The reckless gun-toting American must gasp for breath in disbelief and remain to pray if ever he is told of the almost benevolent use to which the killer gun is employed in the tiny western ghat district in Karnataka, in India — Coorg, now Kodagu.
While gun ownership and right to carry fire-arms is a Constitutional right of citizens in the United States, sections of the Kodagu citizenry enjoy this right of gun ownership as a patronising privilege the ruling British regime of the day conferred on it. The privilege continues in whatever form even after the white man has left. Apparently, because of the British connection, the Coorg population turned highly westernised. The earlier generation of Coorgs enjoyed the reputation as a warrior race, a badge for fire-arms ownership. Like the rest of the country in the pre-Independence era, Rajas with their armies had ruled the kingdom of Coorg.
Pork and liquor have oiled the life of the Coorgs. The gun was their lifelong companion, both in happiness and in sorrow. When a child was born in the family, the gunshot went up to announce the rejoicing all through the neighbourhood. So was a bereavement in the family announced by a gunshot. Every family in the vintage days had fire-arms they were traditionally licensed to possess and carry and use. But, fortunately, there has never been a firearm-related crime or shoot-outs of the kind that Virginia in America had the misfortune of witnessing.
The Coorgs have been the most law-abiding among Indians with a high sense of discipline, derived from a wide-spread cultural and educational background. Every household practically had some one in the armed forces, both as a matter of duty by national compulsion and also, partly as an economic necessity in a almost wholly agricultural and plantation economy.
What was called the Jamma holding, an inalienable right, was a great factor in social bonding, cohesion and stability. They were excellent marksmen. I once watched the first and last chief minister of the erstwhile Coorg state, the late C M Poonacha, winning the first prize in a shooting competition which used to be part of the Huttari annual harvest festival. Of course, the pride of the Coorgs were then the General and later Field Marshal K M Cariappa and his other illustrious compatriot in arms, General Thimaya.