat and is good for tea cultivation. During summer the temperature reaches a maximum of and a minimum of . During winter the temperature maximum is and the minimum . The district regularly receives rain during both the Southwest Monsoon and the Northeast Monsoon. The entire Gudalur and Pandalur, Kundah Taluks and parts of Udhagamandalam Taluk get rain from the Southwest Monsoon, while part of Udhagamandalam Taluk and the entire Coonoor and Kotagiri Taluks get rains of the Northeast Monsoon. There are 16 rainfall-registering stations in the district, and the average annual rainfall of the district is 1,920.80 mm.

The principal town of the area is Ootacamund, also known as Ooty or Udhagamandalam, the district headquarters. It has several buildings designed in the British style, particularly the churches, many of which were designed by architect Robert F. Chisholm. A road junction became known as Charing Cross (after famous intersections in London and Lahore). The other main towns in the Nilgiris are Coonoor, Kotagiri, Gudalur and Wellington. Several tourist spots in Coonoor include Lambs Rock and Sims Park, where a Fruit Show is held during each summer. Ooty too has an annual summer flower show.

District administration

The Nilgiris district has been headed by a government-appointed Collector since 1868. The first was James W. Breeks, who was called Commissioner. Since then there have been more than 100 men who have held the post. They were responsible for overseeing the various Departments active within the district.

The district comprises six taluks: Udhagamandalam (Ooty/Ootacamund), Kundah, Coonoor, Kotagiri, Gudalur and Pandalur. These are divided among four panchayat unions: Udhagamandalam, Coonoor, Kotagiri and Gudalur. Besides four Municipalities of Ooty, Coonoor, Gudalur and Nelliyalam, there is a Wellington Cantonment and Aruvankadu Township.

The district consists of 56 revenue villages and 15 revenue firkas. There are three revenue divisions, Uhagamandalam Coonoor and Gudalur. For local concerns, the Nilgiris also has 35 village panchayats and 11 town panchayats.

Coonoor Revenue Division:
* Kotagiri taluk
* Coonoor taluk

Udhagamandalam Revenue Division:
* Udhagamandalam taluk
* Kundah taluk

Gudalur Revenue Division:
*Gudalur taluk
* Pandalur taluk

Blocks and Revenue Taluks:
* Kotagiri Block comprises the taluk of Kotagiri.
* Coonoor Block comprises the taluk of Coonoor.
* Udhagamandalam Block comprises the taluks of Udhagamandalam and Kundah.
* Gudalur Block comprises the taluks of Gudalur and Pandalur.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, the Nilgiris district had a population of 735,394 with a sex-ratio of 1,042 females for every 1,000 males, much above the national average of 929 females. A total of 66,799 people were under the age of six, 33,648 males and 33,151 females. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes accounted for 32.08% and 4.46% of the population, respectively. The average literacy of the district was 77.46%, as compared to the national average of 72.99%. The district had a total of 197,653 households. There were a total of 349,974 workers, comprising 14,592 cultivators, 71,738 agricultural labourers, 3,019 in household industries, 229,575 other workers, 31,050 marginal workers, 1,053 marginal cultivators, 7,362 marginal agricultural labourers, 876 marginal workers in household industries and 21,759 other marginal workers.
Anthropologists, who have worked intensively in this district for the past 140 years, recognise 15 tribes living here. Their origins are uncertain as there were no written records about them. The best-known of these are the Toda and Kota,
whose related cultures are based on pastoral management of the buffalo, with its dairy products being the basis of their diets. They have developed highly refined red, black and white embroidered shawls, and silver jewellery, which are GI-registered and much sought after. The district is also home to the Kurumba, Irula, Paniya and Kattunayakan or Nayaka.

The entire Nilgiris plateau and all the hilly regions above the plains (altitude higher than 500m MSL) across the Western and Eastern Ghats and the Mysore plateau fell under the Kannada speaking area as per the linguistic survey and history by Colonel Mark Wilks.

Languages

Nilgiris is arguably the most multi lingual and multicultural district in Tamil Nadu State. Tamil is the principal and most spoken language in the Nilgiris district followed by Malayalam, Badaga, Kannada, Telugu and Urdu

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