Yerukalas in Colonial India
People of Korava/Kurava community are called with different names in different parts of South India. They are called as Kuruvan or Kuruvar in Tamilnadu, Korama or Koracha in Karnataka, Kaikadi in Maharashtra, Siddanar in Kerala and Kattu Naicker in Pondicherry. In essence, all these communities form a great big community from south india. Prior to the British colonial rule, all these communities were part of that great big community since there were no real boundaries in India at that time. People from these communities used to roam around freely for their trading purposes. The splitting of this great community into numerous small communities is attributed to the Indian Caste System and the subsequent exploitation of this monster in a exponential way by the British Divide and Rule Policy.
The strategy of Divide and Rule was used to great effect by the Britishers, who played one tribe against another to maintain control of their territories with a minimal number of imperial forces. The British used the strategy to gain control of the large territory of India by keeping its people divided along lines of religion, language, caste, occupation etc.
References from Books of Colonial India
Reference of Yerukalas in a book from 1920, The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam's Dominions By Syed Siraj ul Hassan can be found here.
Criminal Tribes Act of 1871
During the British India times, whoever opposed the British colonial expansion was perceived as a potential criminal. Particularly, if any attempts were made to oppose the government by the use of the arms, the charge of criminality was a certainty. Click here to read more.
In the early periods of the British Rule, the Yerukalas were chiefly traders in grain and salt, operating between the coastal areas and the interior districts of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The British Ruler’s economic policies, aimed at raising revenue, had made this itinerant community redundant and anachronistic. In 1911, the itinerant trading community of Yerukulas in South India was declared a criminal tribe was under Criminal Tribes Act. Click here to read more.
Abolition of Criminal Tribes Act
During the 1910-1920 there are The Criminal Tribes Act was abolished by the Indian Government in 1948 and all the Yerukala settlers became free from this bonded labor.
The Criminal Tribes Act was abolished by the Indian Government in 1948 and all the Yerukala settlers became free from this bonded labor.
Consequences
This sinister designs of British Imperialists was so successful that today Yerukulas believe their ancestors to have been dangerous criminals.
The archival sources establish that the Yerukala community to have been an honourable and useful part of the society in the past. However, through a careful analysis of its present oral culture and folkfore, the members of this community have lost memory of that history, and share the widespread beleif of the community's earlier, dangerous criminality.
Western Christian Missionaries publish a profile like this on their websites.