Kurumba Community

Kurumba Community

Subject – Governance

Context – The Aadhimalai Pazhangudiyinar Producer Company Ltd is run by the tribal people of the Nilgiris, with 1609 indigenous shareholders. Almost 90 percent of employees are tribal women.

The farmer producer company that started as a small tribal collective has bagged this year’s UN Equator Prize.

Concept –

• They are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• The Kurumbar are one of the earliest known inhabitants of the Western Ghats, who are engaged in the collection and gathering of forest produce, mainly wild honey and wax.
• The members of this community are short, have dark skin, and have protruding foreheads.
• Kurumbar believe in Hinduism. The main deity of the tribe is Lord Shiva under the name of Bhairava. They also worship animals, birds, trees, rock hillocks, and snakes, along with the other Hindu deities.
• An indigenous community in south India, Kurumba is listed by the government of India as one of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups or PVTGs in India.