Kotagiri is the best-kept secret of the Nilgiri’s. Kotagiri enjoys the second best climate in the world, And yes, still maintain it’s unassuming style with cool mountain air and the salubrious climate. Kotagiri is the oldest and smallest of the three Nilgiri hill stations situated at an elevation of around 1793m above sea level and well-connected with all the major cities of Tamil Nadu by road. There are regular bus services from Coimbatore, Mettupalayam, Mysore, Ooty and Coonoor. The town is surrounded by many tourist spots including the best Kodanad View Point, Catherine Waterfalls, Elk Falls, Sullivan Museum, and much more.

The Badagas are always differed from the other tribes of Nilgiris in social and economic life, even though they were accepted by other tribes like kota, toda etc. when the Badagas originated, the Badagas partially accepted the kota’s customary laws in their social organization. But later on they developed and improved their own customary social organization. They had their social organization themselves alone. And in their social organization they did not accept other tribes to mingle with their community because later on they emerged as a cultivating community and improved their life than the other tribes.

Economically the badagas occupied most of the land in nilgiris, later on the badagas treated the other tribes as their field labors. And in the 19th century badagas showed their skill in business in the education also. Totally the badagas in the end of the 19th century fully standardized their life in all the fields.

No thorough study about the badagas of nilgiris has not yet been taken by any scholar so far. There are some published works on badagas religious and social customs such as M.K.Belli Gowder’s “ A Historical research on the hill tribes of the Nilgiris”, Jogi Gowder’s “The origin of the badaga Brahmin of nilgiris”, paul hocking’s “Ancient hindu refugees”, Edgar Thurston’s “Caste and tribes of southern india”, “Nilgiri District gazetteer”, R.F. Burton’s “Goa and the Blue Mountain”, J.A. Doubois “Hindu manners customs and ceremonies”, H.B. Grigg’s “A manual of the nilgiris district in the madras presidency 1880” kariabettan’s “The Inhabitants of Nilgiris”, etc.

Even though they wrote about the badagas life, they did not concentrate on the study of the badagas social organizations and its control over each and every activity of individuals, family, village and commune. We can compare the mode of operation and its legal procedure of badaga legal procedures with those of English shire moot, Germany’s folk moot and Russia’s Mir. The badaga community was able to keep their society without any change even in the nineteenth century. In the 20th century also the foundation of social edification of this community is not broken down by any new social legislation. The social problems of badagas have been given rise to local changes, local compromises, explanations, and solutions all of which have been worked out by the Badaga in his own terms of references to suit their special needs. Cultural changes have perhaps been induced by outsiders, but not introduced the Badagas. They themselves were responsible for the modification of the Nilgiris and the consolidation of the refugee groups into a unity made them to have a separate social organization. They evolved regulations governing village exogamy and other aspects of the relation between kingship system, a pattern of settlement and a social hierarchy.

The Badaga are clearly aware of how they differ from other communities in this region. Thus only people of their community have Badaga language as mother-tongue; only badaga men and women wear the distinctive dress and carry a characteristic mark on the forehead; only Badaga live in their recognized villages which bear distinctively Badaga place-names; and only Badaga can marry Badaga women and thus belong to a widespread network of kin. As the community is a grouping where potential membership is same as actual membership, no problem arises in the practice over who is a Badaga and who is not.

The small communities of Badagas collaborated comfortably with their neighbors, the Todas and Kotas. But around this plural society they all drew a rigid boundary; everything beyond it was the terrifying realm of the wild. It contained not only obvious terrors, the tiger, panthers, elephants, hyenas, buffaloes, wolves, and bears, but the even more frightening and mysterious Kuramba Sorcerers, who could turn in to anyone of these animals. This sharp division between nature and society was expressed in a variety of ways. Clearest perhaps was the ethical prescription that while it is evil for a Badaga to kill people he does good in the eyes of the community and of the god if he kills Kurumbas or tigers, since these are both murderers. The Badaga have always been what would popularly be termed a most superstitious people; they suspect he Sorcerers or artifice behind every noise in the jungle, every unexplained malady, every strange events; and they glaen a multitude of tidings, both good and bad, from the everybody behaviors of snakes, crows, jackals, cattle and dozens of other creatures and conditions that surround them. A further indication of the gulf between nature and society is perhaps that in their pre-British Law the severest Badaga punishment short of hanging was ostracism-expulsion from the village; and this was reserved for the enormity of the incest. The Western System of Judiciary failed to remove the influence of the Badaga Customary laws over the community intact.