Politics of Cultural Commons: A Case Study of Sacred Groves in Central Kerala

[Khanjan]

This is very insightful. The general perspective around sacred groves is that the biophysical components like certain trees are protected for their sanctity. Their conversion to ‘elitist temple spaces’ is indeed a new phenomenon.

[Purnendu Kavoori]

There is some evidence of tendencies of this sort in the case of Orans in western Rajasthan. I mean the process of enclosure that seemingly accompanies the building of larger temple structures. Our assumption frequently is that the presence of a sacred character lends itself automatically to a sense or culture of commoning. This is true in many cases but not always. once communities invest in elaborating the physical infrastructure of these spaces it is often accompaned by processes of enclosure and indirect exclusion.

By way of example we have seen this pattern in the case of an oran and pond or nadi by the name Sial mata ka Oran. Here is a fairly old nadi and Oran (indicated by age of trees) which has an annual mela or fair. The increasing popularity of the mela has now lead to the construction of a larger temple premises and facilities for devotees. This has been accompanied by an extensive mesh fencing of the sacred grove that forms part of the catchment (or angor) of the nadi. This process of enclosure will probably have consequences of exclusion (most directly for animals) although we have not studied this outcome in particular.

We have seen this sort of pattern happening in other cases in western Rajasthan also. I would not however go to the extent of questioning the relevance or usefulness of a commons framework to understand these processes as suggested by the OP.

[Author]

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