Kudumi Movement

ODISHA DISTRICT GAZETTEERS ,MAYURBHANJ 2015 [page 86-87]
..................Kudumi Movement................
Kudumi is an ethnic community of the Chhotagpur plateau comprising parts of Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand. The surname Mahato in West Bengal or Mohanta in Odisha is well known in this regard. They belong to Other Backward Caste category in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal.Kudumis are classified as primitive tribe/ Tribal Hindu/ aboriginal tribe in the last caste census in 1931.In Mayurbhanj, the Kudumis are an important community from a demographic point of view and hence the movement has important bearing for Mayurbhanj.
A section of kudumis claimed that they are kshatriya by origin and profession embracing or adopting some rituals of Hinduism. The Kshatriya movement was led by Niranjan Mohanta. Even there was an All India Kurmi Kshatriya Mahasabha. The claim to Kshatriya varna status through reinvention of some mythic tales provided some credibility to the ideological foundation of the movement during the post-colonial period in India. For example TUSU is the princess of kudumi king and she did commit suicide due to the attacks of foreign aggressors on Kudumis. The Kshatriya movement of the Kudumis was also aimed at gaining a social status that could find place within the caste structure of Hindu society.Now a considerable section of the Kudumis finds two problems with the Kshatriya movement. Firstly, it was elitist led by a microscopic minority.Secondly, Kshatriya movement failed to ensure any improvement in the socio-political status of the community. On the other hand, because of this Sanskritisation process of Kudumis being known as Kudumi Kshatriyas, they
lost their tribal identity. The Kudumis are vigorously demanding scheduled tribe (ST) status for themselves. These communities claim that they belong to the indigenous tribes of the Chotanagpur region, but their demand for ST status was not acceded to as that the community had embraced Hinduism and lost its tribal characteristics since long.
The Kudumis claim that all communities listed as Tribes in the 1931 census were given Scheduled Tribe status except Kudumi by declination by some of the Kudumi leaders due to their myopic vision‘ by claiming that they were of kshatriya origin. Therefore the present movement is, according to them,an onerous task of establishing a new identity in order to get rid of
the acute social deprivation and economic backwardness‘