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<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:&quot;fira sans&quot;, &quot;open sans&quot;, sans-serif;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:29px;margin:0px 0px 20px;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Well, she actually had plenty to do with it, even more than her illustrious husband – recognised freedom fighter Baidyanath Mahato, who had died 20 years before our visit to her home in Man Bazar block. My colleague Smita Khator and I were crestfallen when she strongly denied being a freedom fighter. And it took us hours to figure out why.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:&quot;fira sans&quot;, &quot;open sans&quot;, sans-serif;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:29px;margin:0px 0px 20px;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">She was being honest to the understanding of ‘freedom fighter’ as defined in the Swatantra Sainik Samman Yojana scheme of 1980. A definition that largely excluded women and their actions in the anti-colonial struggle; that largely centred around jail time – thereby also excluding huge chunks of the revolutionary underground. Worse, by asking those in the underground ‘proof’ of their being proclaimed offenders – it was seeking certification of India’s freedom heroes from the British Raj!<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:&quot;fira sans&quot;, &quot;open sans&quot;, sans-serif;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:29px;margin:0px 0px 20px;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">When we came at it differently, discussed it differently, we were stunned by the sheer magnificence of Bhabani’s sacrifice. The risks she took in feeding fugitive revolutionaries hiding in Purulia’s jungles. Cooking for and feeding often 20 or more of them – apart from doing that at the same time for a family of over 25 persons. Also, managing to grow that food in 1942-43 at the height of the Bengal Famine. What an incredibly great and risky contribution to India’s struggle for Independence! &nbsp;

Besides this, there are students in universities, colleges and high schools working on text articles, audio and video, independently of their course work, for PARI. Some very young students have even produced <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/a-newspaper-from-the-forest-of-learning/">newspapers </a>for us.And in our <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/">Resources </a>section, we aim to put up (in full text and not just via links), all official (and unofficial but credible) reports related to rural India. For instance, every report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, reports of the Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog) and ministries, the United Nations and much more. Researchers will not have to surf multiple sites to access important documents and studies from different sources.

Well, she actually had plenty to do with it, even more than her illustrious husband – recognised freedom fighter Baidyanath Mahato, who had died 20 years before our visit to her home in Man Bazar block. My colleague Smita Khator and I were crestfallen when she strongly denied being a freedom fighter. And it took us hours to figure out why.She was being honest to the understanding of ‘freedom fighter’ as defined in the Swatantra Sainik Samman Yojana scheme of 1980. A definition that largely excluded women and their actions in the anti-colonial struggle; that largely centred around jail time – thereby also excluding huge chunks of the revolutionary underground. Worse, by asking those in the underground ‘proof’ of their being proclaimed offenders – it was seeking certification of India’s freedom heroes from the British Raj!When we came at it differently, discussed it differently, we were stunned by the sheer magnificence of Bhabani’s sacrifice. The risks she took in feeding fugitive revolutionaries hiding in Purulia’s jungles. Cooking for and feeding often 20 or more of them – apart from doing that at the same time for a family of over 25 persons. Also, managing to grow that food in 1942-43 at the height of the Bengal Famine. What an incredibly great and risky contribution to India’s struggle for Independence! &nbsp;

Test article

कठपुतळी कलाकारांनी दिली कलेला नवी दिशा

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The few families in Kummari Veedhi that are still engaged with the craft buy matti (clay) from a dealer a few months ahead of Vinayak Chaturthi every year. Together they buy a truckload of mud, roughly five tonnes. They pay Rs. 15,000 for the mud and Rs. 10,000 for its transportation from specific locations in the neighbouring Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh. Getting the right jinka matti – a mud with the natural presence of glue is crucial for making both clay artefacts and idols.Paradesam’s family takes nearly a tonne or 1,000 kilograms of the load. A week before Diwali some of the mud can still be seen stacked outside his house in big gunny bags. &nbsp;The dark red mud is dry and lumpy and they must slowly begin mixing it with water to bring it to the right consistency. Later it will be stamped upon to mix it up; Paradesam says it feels hard and also has small rocks that poke his feet.Once the clay has reached the right texture, the master craftsman brings out the heavy wooden wheel marked with splashes of dried up clay from a corner and places it on a stand. He then folds a cloth over an empty paint can and that becomes his seat in front of the wheel.Paradesam's wheel, like other potter's wheels in Kummari Veedhi, is a manual one. He has heard of an electrically run wheel but is unsure how he can control it. “The speed should vary for every kunda [pot] and deepam [lamp]” he points out.Throwing a handful of wet clay onto the centre of the wheel, his hands work gently but firmly, digging into the clay and gradually shaping the diya. The smell of wet mud fills the air as the almost metre-wide wheel begins rotating. To keep the momentum going, he turns it with the help of a large wooden stick. "I am getting old now. I can't always use the same force," says Paradesam. Once the diya starts taking shape and becomes sturdy, the potter uses a thread to slice it off the moving wheel.As they come off the wheel he arranges the diyas and flowerpots carefully in a row on a rectangular plank of wood. The clay items must dry for 3-4 days in the shade. After drying, the items are placed in a kiln and baked for over two days. The kiln is lit once every 2-3 weeks between July to October (for Vinayak Chaturthi, Dussehra and Diwali). During other times of the year it is lit barely once a month.

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PARI publishes in 15 languages: English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri, Assamese and Gujarati. You can read articles in any of those. Of these, five – Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu and Odia – have ‘localised’ sites, that is, home pages where everything including the menus are in that particular language.Sure, there are giant media corporations that function in up to 40 languages, but those are not on an equal footing. For instance, their Indian language platforms carry a fraction of what you will find on their English sites.In PARI, we work on the principle: Every Indian Language is Your Language. &nbsp; And this implies parity among tongues. If a piece appears in one language, it is our mandate to see it appears in all 15 that we presently publish in. A mandate we will fulfil regardless of the number of languages we might add to PARI. We are able to do this because of a fantastic translations team. So far, we have worked with over 170 translators – with around 40 of them active in any given month. However, we publish not just translations but also original content in Indian languages.We believe the promotion of Indian languages is a must for society as a whole. The linguistic richness of this country gave rise to the old saying that, over here, if at every three or four kilometres the water tastes different, well, there’s a different tongue to be heard at every 12-15.But we cannot be complacent about that anymore. Not at a time when the People’s Linguistic Survey of India tells us that this country, with close to 800 living languages, has witnessed 225 tongues die in the past 50 years. Not at a time when the United Nations claims that 90-95 per cent of the world’s spoken languages will be extinct or seriously endangered by the end of this century. Not at a time when at least one indigenous language is dying every fortnight across the world.Welcome to PARI’s Language Universe. &nbsp;

PARI's Language Universe

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Many Worlds, One Website

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Caught between ' khela hobe' (the game is on) and ' abki baar 400 paar '(this time we shall cross the 400 mark), our home state is a miniature India, a curious mix of sarkari yojanas , syndicate mafias, government doles and discordant agitations.Here we have homeless migrants trapped in jobs and jobless youth in a hopeless homeland, commoners caught in centre-vs-state crossfire, farmers crippled by climate change, and minorities fighting fundamentalist rhetoric. Nerves are fraying, bodies are breaking down. Caste, class, gender, language, ethnicity, religion, all are making a hullabaloo at the intersections.As we drift across this madness, we hear voices, utterly confused, helpless, delirious, as well as those no-longer-fooled-by-the-who's-who-of-power. From Sandeshkhali to the Himalayan tea gardens, from Kolkata to the forgotten tracts of Rarh, we roam, a reporter and a bard. We hear, we gather, we click, we speak.We begin with Sandeshkhali, an otherwise obscure island at the Sundarban delta region of West Bengal, that often gets caught in political battles over the control of land and women’s bodies.ShatranjVeni vici vidi Here comes the ED. There in the village of Sandeshkhali – the night just yawned, the women, all pawned, TV anchors moaned, “Ram Ram, Ali Ali!”Traversing through Bankura,&nbsp;Puruliya (also spelt Purulia), West Midnapore and Jhargram, districts from a region popularly known as Jungle Mahal, we meet women farmers and migrant agricultural labourers.JhumurMigrant labourers buried in the sand, Such is the story of our terracotta land. 'Paani' is a blasphemy, you must say 'jal'! Such is the thirst of Jungle Mahal.In Jharkhand, unlike in West Bengal, Mal Pahariyas are registered as a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/43018/download/46686/ST-19-PCA-A11-APPENDIX.xlsx">Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group </a>(PVTG), confirms Ramjeevan. “The differing status of the same community in different states reflects each government’s stand on the community’s vulnerability,” he adds.

Of polls, poems and photos

త్రిపురలో: లాంగి కాస్తూ, ఇంటిని గుర్తుచేసుకుంటూ

தேர்தல்கள், கவிதைகள் மற்றும் புகைப்படங்கள்

ਕਵਿਤਾਵਾਂ ਬਿਆਨਦੀਆਂ ਪੱਛਮੀ ਬੰਗਾਲ ਦਾ ਚੋਣ-ਹਾਲ਼

ମତଦାନ, କବିତା ଓ ଫଟୋ ଆଦି ସମ୍ପର୍କରେ...

തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പുകൾ, കവിതകൾ, ചിത്രങ്ങൾ

ಚುನಾವಣೆಯ ದೃಶ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಕಾವ್ಯ

चुनावों का पश्चिम बंगाल, कविताओं का शोक काल

મતની વાત: કવિતા અને ફોટા

 चुनाव, कविता अऊ फोटू

कहम त लग जाई धक् से!

নেতা-নীতি, কবিতা আৰু কিছু ফটোগ্ৰাফ

ছড়া-ছবির মহাজোট 

Kolkata

Saraswati Bauri was at a loss.Ever since her Sabooj Sathi bicycle got stolen, going to the school has become challenge. Saraswati remembers the day she received that magnificent machine, as part of a state scheme introduced for Class 9 and 10 students at government schools. Oh! how it gleamed under the terracotta sun!&nbsp;Today she has come to the grampradhan with hope, and a petition for a new bicycle. "Cycle toh peye jabi re chhuri, kintu tor iskul-ta ar koddin thakbe seta dyakh agey [You may get your cycle kiddo, but your school won’t be here for long]," says the sarpanch with a smirk and a shrug. The land under Saraswati's feet seems to give way. What did the grampradhan mean? As it is she pedals 5 kilometres to get to her school. Now if that becomes 10 or 20 kms or even more, she will be doomed. A thousand rupees from Kanyashree a year isn’t going help her fight her father, dead-set on marrying her off.&nbsp;First a lack of rain and then an unseasonal downpour ruined Chatra Devi’s crops. “We cultivated bajra [pearl millet] and it was growing well. But when we had to water our farms, it did not rain. Then it rained during the harvest and ruined the crop,” says the 45-year-old farmer from&nbsp; Khirkhiri village in Rajasthan’s Karauli district.Karauli’s economy is mainly dependent on agriculture and the majority of residents are either cultivators or agricultural labourers (Census 2011). The state has historically been water-starved and agriculture is mostly&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://rajas.rajasthan.gov.in/PDF/2142022121719PMAGRICULTURALSTATISTICS2019_20.pdf">rainfed</a>.&nbsp;A member of the Meena community (listed as OBC in the state), Chatra Devi,&nbsp; says she has&nbsp; noticed&nbsp;a change in the rainfall pattern over the last 10 years. Rajasthan is&nbsp; India’s largest state (by area) and&nbsp; <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/cocsso/24cocsso_ag4_Rajasthan.pdf">70 per cent</a> of the population depend on agriculture and animal husbandry for their livelihoods.Changing rainfall patterns has forced farmers in Khirkhiri to rely on milk sales for sustenance. But changes in the weather also negatively affects the health of livestock who fall prey to various diseases. “My cow has not eaten properly in the last 5-10 days,” says Chatra Devi.&nbsp;Anoop Singh Meena, 48, a teacher at the Mahatma Gandhi Senior Secondary School in Khirkhiri is worried about the future. “When I imagine the future of my village, agriculture that is dependent on the monsoons will see a lot of changes. The future seems very dark to me.”This film, set in Khirkhiri, tells the story of those who depend on the land and the challenges they endure as weather patterns become increasingly erratic.

Caught between ' khela hobe' (the game is on) and ' abki baar 400 paar '(this time we shall cross the 400 mark), our home state is a miniature India, a curious mix of sarkari yojanas , syndicate mafias, government doles and discordant agitations.Here we have homeless migrants trapped in jobs and jobless youth in a hopeless homeland, commoners caught in centre-vs-state crossfire, farmers crippled by climate change, and minorities fighting fundamentalist rhetoric. Nerves are fraying, bodies are breaking down. Caste, class, gender, language, ethnicity, religion, all are making a hullabaloo at the intersections.As we drift across this madness, we hear voices, utterly confused, helpless, delirious, as well as those no-longer-fooled-by-the-who's-who-of-power. From Sandeshkhali to the Himalayan tea gardens, from Kolkata to the forgotten tracts of Rarh, we roam, a reporter and a bard. We hear, we gather, we click, we speak.We begin with Sandeshkhali, an otherwise obscure island at the Sundarban delta region of West Bengal, that often gets caught in political battles over the control of land and women’s bodies.ShatranjVeni vici vidi Here comes the ED. There in the village of Sandeshkhali – the night just yawned, the women, all pawned, TV anchors moaned, “Ram Ram, Ali Ali!”Traversing through Bankura,&nbsp;Puruliya (also spelt Purulia), West Midnapore and Jhargram, districts from a region popularly known as Jungle Mahal, we meet women farmers and migrant agricultural labourers.JhumurMigrant labourers buried in the sand, Such is the story of our terracotta land. 'Paani' is a blasphemy, you must say 'jal'! Such is the thirst of Jungle Mahal.

Nearly 83 per cent of the unemployed population in India is the educated youth, as per the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://webapps.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_921154.pdf">India Employment Report 2024 </a>jointly published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Institute of Human Development (IHD). The proportion of&nbsp;educated young people with at least secondary education among the total unemployed youth has nearly doubled from 35.2 per cent in 2000 to 65.7 per cent in 2022, it goes on to say.

Sarkari schemes, forsaken hymns

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"There were times during the freedom struggle, too, when things looked bleak. We were told you cannot win. You are up against the greatest empire in the world . . . But we rose above all those warnings and threats. And fought anyway. That’s why we are here today."R. Nallakannu

“Vote for the Yellow Box!” went the cries. “Choose the auspicious manjal petti!”This was Madras Presidency during the 1937 provincial elections held under British rule.The slogans came from groups of youngsters beating drums. Most of them not of voting age. And ineligible to cast ballots even if they had been. not all adults could vote.Franchise restrictions favoured land and property owners and, in rural areas, rich farmers.The sight of young people without a vote campaigning vigorously was not entirely new.As early as July 1935, Justice—the newspaper and organ of the Justice Party—noted with disdain, and not a little contempt:You might visit any village even in outlying areas and you were sure to come across groups of urchins wearing Congress khaddar uniforms and Gandhi caps and holding aloft the tricoloured banner. nearly eighty per cent of these men, workers and volunteers had been drawn from the voteless, propertyless, unemployed hundreds of the urban and village areas . . .One of those youngsters in 1937 was R. Nallakannu, barely 12 at the time, now 97 [in 2022]. He’s telling us of the drama, laughing about his having been one of those ‘urchins’. &nbsp;“Those who owned land and paid a land tax of 10 rupees or more could vote,” he recalls. The 1937 polls did see some broadening of the franchise. But “it was never meant to allow more than 15–20 per cent of adults to have a vote,” he says. “And not more than 1,000 to 2,000 people voted in any one constituency.”

Nallakannu was born in Srivaikuntam, then in Tirunelveli district. Today, the taluk of Srivaikuntam falls in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district (which used to be called Tuticorin till 1997).Nallakannu’s activism, though, began early.“When I was a child, in fact. Mill workers in Thoothukudi, close to my town, struck work. That was one of the Harvey Mills group. This came to be known as the Panchalai [Cotton Mills] workers’ strike.“To support them, rice would be collected from every home in our town and sent in boxes to the strikers’ families in Thoothukudi. It was young boys like us who would go around to collect the rice.” People were poor, “but every household contributed something. I was just 5 or 6 at the time, and this solidarity with the workers’ struggle had a huge impact on me. It meant I would get used to involvement in politics quite early.”We pull him back to the 1937 polls: What did he mean by voting for a manjal petti or yellow box?“There were only two main parties in Madras then,” he says. “Congress and the Justice Party. Instead of symbols, parties were identified by a ballot box of some colour. The Congress, for whom we then campaigned, was assigned a yellow box. For the Justice Party, there was a pachchai petti—green box. That was the best way at the time for the voter to identify which party he was supporting.”And yes, there was much colour and theatre around the polls even then. The Hindu writes that “Devadasi campaigner Thanjavur Kamukannamal . . . would ask everyone to vote in the “snuff box!” Gold or yellow being a common colour for snuff boxes of the time. The Hindu itself carried a headline calling on readers to ‘Fill the Yellow Boxes’.“And of course, I could not vote at age 12,” says Nallakannu. “But I went out and canvassed as strongly as I could.” Three years later, he would be involved in political campaigns beyond the electoral. And “beating a parai [a type of drum] and yelling slogans.”

But he was no longer a Congress supporter. “I was with the Communist Party of India [CPI] from age 15,” says Nallakannu, ‘Comrade RNK’ to his friends. Formal membership of the party would have to wait till he was older. But RNK would emerge one of the most important figures of the Communist movement in Tamil Nadu over the next few decades. He would be seeking—often successfully— support for the sengodi (red flag) and not the manjal petti (yellow box).

“There was only one school in our part of Tirunelveli and so it was simply called ‘School’. That was its only name.”Nallakannu is speaking to us in his small home office in Chennai. Beside him, on a sideboard of his table, are a bunch of little busts and small statuettes. Lenin, Marx and Periyar right next to him. Behind them, a bigger, golden statuette of Ambedkar that stands in front of a larger sketch of revolutionary Tamil poet Subramania Bharati. Behind the small Periyar bust is another sketch, drawn from a photo of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. And next to all these, a calendar that asks all of us to ‘Use Less Water’.The whole tableau captures, at a glance, the intellectual development and history of the man we are in conversation with for the third time. It is June 25, 2022. The first of our interviews with him was in 2019.“Bharathiyar was the most inspirational poet for me,” says Nallakannu. “Often his poems or songs were banned.” He cites some lines from ‘Suthinthara Pallu’ (Independence Song), an extraordinary song by the poet. “He wrote it, I think, in 1909. So he celebrates independence 38 years before India attained it in 1947!”We will dance, we will sing For we have achieved the joy of independenceThe time when we used to call Brahmins as ‘Sir’ has gone, The time when we used to call the white men as ‘lord’ has gone,The time when we saluted those who took alms from us has gone, The time when we serve people who made fun of us has gone. In all places the only talk is about freedom . . .

Bharathi died in 1921, four years before Nallakannu was born. The song was written even earlier. But it, and others, inspired him through his fighting years. RNK knew many songs and poems of Bharati before he was 12. He is able to recall quite a few of the verses and lyrics verbatim even today. “I learnt some of those from the Hindi pundit Pallavesam Chettiar at school,” he says. And of course, none of those were on the official curriculum.“I also got a book of Bharathiyar’s writings from S. Satyamurti when he came to the school. It was a collection of his poems Thesiya Geetham.” Satyamurti was a freedom fighter, politician and a patron of the arts. Bharati was one of the first to acclaim the 1917 october Revolution in Russia and even wrote a song in its praise.It’s good to try and understand Nallakannu through his love for Bharati and the prism of the agrarian and working- class struggles he was part of for eight decades.For it is really difficult to tell the story of ‘Comrade RNK’ otherwise. This is one of the most self-effacing souls I have ever met. He gently but firmly declines to place himself at the centre of any of the great events, strikes and struggles he tells us about. His role in some of those was vital and central all right. But you can never get him to portray or narrate it that way.“Comrade RNK was one of the founding leaders of the farmers’ movement in our state,” says G. Ramakrishnan. ‘GR’ is a state committee member of the CPI(M), but unreservedly salutes the role and contribution of the 97-year-old CPI leader. “Through the decades—starting from when he was still a teenager—it was he who, along with Srinivas Rao, created the bases of the Kisan Sabha across the state. Those remain a source of the strength for the Left even today. And Nallakannu helped create that by tireless campaigns and struggles all across Tamil Nadu.”Nallakannu’s struggles seamlessly integrate farmers’ battles with the anticolonial movement. And also, very importantly, with the anti-feudal battles that were so crucial to Tamil Nadu of that time. Those too flow over strongly post-1947. His fight was and remains one for many forgotten freedoms. not just Independence from British rule.

“We’d fight them at night, throw stones—those were the weapons we had—and chase them away. Sometimes, there would be pitched battles. This happened several times during the protests that came in the 1940s. We were still boys, but we fought. Day and night, with our kind of weapons!”Fight whom? And chase them away from what and where?“The uppalam [salt pans] near my town. All the salt pans were under British control. The condition of the workers was miserable. Like around the mills, where the struggles began decades earlier. There were protests and there was a lot of public sympathy and support for them.“The police simply functioned as the agents of the salt pan owners. In one clash, a sub-inspector died. There had even been an attack on the police station there. Then they set up a mobile patrolling unit. They would go to the pans during the day and come to camp near our villages at night. That’s when we clashed with them.” These protests and clashes went on and off for a couple of years, maybe more. “But it was around 1942 and the Quit India movement that they really grew.”

Nallakannu’s taking part in all of this while barely a teenager did not go down well with his father Ramasamy Thevar. A farmer, Thevar owned some 4–5 acres of land and had six children. The young RNK was often punished at home. And sometimes his father would withhold paying his school fees.“People would tell him—'Your son does not study? He’s always out and shouting. Looks like he’s gone and joined the Congress’.” The deadline for paying the fees at ‘School’ fell between the 14th and 24th of each month. “If I asked him for the fees, he’d shout at me: ‘You leave your studies and help your uncles on the farm’.”“As time ran out, someone close to my father would placate him. They would promise him that I would not speak and act the way I was doing. only then would he pay the fees.”However, “the more he opposed my life, my ways, the deeper my dissent grew. I made it up to intermediate level in Tamil, at The Hindu College, Madurai. It was actually at the Tirunelveli junction. But it was called Hindu College, Madurai. I only studied there two years. I couldn’t go further.”Because he was busy taking part in protests. And significantly—though he is far too modest to say it—he had even begun to organize them. RNK was swiftly emerging a young leader. But one who never sought, and mostly avoided, a high profile.

It’s hard to keep a chronological track of the events and actions he was involved in. More so as they were many in number and occurred on quite different fronts.He sums up the most important moments for him during the freedom struggle simply, though: “The battles around the Quit India movement.” He was not yet 17 at that point, but already an important figure in the protests. The years between age 12 and 15 were also the time of his transition from Congressman to Communist.What sort of protest meetings did he help organize or take part in?Early on, “we had megaphones made of tin. We’d gather any tables and chairs we could in a village or town and sing. Mainly the table was for the speaker to stand on and address the crowd. Mind you, crowds would unfailingly show up.” Once again, he says little about his own role in mobilizing people. Though it was foot soldiers like him who made that possible.“Later, speakers like Jeevanandam would stand on those tables and talk to fairly large audiences. With no mikes. He did not need them.“Over time, we began to get decent mikes and loudspeakers. The most favoured one,” he recalls, “was what were called the ‘Chicago mikes’ or Chicago Radio systems. Of course, we could not afford them too often.”

What about when there was a British crackdown? How did they communicate then?“There were many such situations. Like after the Royal Indian navy [RIN] mutiny [1946]. There was a total crackdown on the Communists. But there were raids earlier too. And the British would sometimes search every party office in the villages. That happened even after Independence, by the way, when the party was banned. We did have bulletins and magazines. Like Janashakti, for instance. But we had other modes of communication. Some of those were simple signals going back centuries.“Right from the time of Kattabomman [legendary 18 century anti-British fighter], people used to place neem twigs at the entrance of a home. It was a sign to indicate that someone inside was sick with smallpox or other ailments. But it was also used as a secret symbol to signal that a meeting was going on there.‘If there were sounds of a baby crying inside the house, that meant the meeting was still on. If the cow dung near the entrance was wet, the meeting was still on. If the dung there was dry, it was a signal to turn away and leave, as danger lurked. or meant that the meeting was over.’What was RNK’s greatest source of inspiration through the freedom struggle?‘The Communist Party was our greatest source of inspiration.’

‘Why did I remove my moustache when I was arrested?’ RNK laughs. ‘I never did. And I never grew it to disguise my face in the first place. If that was the case, why should I have grown one at all?‘No, the police burnt it off with a cigarette. That was part of the torture inflicted on me by an Inspector Krishnamurthy from Madras city. He tied my hands at 2 a.m. He only untied them the next morning at 10. Then he beat me with his baton for a long time.’Again, like many fellow freedom fighters, he recalls the incident with no personal rancour. no animosity towards his torturer. RNK never looked for the police inspector in later days to settle scores. It never once occurred to him to do so.‘This actually happened in 1948,’ he says, after India attained Independence. ‘The party had been banned in many provinces, including Madras, and remained that way till 1951.

‘But you should understand there were also anti-feudal battles that had to be fought. That we had to pay a price for. And these began long before 1947—and continued well after Independence.‘Freedom movement, social reform, anti-feudal struggles—we combined these issues. That’s how we worked.We fought for better and equal wages. We fought for the abolition of untouchability. We played a serious role in the temple entry movements.‘The campaign for abolition of the zamindari system was a major movement in Tamil Nadu. The state had many important zamindaris. We fought the mirasdari [land held under hereditary title] and inamdari [lands assigned free to individuals or institutions by the ruler] systems. It was the Communists who were at the forefront of these battles. There were very major landlords to contend with, and their private armed goondas and thugs.‘There were people like Punniyoor Saambasiva Iyer, Nedumanam Saamiyappa Muthaliyaar, Poondi Vandiyar. They held thousands of acres of fertile land.’We are now sitting in on a fascinating history lesson. From a man who helped make that history.

‘There were also the centuries-old practices of brahmatheyam and thevathaanam.‘Under the first, lands were given for free to Brahmins by the rulers. They ruled and profited from the land. They would not directly cultivate it, but the profits would go to them. Under thevathaanam, such gifts of land would be made to temples. Sometimes a temple could be gifted an entire village. The small tenants and workers lived at their mercy. Anyone who stood up to them could and would be evicted.‘Know this, these institutions, the madams [mutts or monasteries] owned six lakh acres of land. Maybe even now. But their power has been strongly curtailed by people’s unflinching struggles.“The Tamil Nadu Zamindari Abolition Act came into force in 1948. But it was the zamindars and giant landowners who were compensated. not the people who had worked the land for them. The affluent tenants got some compensation. The poor who worked in the fields got nothing. Between 1947–49, there were a large number of evictions from these temple lands. And we launched huge protests along the lines of: ‘only when farmers own the land can they live well’.“These were our battles—and from 1948 to 1960, the fight went on for getting their rights. C. Rajagopalachari [Rajaji] as Chief Minister took the side of the landlords and mutts. We said, ‘Land to the Tiller’. Rajaji said land belongs to those who have the documents. But our struggles saw us break that total power these temples and mutts had. We defied their harvest rules and protocols. We refused to be slaves.“And, of course, all this could not be separated from the social battles as well.“I remember witnessing one of the protests at a temple one night. The temples would all have chariot festivals. And it was the farmers who would pull the chariots forward with ropes. We said they will not come to pull the chariots anywhere if the evictions continued. We also asserted our right to take some of the grain back for sowing.”

Now he’s moving back and forth between pre and post Independence periods. At one level, that’s confusing. At another, it brings home the complexity of those times. That there were many freedoms involved. That some of these did not have clear start and end dates. That people like RNK remained steadfast in the pursuit of those freedoms.“We also, right through those decades, fought against the beatings and torture of the workers.“In 1943, Dalit workers were still being whipped. And having cow dung water poured on the wounds created by the whips. They had to go to work at 4 or 5 a.m. in the morning—whenever the rooster crowed. They had to be at the mirasdars’ lands to bathe the cattle, gather the cow dung, then go to water the fields. There was a village near Thiruthuraipoondi then in Thanjavur district. That’s where we held their protest.“There was a huge demonstration headed by Srinivas Rao of the Kisan Sabha. The sentiment was ‘if they hit you for carrying the red flag, hit them back’. Finally the mirasdars and Mudhaliars at Thiruthuraipoondi signed an agreement that this whipping, use of cow dung water and other barbaric practices would be stopped.”RNK plays down his own huge role in these great battles all the way from the 1940s to the 1960s and well beyond. He would succeed Srinivas Rao as the head of the All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), Tamil Nadu. In the decades after 1947, the silent foot soldier would emerge a strong general in the battles of farmers and labourers.

Both of them are excited and emotional. We are doing one of our interviews at CPI(M) leader and freedom fighter N. Sankariah’s house. That is, we’re talking to both him and Nallakannu together. The way the comrades of eight decades greet each other touches the emotions of the rest of us in the room, too.

Is there no bitterness, no sadness? They went their different ways when the Communist Party of India split into two some 60 years ago. It was not an amiable parting.“But we have worked together on many issues and struggles even after that,” says Nallakannu. “With the same attitude towards each other as from before.”“When the two of us meet,” says Sankariah, “we are still one party.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;How do they respond to the present-day rise in communal violence and hatred? Do they fear for the nation’s survival? A nation whose independence they helped achieve.“There were times during the freedom struggle, too, when things looked bleak,” says Nallakannu. “We were told you cannot win. You are up against the greatest empire in the world. Some of our families were warned to keep us away from the struggle. But we rose above all those warnings and threats. And fought anyway. That’s why we are here today.”There is also the need, both of them say, to build broad unity. To reach out and learn from others as in the past. “I think even an EMS [Namboodiripad] had a Gandhi photo in his room,” says RNK.How do the two of them remain so calm and sanguine about the state of politics that so scares millions among the rest of us? Nallakannu shrugs: “We’ve seen worse.”PostscriptOn Independence Day, 2022, The Last Heroes: Footsoldiers of Indian Freedom had already gone to press when the government of Tamil Nadu conferred the Thagaisal Thamizhar Award on RNK. This is Tamil Nadu’s top prize instituted in 2021 and given to an eminent personality who has contributed a great deal to the state and the Tamil community. It carries a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakhs, and it was handed over to RNK by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on the ramparts of Fort St. George.

R. Nallakannu’s fight for many forgotten freedoms

മറക്കപ്പെട്ടുപോയ പല സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങൾക്കുംവേണ്ടിയുള്ള ആർ. നല്ലകണ്ണിന്റെ പോരാട്ടം

भुलाइल बिसराइल आजादी खातिर नल्लाकन्नु के लड़ाई

शोषितों की आज़ादी के लिए नल्लकन्नु का संघर्ष

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“It all begins with a single thread and ends with a single thread,” says Rekha Ben Vaghela with a faint smile. She is sitting at her handloom weaving a single ikat patolu in her house in Mota Timbla village of Gujarat. “In the beginning we wind the bobbin with a single thread and in the end, we transfer the now dyed thread onto the bobbin,” Rekha Ben explains the many processes of patola making that come before the bobbins for the weft thread are ready, and the warp thread is set on the loom.Many in the Vankarvas in this village in Surendranagar district where she lives are engaged in one or the other task related to making the famous silk sarees known as patolu . But Rekha Ben, in her 40s today, is the only Dalit woman patola maker in Limbdi taluka, weaving single and double ikat patola. (Read: The warp and the weft of Rekha Ben’s life ).The patola from Surendranagar are known as ‘zalawadi’ patola , often cheaper than those made in Patan. Originally known for its single ikat patola , vankars (weavers) in Zalawad now also weave double ikat ones. “In single ikat , the design is only on the weft. In double ikat, both the warp and the weft have a design,” says Rekha Ben, explaining the difference between the two kinds of patola.It is the design that complicates the process. Rekha Ben is trying to explain it one more time. “A single ikat patolu has 3,500 warp threads and 13,750 weft threads. While a double ikat one has 2,220 warp threads and 9,870 weft threads,” she says sliding the bobbin with the weft thread into the shuttle.

The sight of the bobbin brings the image of 55-year-old Ganga Ben Parmar in front of my eyes. “We take the hank of yarn on a big wooden spool first and then from there on to a bobbin with the help of a spinning wheel. You cannot wind the bobbin without the spinning wheel,” she had said while working on one at her home in Limbdi’s Ghagharetiya village.“Where are you lost?” Rekha Ben’s voice brings me back to our discussion of the patola threads, a complex process that she has been explaining to me for the nth time that day. “Write,” she commands fixing her eyes on my notebook. She stops weaving for a while, trying to ensure that I understand the process completely.I write down the steps process, quite intricate with more than a dozen steps, that can last over weeks and will involve many more workers beyond the weaver. The process that begins with the hank of silk yarn and finishes with the last thread going into the 252-inch long patola saree, can take six months of labour.“A single mistake at any step and you are sure to ruin the patolu,” she pronounces.

Picking up the threads of patola

ହାତରେ ପଟୋଲା ବୁଣିବା

படோலாவின் நூல்களை இணைப்போம்

پٹولا کے دھاگوں کی ریشمی دنیا

પડી પટોળે ભાત, આ મહેનતની

পাটোলা সুতোর জটিল পথে জীবনের খোঁজ

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“I know almost 450 bird calls.”It’s a critical skill for Micah Rai. As a photographer in the wild, capturing rare birds and animals on camera is a waiting game, and one in which recognising sounds can make all the difference.From winged creatures to furry mammals, Micah has shot roughly 300 different species over the years. He recalls one of the most difficult, a bird – Blyth’s Tragopan ( Tragopan blythii ), of which sightings are very rare.It was October 2020 and Micah had acquired a Sigma 150mm-600mm telephoto zoom lens. With this powerful lens he was determined to photograph the Tragopan. He tracked the calls of the bird, relentless in his pursuit. “ Kaafi din se avaaz toh sunayi de raha tha [I was hearing the call for many days].” For months, the exercise didn’t lead to any photographs.Finally, in May 2021, once again Micah was following the call of Blyth’s Tragopan through the dense jungles of Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, when the elusive creature came into clear view. He was in position, armed with his Sigma 150mm-600mm telephoto zoom lens on his Nikon D7200. But his nervousness got the better of him. “I got a blurry shot. It was of no use,” he recalls.Two years later, near Bompu camp in West Kameng, the still elusive bird, the colour of bright rust with small white dots on its back, came into sight, partly obscured by leaves. This time Micah didn’t miss. In a burst of 30-40 shots, he managed to get 1-2 good photos. It was published for the first time on PARI,<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/arunachals-birds-canary-in-the-coalmine/"> Arunachal’s birds: canary in the coalmine .</a>

Micah is part of a team of locals who assist scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru in their study of the impact of climate change on birds in the eastern Himalayan mountains of West Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh.“Folks like Micah are the very backbone of the work that we do in Eaglenest. Working in the field and collecting the kind of data that we need would have been impossible [without them],” says ornithologist Dr. Umesh Srinivasan.Micah’s passion for birds goes beyond the scientific. He retells a Nepali story about the Blessing Bird. “In the jungle, a man, haunted by a stepmother's cruelty, finds refuge and sustenance in wild bananas and undergoes a metamorphosis into a bird. This colourful nocturnal creature symbolises the enduring and mystical bond between humans and the natural world in Nepali tradition.” Micah says the bird is none other than the elusive Mountain Scops Owl, believed by many to embody the Blessing Bird. Its rarity is the mystical essence of the tale.While chasing birds in this forest, Micah and others have also had a few close encounters with four-legged creatures, specifically the world’s largest, tallest and heaviest bovine species, wild gaur ( Bos gaurus ), also called the Indian Bison.Micah and two friends had come to clear the road of debris after a night of rain. The trio saw the mighty bison a mere 20 metres away. “I gave a yell and the mithun [gaur] began charging towards us at full speed!” Micah laughs as he recounts the story of his friend madly scrambling up a tree while being chased by the gaur; he and his other friend managed to escape and dashed to safety.He says his favourite animal in the forests of Eaglenest is a medium-sized wild cat called the Asian Golden Cat ( Catopuma temminckii ), found in the forests of Eaglenest. He spotted the cat at twilight on his way back to Bompu camp. “I had a camera [Nikon D7200] and got the shot,” he says happily. “But I never saw it again.”

*****Micah was born in Dirang, West Kameng, and moved with his family to village Ramalingam in the same district. “Everyone calls me Micah Rai. Micah Rai is my name on Instagram and Facebook. In documents it’s ‘Shambu Rai’,” says the 29-year-old who left school after Class 5 because, “money was a problem and my younger siblings also had to study.”The next few years went by in a blur of hard work – road construction in Dirang and work as kitchen staff at Bompu camp in Eaglenest Sanctuary and also at Lama Camp – in the Singchung Bugun Village Community Reserve (SBVCR).In his mid-teens, Micah finally returned to Ramalingam. “I was at home with my parents and helping them in the fields.” His family is of Nepali origin and lease 4-5 bighas of land from the Bugun community on which they grow cabbage and potatoes, selling the harvest in Tezpur, Assam, a four-hour road journey.When ornithologist and Assistant Professor of Ecology at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, Dr. Umesh Srinivasan came to Ramalingam to study the effects of climate change on birds, he asked around for 2-3 young boys to work as field staff. Micah leapt at the chance to earn a steady income. In January 2011, 16-year-old Micah started work as a field staff with Srinivasan’s team.

He happily acknowledges that his real education started in the forests of Arunachal Pradesh. “I recognise the calls of birds in West Kameng district the most [easily],” he says. His favourite bird is “the Sikkim Wedge-billed Babbler. It’s not much to see looks-wise but I love its style,” he adds, referring to the unique beak of the bird and its eyes ringed with white colouring. A rare creature, it is found only in a few places – here in Arunachal Pradesh, far-eastern Nepal, Sikkim and eastern Bhutan.“Recently I shot the White-rumped Shama [ Copsychus malabaricus ] at an elevation above 2,000 metres. This is a strange thing because the bird normally resides at an elevation of 900 metres and lower. Because of the heat, the bird is changing its location,” says Micah.Scientist Srinivasan says, “eastern Himalayas are the second most biodiverse region on the planet, and many of the species found here are highly sensitive to temperature. Climate change here therefore has the potential to threaten a significant fraction of earth's species.” He says that their work shows that resident birds staying at a particular elevation are now slowly shifting their ranges to higher elevations. Read: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/arunachals-birds-canary-in-the-coalmine/">Arunachal’s birds: canary in the coalmine .</a>As a fellow photographer interested in climate change, I watch in fascination as Micah swipes through his phone, showing me images of birds, he’s photographed over the years. He makes it looks easy, but my own experience here tells me that it takes hard work, dedication and unending patience to get the right visual.

*****The team’s campsite, located at Bompu camp, lies inside Eaglenest sanctuary, a hotspot for hardcore birders across the world. It’s a transient home made of wood meshes and tarpaulin wrapped tightly around a broken concrete structure. The research team is a mix of scientists, an intern, and field staff from West Kameng district. Micah is an integral part of this crew headed by Dr. Umesh Srinivasan.The wind whips around us as Micah and I stand outside the research hut. The tips of surrounding peaks peek out from under thick garlands of grey cloud. I am keen to hear him speak about his experiences of a changing climate.“If there is a lot of heat at low elevations, then it picks up fast in the mountain area. The heat here in the mountains is increasing. Because of climate change we also know that the monsoon is upside down,” he tells me. “Earlier, people knew the patterns of the weather. Older people remember February being a cold and cloudy month.” Now in February, untimely rains cause great problems for farmers and their crops.It’s hard to imagine the serious effects of climate change in the lush forests of Eaglenest sanctuary, surrounded by the trilling of birds, cocooned by towering alder, maple and oak trees. The sun rises early in this eastern edge of India and the staff have been awake since 3:30 a.m., hard at work under a bright blue sky. Large puffs of white cloud sail slowly by.Under Srinivasan’s guidance, Micah has learnt ‘mist netting’ – a process of catching birds by stretching very fine netting made of nylon or polyester between two bamboo poles fixed in the mud. Once caught, the birds are placed inside a pouch. Gently taking the bird out of the little green pouch, Micah hands the creature over to Srinivasan.

Working rapidly, the bird’s weight, wingspan, the length of its legs is measured in less than a minute. After being tagged with an identification ring on its leg the bird is released. This entire process, of catching the bird in the mist netting, bringing it to the makeshift table, taking measurements and then setting it free, takes about 15-20 minutes. The team goes through this exercise every 20 minutes to half an hour for at least eight hours, depending on the weather. And Micah’s been doing this for close to 13 years now.“When we first started catching the birds, it was difficult to pronounce names like White-spectacled Warbler ( Seicercus affinis ). It was difficult to say because we don’t have the habit of speaking in English. We had never heard these words,” says Micah.Sharpening his birding skills at Eaglenest Sanctuary gave Micah a chance to travel to neighbouring Meghalaya where he says he saw that swathes of forest had been chopped down. “We roamed around in Cherrapunji [in 2012] for 10 ten days and saw not even 20 species of birds. Then I realised that I wanted to work in Eaglenest because there were so many more species here. We had seen a lot more birds sitting in Bompu.”“ Camera ka interest 2012 se shuru hua [My interest in cameras started in 2012],” Micah says. He used to borrow the camera of visiting scientist, Nandini Velho: “The Green-tailed Sunbird ( Aethopyga nipalensis ) is a common bird. I started photographing it as practice.”A couple of years later, Micah started guiding and taking a few tourists on birding expeditions. In 2018, a group from Mumbai – BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) arrived. He clicked photos of them when asked. Sensing his joy while shooting photos, one of the group members offered him a Nikon P9000. “Sir, I want to buy a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) model. I don’t want the camera you are giving me,” he recalls saying.With generous donations from four members of the same group, savings from his field work and bird guiding, “I collected 50,000 rupees and the price was 55,000. So, my boss [Umesh] said that he would contribute the balance.” In 2018, Micah finally bought his very first DSLR, a Nikon D7200 with an 18-55mm zoom lens.

“For 2-3 years with the small 18-55mm zoom lens I used to take photos of the flowers around the house.” Taking close-up shots of birds from a massive distance requires very long and powerful telephoto lenses. “After a few years I thought I should buy the 150-600mm sigma lens.” But using the lens turned out to be difficult for Micah. He couldn’t manage to figure out the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO on the camera. “I clicked such bad pictures,” he recalls. It was Ram Alluri, a cinematographer and Micah’s good friend, who taught him the technicalities of using a DSLR camera. “He taught me how to use the settings and now I only use manual [settings],” he adds.But only shooting stunning photographs of birds wasn’t enough. The next step was learning how to edit images in the Photoshop software. In 2021, Micah sat with Siddharth Srinivasan, a Masters student, to learn how to edit images in Photoshop.Soon news of his skills as a photographer spread and he was asked to contribute photos for an article ‘Lockdown brings hardship to birder’s paradise in India’ for The Third Pole , a website dedicated to stories on the Himalayas. “They took seven of my photos [for use in that piece]. I got money for each and felt very pleased,” he says. His steadfast contribution to fieldwork also translated into Micah being a co-author on a number of scientific papers.Micah is a man of many talents. Apart from being a meticulous field staffer, passionate photographer, and bird guide, he is also a guitarist. Walking into the church in Chitre Basti (also known as Tsering Pam), I see Micah in his musician avatar. Surrounded by three swaying women, he strums his guitar gently, rehearsing a song for the wedding ceremony of his friend, the local pastor’s daughter. As his fingers move nimbly over the guitar strings, I’m reminded of their deftness while gently extricating birds from the gossamer-like mist netting in the forest.All of those he measured, tagged, and then released in the past four days – harbingers of an unfolding climate crisis – those birds have flown.

Birds in West Kameng: Micah has them in focus

വെസ്റ്റ് കാമെംഗിലെ പക്ഷികൾ; മിക്കയുടെ കണ്ണിലൂടെ

ಪಶ್ಚಿಮ ಕಾಮೆಂಗ್:‌ ಮೀಕಾ ಎನ್ನುವ ಹಕ್ಕಿ ತಜ್ಞ

वेस्ट कमेंग के पंछियों को तस्वीरों में उतारते मीका

મિકાના કેમેરાના મનોકાશમાં ઊડતાં પશ્ચિમ કમેંગના પક્ષીઓ

পশ্চিম কামেং জিলাৰ চৰাইবোৰত মিকা ৰাইৰ দৃষ্টি 

चिरई-चिरगुन उपर मीका के ‘नजर’

वेस्ट कमेंग: मीका के कैमरा आ उनकर चिरई प्रेम

মিকা রাইয়ের ক্যামেরায় ধরা দেয় যত বিরল পাখি

West Kameng

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<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">For as long as he could remember, Mohanlal Lohar has been fascinated with the melody of a hammer pounding away. Listening to the rhythmic clanging, he grew up knowing that crafting them would become a lifelong passion.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Mohanlal was born in a home of lohars (blacksmiths) in Nand&nbsp;village of Rajasthan’s Barmer district. He started when he was eight, assisting his father, the late Bhavraram Lohar, by handing him hammers and other tools. “I never went to school and kept playing with these pieces of equipment,” he says.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The family belongs to the Gaduliya Lohar community, listed as an Other Backward Class in Rajasthan, and speak Marwari and Hindi. Mohanlal was a teenager when he came to Jaisalmer five decades ago in the early 1980s looking for more work. Since then, he has made morchangs from a variety of materials: aluminum, silver, steel and even brass.&nbsp;<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“By merely touching a piece of&nbsp;loha [iron], I can tell if it will sound good or not,” says Mohanlal who has spent over 20,000 hours hammering red-hot iron to shape musical morchangs, a percussion instrument heard across Jaisalmer’s sand dunes.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“It is tough to make a morchang,” says the 65-year-old and says he can’t recall how many morchangs he’s made to date: “ginti se bahar hain woh&nbsp;[there is no count to it].”<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:16.32px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">A morchang (also spelt as morsing) is roughly 10 inches long and has a metal horseshoe-shaped ring with two parallel forks. Between them is a metal tongue, known as a trigger that is fixed on one end. The musician grips it with their front teeth and breathes in and out through it. With one hand, the musician moves the morchang’s tongue, producing musical notes; the other hand helps keep the grip on the iron rim.

The instrument is at least 1,500 years old, and “while grazing livestock, shepherds would play the morchang,” says Mohanlal. The music and the instrument traveled with the shepherds, and as they traversed longer distances playing it, its fame spread too and it gained popularity across Rajasthan, especially in Jaisalmer and Jodhpur districts.Now in his sixties, it takes Mohanlal about eight hours to make a morchang while earlier he could easily make two a day. “I only make one morchang a day because I don’t want to compromise on quality,” he says and adds, “my morchangs are world famous now.” He has also mastered the skill of fashioning miniature morchang lockets, a favourite among tourists.Identifying the right kind of loha (iron) is critical as “not every loha can make a good morchang,” he says. It took him over a decade to perfect the skill of selecting the finest iron. He buys iron from Jaisalmer – a kilo costs around Rs. 100; a single morchang weighs no more than 150 grams, and musicians prefer lightweight ones.Mohanlal’s family continues to use a traditional blacksmith forge known as dhaman in Marwari. “You won’t find this kind of forge in all of Jaisalmer city,” he says. “It is at least 100 years old and works perfectly.”

He uses two enclosures, made of goat’s skin to pump the air. The wood through which the air passes is made of rohida tree (Tecomella undulata). The air has to be pumped continuously for at least three hours as the iron is heated simultaneously. It’s an arduous task. Physically pumping the air causes severe pain in the shoulders and back; inadequate ventilation leads to breathlessness and excessive sweating.Gigidevi, Mohanlal's wife, often helped him with the pumping but stopped due to her advancing age. “This is the only task in the entire morchang-making process that women perform. Everything else has traditionally been done by men,” says 60-year-old Gigidevi. Their sons Ranmal and Harishankar – sixth generation lohars – also make morchangs.As the pumping commences, Mohanlal picks up the red-hot iron using a sandasi (blacksmith’s tong) and positions it onto an elevated iron surface – aaran. He swiftly places the hammer in his right hand, while carefully holding the iron piece with his left. Another lohar uses a five-kilogram hammer to pound the iron piece, and Mohanlal joins him as they both hammer away.The rhythmic hammering done by each lohar striking after the other, “sounds like the tunes produced by a dholaki and made me fall in love with making morchangs,” says Mohanlal.

This ‘music’ goes on for around three hours and causes his hands to swell. The artisan must lift the hammer over 10,000 times in three hours, and a tiny slip can injure the fingers. “It has even broken my nails in the past. Injuries are common in this kind of work,” says Mohanlal, laughing off the pain. Besides injuries, burns to the skin are common too. “Many people have started using machines for hammering, but we do it using our bare hands even today,” points out Mohanlal’s elder son, Ranmal.After hammering comes the most difficult part of crafting a morchang – the careful shaping of the hot iron. This process takes another two hours during which he carves the intricate designs. The instrument is then left to cool for an hour or two before filing for two hours to smoothen the surface. “Filing creates magic as it makes the morchang as smooth as a mirror,” says Ranmal.Every month, Mohanlal’s family receives orders for at least 10 morchangs which sell for Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,500 a piece. During winters, when tourists flock in, that number often doubles. “Many tourists place orders through email as well,” shares Ranmal. Orders pour in from France, Germany, Japan, the USA, Australia, Italy, and several other countries. Mohanlal and his sons also travel to various cultural festivals across Rajasthan, selling as well as performing.

While Mohanlal is grateful that his sons have picked up the art, the number of artisans who can craft a morchang by hand in Jaisalmer is fast declining. “People don’t want to pay even a thousand rupees for this [good] quality morchang,” he says. Crafting morchangs requires a lot of patience and hard work, something that not many are willing to undertake. “One has to work an entire day, and then they earn only 300 to 400 rupees if they manage to find a buyer. This is not sustainable,” he says.Many lohars complain that the smoke impairs their sight. “The forge produces a lot of smoke, which often goes into the eyes and nose, causing coughing,” says Ranmal. “We have to sit near the forge in scorching temperatures, which feels suffocating.” On hearing this Mohanlal chides his son saying, “if you pay attention to injuries, how will you learn?”Besides morchangs, Mohanlal has taught himself to craft alghoza (a paired woodwind musical instrument also known as a double flute), shehnai, murli, sarangi, harmonium and flute. “I love playing musical instruments and so I keep learning to make these instruments.” He has kept most of them carefully locked in a metallic box. Yeh mera khajana hain [this is my treasure],” he says, smiling.This story is part of a series on rural artisans by Sanket Jain, and is supported by the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation.

A lifetime of handcrafting morchangs

सरी जिनगी हाथ ले मोरचंग गढ़त

उनकर करेजा में धड़केला मोरचंग

ମୋର୍ଚାଙ୍ଗ ହସ୍ତଶିଳ୍ପରେ ସାରା ଜୀବନ

ریت کے ٹیلوں میں گونجتی مورچنگ کی آواز

மோர்ச்சாங்குகள் செய்யக் கழியும் ஆயுள்

ਹੱਥੀਂ ਬਣੇ ਮੋਰਚੰਗ ਦੀ ਕਹਾਣੀ

जैसलमेरचे मोहनलाल आणि त्यांचे मोरचांग

മോർചാങ്കുകൾ മെനഞ്ഞ് ഒരു ജീവിതകാലം

ಮೋರ್ಚಾಂಗ್‌ ತಯಾರಿಕೆಯ ಐವತ್ತು ವರ್ಷಗಳು

राजस्थान: रेत के टीलों में गूंजती मोरचंग की आवाज़

પોતાના હાથોથી મોરચંગ બનાવવામાં વિતાવી આખી જીંદગી

মোরচাং গড়েই সারাজীবন কেটে গেল

দুহাতেৰে মৰ্চাং সাজি সাজি কটোৱা জীৱনটো

మోర్చంగ్‌ల తయారీలో ఒక జీవితకాలం…

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Uttar Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority accepts that over the years, drought remains one of the major disasters affecting UP, an important food grain supplier in the country. Parts of Madhya Pradesh are equally susceptible to drought conditions. As many as 51 districts here have experienced several droughts in the last 29 years. A large number of people in these states depend on rain fed agriculture for livelihood. So, recurring heat waves, depleting ground water and deficient rainfall create havoc in the state.Only those who have experienced it know of the horrors of drought. For the city dwellers it is just a piece of news, but for the farmers who live through it year after year, it is ominous, like the coming of Yama, the god of death. Stony, dry eyes waiting for the rains, parched, cracked earth spitting fire, hungry, children with shrivelled bellies, heaps of cattle bones and women wandering in search of water – are familiar sites across the state.This poem comes from my experience of drought in the plateaus of central India.

<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="100%" height="100" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1869684537%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-8X4KdEDEaUb&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true"></iframe></div>Listen to Syed Merajuddin reciting the poem in Hindi

<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="100%" height="100" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1869702120&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true"></iframe></div>Listen to Prathistha Pandya reciting the poem in English

From the drought land

خشک سالی سے نبرد آزما کسانوں کی آپ بیتی

വരണ്ട ഭൂമിയിൽനിന്ന്

కరవు భూమి నుంచి…

வறண்ட நிலத்திலிருந்து

ਮੈਂ ਸੋਕੇ ਮਾਰੀ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਤੋਂ ਬੋਲਦਾ ਹਾਂ...

दुष्काळभूमीतून

ಬರದ ನಾಡಿನ ದನಿ

દુકાળિયા ધરતી

ମରୁଡ଼ି ଅଞ୍ଚଳର କଥା 

अंकाल के भूंइय्या ले

अकाल से हलकान प्रदेस

অনাবৃষ্টিৰ দেশৰ পৰা কৈছো

খরার মুলুক থেকে

सूखी धरती से

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It is late evening in Tamil Nadu’s Vadanamelli village. Members of the Sree Ponniamman Therukkoothu Mandram are getting ready for a Kariakkoothu performance. As always, this is going to be a dusk-to-dawn show, with many characters and multiple costume changes.Backstage, 33- year-old Sharmi has started applying make-up. As she mixes red powder with oil to make her own lipstick, she explains some basic rules of arithaaram (make-up): “Arithaaram differs for men and women. It also differs according to the character and the length of the role.”Sharmi is one of four transgender artistes that make up the 17-member team at the Sree Ponniamman Therukkoothu Mandram, a drama company dedicated to what is believed to be one of the oldest performing art forms of Tamil Nadu. “People before my generation also performed therukkoothu,’’ says Sharmi. “I can't say exactly how old it is.”Therukkoothu, or street theatre, is based on tales from the epics, usually the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with performances that run through the night. Therukkoothu season typically falls between the months of Panguni (April) and Purattassi (September). During this period Sharmi and her troupe perform almost every weekday, adding up to roughly 15-20 performances in a month. At Rs. 700-800 per performance, that means an income of around Rs. 10,000-15,000 per artiste.However, once the season ends, the artistes are forced to look for alternative sources of income, including Kariakkoothu, a ritual-based version of therukkoothu, performed only at funerals. “Someone’s death gives us one or two performances a week,” says Sharmi, as she prepares for the Kariakkoothu performance in Vadanamelli, nearly 60 kilometres from her drama company’s home in Pattaraiperumbudur, in Thiruvallur district.

The ‘stage’ is set for the koothu. A cloth tent has been set up outside the home of the deceased and a black sheet spread on the street. A photo of the departed, placed in front of the house, reflects the flickering light from small lamps kept around it. Benches, vessels and tables by the street suggest the setting for a meal.“When the entire village has gone into silence, we start preparing the instruments, making sure they are correctly tuned and audible. We also start applying make-up,” says Sharmi. The koothu starts by 10 p.m. with a poosai (offering) for the mudi (crown, one of the ornaments worn for the performance). “The poosai is to pay respect to the play. We pray that the play is successful and the artistes return safely to their homes,” she explains.The play this evening, Minnaloli Siva Pooja, is based on a tale from the Mahabharata about the Pandava prince Arjunan and his eight wives. “I can play all eight roles [but] today I'm playing Bogavathi,” says Sharmi, reeling off the names and the various entanglements of characters from the epic.Minnaloli (lightning), she explains, was one of Arjunan's eight wives. The daughter of King Megarasan (king of the clouds) and Queen Kodikkalaadevi, she was married off to Arjunan when she was five years old. Upon reaching puberty, when she asked her parents about her husband, she was told to perform Sivapoosai (offering for Lord Shiva) for 48 days before she could meet him. Minnaloli diligently observed the ritual for 47 days. On the 48th day, Arjunan arrived to meet her before she had performed the poosai. She avoided meeting him, requesting him to wait until the poosai was over; Arjunan refused to listen. The play revolves around this incident and the twists and turns that follow before Lord Krishna arrives to ensure a happy ending where Minnaloli and Arjunan reunite.

Sharmi starts applying mai (black ink) on her lips. “After seeing me apply mai on lips, a lot of people have started doing the same,’’ she says. “People now ask me if I'm a woman because of my makeovers. [I want that] when I do a makeover and go out, men should not take their eyes off me.’’Sharmi has “such a passion for makeup” that she even completed a six-month beautician’s course some years ago. “But before [the gender transition], I was not allowed to do make-up for women.”It takes nearly one-and-a-half hours for Sharmi to do her arithaaram. She completes the Bogavathi ‘look’ by draping a saree. “Nobody has taught me how to wear a saree. I learnt to wear a saree myself. I pierced my nose and ears myself. I learnt it all by myself,” she says.“Only the operation was performed by a doctor. If I knew how to perform an operation, I'd have done it by myself too. But I had to spend 50,000 rupees for it in the hospital,” she says about the gender affirmation surgery she underwent at the age of 23.“A trans woman wearing a saree has not become normal yet. We cannot wear a saree and walk down the streets as easily as other women do,’’ she points out. Her profession, however, gives her some protection from the bullying and harassment that trans women frequently face. “People respect me just because I'm a theatre artiste.”

“I come from Eekkaadu village of Thiruvallur district [in Tamil Nadu],’’ Sharmi says as she combs through her toppa (wig). She remembers having a natural flair for singing and dialogue delivery even as a child. “I fell in love with theatre when I was a child. I loved everything [about it]- the make-up, the costumes. But I never imagined I would become a theatre artiste one day.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;She recounts how her theatre journey began with the ‘Raja Rani dance,’ a kind of street performance combining dance and percussion. “Then, for about ten years, I acted in stage adaptations of therukkoothu, with contemporary stories. It’s almost four years since I started performing therukkoothu.’’Backstage, the character artistes have started applying arithaaram; Sharmi continues her reminiscences. &nbsp;“I was raised as a girl by my family. It felt so natural,” she recalls. She was in her fourth standard when she became aware of her transgender identity. “But I was not sure how to make others realise it.’’It was not going to be an easy journey, as she would find out. Unable to bear the bullying at school, she discontinued her education after tenth standard. “A movie named Thiruda Thirudi was released around that time. The class boys would gather around me and tease me by singing snatches from the Vandarkuzhali song [a popular song that makes vulgar references to transgender persons]. I did not go to school after that.“I could not tell my parents [why I stopped going to school]. They were not in a position to understand. So I said nothing,” she says. “I fled from my home in my early adolescence and returned after 15 years.”The homecoming was not particularly easy. Whilst she was away, her childhood home had been severely damaged and rendered uninhabitable, forcing her to look for a house to rent. “I grew up in this village but I couldn’t find a house on rent here because I am a transgender person,’’ says Sharmi. “They [house owners] think we indulge in sex work at home.’’ She eventually had to move into a rented house far away from the village centre.

Sharmi, who belongs to the Adi Dravidar community [listed as a Scheduled Caste], now lives with her 57-year-old mother and her 10 goats, the latter being her source of income during the months when there is no therukkoothu.“Therukkoothu is the only profession I have. It is a respectable profession too. I'm happy that I feel dignified among the people,’’ she says. “When there's no Therukkoothu [between October and March] we sell the goats to survive. I don't want to go for pichai [begging] or for sex work.”Sharmi also has a keen interest in nursing. “I'm the one treating my goats when they are sick. I even become their midwife when they go into labour,” she says. “But I can't become a professional nurse.”

The performance starts with the clown singing and joking to draw the audience’s attention. Then, the male artiste who plays the title character comes on stage. Megarajan and Kodikkalaadevi perform their introduction songs and announce the start of the play.

The story runs briskly with jokes, songs and lamentation songs. Munusamy, the clown, steals hearts with his words and actions, making people laugh until they cry. Sharmi and other artistes change costumes around 10 times during the play, much to the amazement of the audience. A whip, cracked at frequent intervals throughout the play, does the job of adding some drama to the proceedings on stage as well as chasing the audience’s sleep away.Around 3:30 a.m., Minnaloli, cursed by an angry Arjunan to live like a widow, appears on stage. Ruban, the playwright, plays this role. His rendition of the oppari (lamentation song) makes many in the audience cry. Some people shove cash into Ruban’s hands as he sings. After the scene ends, the clown comes back on stage to provide some comic relief.The sun is about to rise. Minnaloli has just been reunited with Arjunan. Ruban invokes the name of the deceased and seeks their blessings. He then thanks the audience and announces the end of the performance. The time is 6 a.m. Time for pack-up.The artistes start preparing to go home. They are a tired but happy lot at this moment – the performance has been successful and incident-free. “Sometimes, people tease us [during the show]. In fact, one time a man tried to stab me with a knife because I refused to give him my phone number,” says Sharmi. “Once they find out we are trans women, men sometimes behave rudely with us and even demand sex. But they don't realise that we too are human beings. If, even for a moment, they stopped to think about the problems we face, they would not do all this."

The arithaaram is not easily wiped off, so the artistes start applying oil over it and wipe it off with a towel. “It will be 9 or 10 in the morning when we reach home, depending on the distance we have to travel. When I reach home, I will cook, eat and sleep. Maybe I will eat when I wake up in the afternoon. Or I'll sleep until evening,” says Sharmi. “You never get tired when you perform continuously [during the koothu season]. It is more tiring to perform during the non-festival period because of the long breaks between performances.”Sharmi points out that she cannot afford to rest or do fewer performances. Age is a key factor in a therukkoothu artiste’s journey: the younger and healthier an artiste, the better their chances of employment and earning the standard Rs. 700-800 per performance. As they start ageing, they are offered fewer performances, for much less – around Rs. 400-500 per show.“As theatre artists,” Sharmi says, “we get employment only till our faces stay beautiful and our bodies have stamina. Before I lose that [looks, respect, employment], I should earn [enough to build] a house to live in and [set up] a small business to feed ourselves. Only then can we survive when we get old!”This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

‘People respect me because I'm a theatre artiste’

'ഒരു നാടക കലാകാരിയായതുകൊണ്ടാണ് ആളുകൾ എന്നെ ബഹുമാനിക്കുന്നത്'

'ਲੋਕ ਮੇਰੀ ਇੱਜ਼ਤ ਕਰਦੇ ਨੇ ਕਿਉਂਕਿ ਮੈਂ ਥੀਏਟਰ ਕਲਾਕਾਰ ਹਾਂ'

‘ರಂಗ ಕಲಾವಿದೆಯಾಗಿರುವುದರಿಂದ ಜನ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಗೌರವಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ’

‘नाट्यकलाकार आहे म्हणून मला मान आहे’

‘নাট্যশিল্পী বলেই লোকে সম্মান করে আমাকে’

‘लोग इज्जत देवेला काहे कि हम रंगमंच कलाकार हईं’

‘নাট্যশালাৰ শিল্পী বুলিহে মানুহে মোক সন্মান কৰে’

’لوگ میری عزت کرتے ہیں کیونکہ میں تھیٹر فنکار ہوں‘

‘கூத்து கலைஞரா இருக்கறதால சனங்க மதிக்கறாங்க’

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“The people of West Bengal are unable to make a duli.”

Baban Mahato says this in a matter-of-fact tone about the gigantic dhaan dhorar duli that he crafts – upto
six feet tall and four feet wide – to store paddy. 

Just in case we didn’t catch it the first time,
the craftsman from neighbouring Bihar adds, “making a duli is not easy.”  He goes
to reel off the many stages: “There is a lot of work starting from kanda sadhna, kaam sadhna, talli bithana,
khada karna, bunai karna, teri chadhana [preparing the longitudinal bamboo
slips and horizontal slips, laying the circular framework, making the basket
stand, weaving it to completion, and putting in the finishing interlacements].”

The 52-year-old Baban has been doing
this for the last four decades. “Since my childhood my parents taught me only this
work. They did only this work. All Bind people make the duli. They also make tokris
[smaller baskets], catch fish, and row the boat.” 

Baban is from Bihar’s Bind community,
listed as Extremely Backward Class (EBC) in the state (Caste Census 2022-23).
Most duli craftsmen, he says, are
from the Bind community, but it is also done by people from the Kanu and Halwai
communities (also EBC), who have picked up the skill after decades of living in
close proximity to Bind people. 

“I work with the estimation of my
hand. Even if my eyes are closed, or it&#39;s dark outside, the intelligence of my
hands is enough to guide me,” says Baban. He begins by slicing a horizontal
cross-section of the bamboo, splitting it into 104 pliable strips, a task
calling for great dexterity. Then using precise calculations, the circular
bamboo framework is laid out measuring “chay
ya saat haath [roughly 9 to 10 feet]&quot; in diameter, depending on the desired
volume. A ‘haath’ is the measure of
the hand from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow, widely used by artisan
groups across India as a unit of measurement; it roughly equals 18 inches.

PARI is speaking to Baban in
Alipurduar district (earlier Jalpaiguri). It is 600 kilometres from his home in
Bihar’s Bhagwani Chhapra from where he travels annually to the northern plains
of West Bengal for work, arriving in the month of Kartik (October-November) when the kharif paddy crop is ready for harvest. He will stay on for the
next two months, making and selling the duli.


He’s not alone. “Every haat [weekly market] in the Alipurduar
and Cooch Behar districts of Bengal has duli
makers from our Bhagwani Chhapra village,” says Puran Saha. He too is a duli maker who annually migrates from
Bihar to the Dodear haat in
Khagrabari town in Cooch Behar district. Most migrants arriving for this work
team up in groups of five to 10. They choose a haat and set up base there, living in makeshift tents. 

Baban first arrived in West Bengal
when he was 13 years old. He came along with his guru, Ram Parbesh Mahato. “I
have accompanied my guru on his travels for 15 years. Only then have I been
able to understand it [making a duli] fully,” says Baban, who also comes from a family of duli craftsmen.

Baban starts the day by lighting a
fire. It&#39;s too cold to sleep inside his makeshift home, so he chooses to sit by
the fire on the road outside. “I wake up at 3 a.m. everyday. I feel cold at
night. Because of the cold, I get out of my bed, light a fire outside and sit
by it.” An hour later he starts work, and although it’s still dark outside, the
dim street light is enough for him to begin. 

He says that integral to the process
of making the duli basket is the
selection of the right kind of bamboo. “A three-year-old bamboo is the best for
this purpose because it can be easily split, and it is suitably thick,” says
Baban. 

Laying the circular bamboo framework
using the right calculations is tough, and he uses a tool called dao (sickle). For the next 15 hours he
will only break for meals and a bidi
(smoke). 

A typical duli is 5 feet in height and 4 feet in
diameter. Baban can make two duli baskets
a day with the help of his son, and sell them in the weekly Mathura haat on Mondays in Alipurduar district.
“When I go to the haat, I carry duli in
various sizes: to hold 10 mann, 15 mann, 20 mann, 25 mann paddy.” One
mann equals 40 kilograms, so a 10 mann duli
can hold 400 kilos of paddy. Baban customises duli sizes for his customers based on the weight they want it to
hold. The duli sizes may vary from 5
to 8 feet in height based on the volume.

“When the harvest season begins, we
get 600 to 800 rupees for a duli.
When the season is ending, the demand is less so I sell the same thing cheaper.
For an additional earning of 50 rupees, I will deliver the basket as well,” he
says.

One duli weighs eight kilos and Baban can carry as many as three dulis (weighing roughly 25 kilos) on his
head. “Can I not carry the burden of 25 kilos on my head for some time?” he
asks, adding that it’s not a big deal.

As Baban walks
through the weekly haat where he sets
up shop, he nods to his fellow villagers from Bihar, and points to the shops
that belong to the members of his community, and also the local Bengalis who
are helpful. “Sab jaan pehchaan ke hain.
[All the faces are familiar],” he says. “Even if I don’t have a single penny,
and I look for rice, dal, and roti, they will give it all,
irrespective of whether I have the money or not,” he adds.

His nomadic life has given him a
fluency beyond his native Bhojpuri. He speaks Hindi, Bengali and Assamese, and
understands Mechiya – the language of the Mech community who live in his
neighbourhood in Dakshin Chakoakheti, Alipurduar district (earlier in Jalpaiguri
district).

He says he buys a couple of shots of
alcohol for Rs. 10 a day as, “all the hard labour makes my body sore. The
alcohol makes it easier by numbing the pain.” 


Although his fellow Biharis live
together, Baban prefers to live by himself: “If
I have to eat for 50 rupees, and there are people along with me, they will say,
‘I want my share!’ That is why I choose to eat alone, and stay alone. That way
whatever I eat is mine, whatever I earn is mine.”

He says there are few
livelihood opportunities in Bihar for Bind people, and so they have been
migrating like this for generations. Baban’s 30-year-old son, Arjun Mahato has
also travelled with him when he was young. Now he works in Mumbai as a painter.
“Our home state Bihar does not have enough for securing an income. Sand mining
is the only industry here…and all of Bihar cannot be reliant on that.”

Chandan, the youngest of Baban’s eight
children, has accompanied him this year (2023). They have set up a makeshift
home near National Highway-17 that runs from West Bengal to Assam, past tea
gardens. Their home is a garage with loosely draped tarpaulin on three sides,
and a tin roof, a mud chulha (stove),
a bed and some storage space for the duli
baskets. 

The father and son use open spaces by
the road to defecate; for bathing, they take water from the hand pump nearby.
“I have no problems staying in these conditions. Mein hamesha apne kaam ke sur mein rehta hoon [I am always in the
rhythm of my work],” says Baban. He makes and sells duli in the outer section, and cooks and sleeps in the inside. 

When it’s time to
leave and go back home, the bamboo craftsman says it&#39;s a painful parting: “Maa, my landlady, has packed me a bunch
of home-grown tej-patta [bay leaves] from her garden to take home.”

The arrival of plastic sacks to store paddy, and
changing patterns of processing and storage are impacting the livelihood of the
duli makers. “Our work has taken a
hit in the last five years because of upcoming rice mills in the area. The
farmers sell their paddy to the mills directly from the fields for further
processing, instead of storing it like before. People have also begun to use a
lot of plastic sacks for storage,” a group of duli makers from Bihar tell PARI.

Making other, smaller sized baskets (tokris) is a possibility, but they want
to keep the peace with the locals who also make it, and have requested them, ‘dekho bhai, yeh mat banao, apna bada wala
duli banao.. Humlog ka pet mein laat mat maro” [brother, please don’t make
the small baskets. You make your big baskets. Don’t take our livelihood away
from us’].

At the haats in Cooch Behar and Alipurduar districts, a basta (plastic sack) is Rs. 120 for a
pack of 100 pieces, while a single duli
is priced at between Rs. 600 to 1,000. The
basta can hold 40 kilos of rice, whereas a typical duli can hold 500 kilos of rice.

Sushila Rai is a paddy farmer who
prefers a duli. The 50-year-old from
Dakshin Chakoyakheti village in Alipurduar says, “if we store the paddy in a
plastic sack, it gets infested with black bugs [rice weevils]. So, we use the duli. We keep a large stock of rice for
personal consumption for the year.”

West Bengal is the
largest producer of rice in the country (13 per cent of India’s total rice
production) with 16.76 million tonnes annually in 2021-22 says this <a href="https://agriwelfare.gov.in/Documents/CWWGDATA/Agricultural_Statistics_at_a_Glance_2022_0.pdf">report</a> of the Department of
Agriculture and Farmer Welfare.

The migrant Baban will spend
mid-October to December in West Bengal, and then return home to Bihar for a
short hiatus. Come February, he will leave for the tea estates in Assam and
spend the next six to eight months of the tea picking season there. “There is
no place in Assam where I haven’t been to... Dibrugarh, Tejpur, Tinsukia,
Golaghat, Jorhat, Guwahati,” he reels off names of big towns and cities. 

The bamboo baskets he makes in Assam
are referred to as dhoko. In relation
to the duli, the dhoko is much smaller in height – all of three feet. These are used
while picking tea leaves. He makes as many as 400 baskets in a month, often on
order from tea estates who provide accommodation and bamboo while he is at
work. 

“Baans
ka kaam kiya, gobar ka kaam kiya, maati ka kaam kiya, kheti mein kaam kiya, ice
cream ka bhi kaam kiya…[I have done bamboo work, I have done clay work, I have
worked in cow dung, I have been practising agriculture, and I even sold
ice-creams for a living.]” says the versatile Baban, describing his work
through the year. 

If basket orders in
Assam fall short, he makes a detour to Rajasthan or Delhi and sells ice creams
as a street vendor. There are other men in his village who do the same, so he
hops onto the bandwagon when necessary. “Rajasthan,
Delhi, Assam, Bengal - my whole life is spent between these places,” he says.

Despite his decades as a craftsman,
Baban is not registered and does not have a <a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1945169#:~:text=Registered%20artisans%20with%20Pehchan%20card,CHCDS)%20of%20Ministry%20of%20Textiles">artisan identity card</a> (Pehchan card) issued by the Office of
the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts (under the Ministry of Textiles).
It gives the artisan a formal identity to avail of various government schemes
and access to loans, pension, eligibility for awards recognising craftsmanship,
as well as skill upgradation and infrastructure support. 

“There are lots of us [craftspersons], but who is bothered about the poor? Everyone is after their own
pockets,” says Baban, who doesn’t even have a bank account. “I have brought up
my eight children. Now, for as long as I can muster the energy, I will earn and
eat. What do I want more than this? What [else] can one do?”This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

The Bihari bamboo basket maker

بانس کی ٹوکری بنانے والے بہاری کاریگر

பிகாரின் மூங்கில் கூடை செய்பவர்

ਬਿਹਾਰੀ ਬਾਂਸ ਟੋਕਰੀ ਨਿਰਮਾਤਾ

ବିହାରୀ ବାଉଁଶ ଝୁଡ଼ି କାରିଗର

ബിഹാറിയായ മുളങ്കൊട്ട നെയ്ത്തുകാരൻ

ಬಿಹಾರಿ ಬಿದಿರಿನ ಬುಟ್ಟಿ ತಯಾರಕ

બિહારના વાંસની ટોપલી બનાવનારા

बांस के टुकना बनेइय्या बिहारी कारीगर

बिहार के दुली वाला बब्बन महतो

বিহাৰৰ ডুলি নিৰ্মাতাসকল

बांस की डुली बनाने वाले बिहारी कारीगर

বাঁশের ঝুড়ির ওস্তাদ বিহারী কারিগর বাবন মাহাতো

Alipurduar

01-IMG20240413091617-JH-Gondias_poor_still_bank_on_3Ms-Mahua_MNREGA_and_Mi.jpg

A
sweet, nutty, intoxicating fragrance wafts across the narrow alleys of Arattondi
village. 

In
the front yard of every house, a magnificent hue of yellow, green and brown mahua flowers are drying on bamboo mats,
soft rugs and mud floors. Brown flowers are the hardened, sun-dried version of
freshly plucked yellow and green flowers. 

Elections
are round the corner, and mahua is in
season in Gondia, Maharashtra.

“Mahua in April, tendu leaves in May,” Sarthika Kailash Aade quips. “This is what
we have here.” Every morning, the 35-year-old and other villagers belonging to
the Mana and Gond tribe spend 4-5 hours in the surrounding forests, collecting
the soft flowers that fall from the tall mahua
trees, their leaves now in shades of red. By noon, the mercury is at 41 degrees Celsius, and the heat is enervating.

Each mahua tree yields an average 4-6 kilograms of flowers.
People from Arattondi village (also called Araktondi by locals) collect it in bamboo cans or plastic sacks and bring it
home to dry in the sun. A kilo of dried mahua earns them Rs. 35-40 a kilogram and each person can collect an
average 5-7 kilos every day.

The mahua (Madhuca longifolia) tree holds an unparalleled cultural, divine and
economic significance in the lives of tribal populations across central and
eastern India. In the Adivasi hinterland of Gondia district in eastern Vidarbha
– including the strife-torn Gadchiroli district – mahua is a major source of livelihood. According to the 2011 census, Scheduled Castes make up for 13.3 per cent, and Scheduled Tribes, 16.2 per cent of the population. The other option for people here is the
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) programme.

In
the dry-land, small-scale farming villages, as farm-work perishes and off-farm
is hard to find, millions spend hours every day in April collecting the
flowers, on their own farms or in the surrounding forested areas of
Arjuni-Morgaon tehsil. Forests
occupy 51 per cent of the land in Gondia, nearly half of it is protected area,
according to the <a href="https://cdn.s3waas.gov.in/s346922a0880a8f11f8f69cbb52b1396be/uploads/2022/10/2022101353.pdf">2022 district
social and economic review</a>. 

A
2019 study on the status of mahua
production and tribal livelihood – an initiative of the Mumbai School of
Economics and Public Policy (MSE&amp;PP), found that the eastern Vidarbha
region collects approximately 1.15 lakh metric tons (MT) of mahua. Gondia
district’s share is a little over 4,000 MT and Gadchiroli accounted for a
whopping 95 per cent of the total state production, says Dr. Neeraj Hatekar, well-known economist and MSE&amp;PP’s former director.

A kilo of mahua
means one man-hour of labour, the study found. Thousands of families spend 5-6
hours a day in April collecting mahua
flowers.

The
neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh is the big collection hub for the aggregated
mahua flowers, mainly used in liquor
production, food products, and as cattle feed.

“The flowers aggregated are much less than the
actual production,” Dr. Hatekar says. “The reasons are manifold, but mainly
this activity is laborious and very time-consuming.” He has suggested radical
reforms to mahua policy in
Maharashtra where liquor made from the flowers is illegal. He also adds that
measures to stabilise the prices, streamline the value chain, and organise the
markets will benefit the largely Gond tribal population who depend on it.

There’s
no possibility of Sarthika ever reading Arvind Panagariya’s <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/dont-lose-sleep-over-inequality/">‘</a><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/dont-lose-sleep-over-inequality/">Don’t lose
sleep over inequality.’</a> The article was published on April 2, 2024, in the Times of India, one of the leading
English dailies. Panagariya is unlikely to ever meet Sarthika either.

Their
worlds don’t intersect at any point.

Panagariya
is probably in the top one per cent of India’s income bracket, not in the elite
dollar billionaire league, but the influential policy maker’s league.

Sarthika
and her village folks are among the country’s poorest and most powerless – the
bottom 10 per cent. Their households are devoid of amenities – the family’s
income does not exceed Rs. 10,000 a month, she says, from all sources. 

The mother-of-two says – and others around her nod in a
resounding affirmation – that their living is only getting harder by day. And
she is losing sleep over spiralling inflation and stagnating avenues for
earning an income.

“Everything
is becoming expensive,” Araktondi’s women say. “Edible oil, sugar, vegetables,
fuel, electricity, transport, stationary, garments.” The list goes on.

Sarthika’s
family has less than an acre of rain-dependent land on which they grow paddy.
It gives them about 10 quintals of harvest, with hardly any marketable surplus
for year-long returns. 

What
do tribals like Sarthika do then?

“Three
things are the backbone of our livelihood March through May”, says Alka Madavi,
a community resource person in the village for Umed – the state rural
livelihood mission.  

She
lists them out: minor forest produce – mahua
in April, tendu leaves in May;
MGNREGA work, and cheap foodgrains given by the state. “If you remove the three,
we will either permanently migrate for work to cities, or die of hunger
here,” says Madavi who steers the self-help groups here. 

Sarthika
and her community of Gonds spend five hours in the mornings collecting mahua from surrounding forests, five to
six hours constructing a road under MGNREGA, and the evenings doing their
household chores – cooking, washing, rearing the livestock, tending to
children, and cleaning. At the worksite, Sarthika fills up the plastic pans
with the lumps of hard soil, and her friends lift them on their heads and dump
them on the roads. The men level it later. Each one of them makes several trips
up and down from the farm pits to the road site.

For a
day’s work, their wage: Rs. 150, according to the rate card. Along with earnings from mahua in season, they can make Rs. 250-300 working through the day.
Come May, and they enter forests to collect tendu
leaves.

Ironically,
MGNREGA remains the only livelihood for the poor in large parts of the country
despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly deriding it as the Congress
party’s ‘living monument of failure’. Ten years of his rule, the demand for
MGNREGA has only gone up in 2024, say the women who spend six-seven hours under
MGNREGA, and this includes educated men and women.

It
will take hundreds of years for Sarthika and the other women to make the
equivalent of a day’s income of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. Unequal
incomes, wrote economist Panagriya, is something we should be losing our sleep
over.

“I
don’t have a farm or any other work,” says Samita Aade, 45, also a Mana while
sweating it out at the MGNREGA worksite. “Rozgar
hami [MGNREGA] is the only work we can get to fetch some income.” Sarthika and others are demanding “better wages and work round the year.”Contestation over forest offerings has intensified in the past few years,
Samita hints, as more and more people fall back on the forest-based livelihoods
in the absence of work round the year. Araktondi lies near the forested
landscape south of the Navegaon National Park, and has not yet got community
forest rights under the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-scheduled-tribes-and-other-traditional-forest-dwellers-recognition-of-forest-rights-act-2006/">Forest Rights
Act</a>.

“But,” chips in Sarthika, “there’s a fourth
[livelihood] – seasonal migration.”

Every
year, October through February, nearly half the village leave their homes for
far-away places to work in others’ fields, industry or work sites.

“My
husband and I went to Yadgir in Karnataka this year to work in paddy fields,”
says Sarthika. “We were a group of 13 men and women who did all the farm work
in one village and returned late February.” That annual income is a major
support.

The
rice bowl and forest-rich districts of eastern Vidarbha – Bhandara, Gondia,
Gadchiroli, Chandrapur and Nagpur– are a total of five parliamentary
constituencies. They vote in the first phase of the 2024 General Elections on
April 19. 

There’s
stark disillusionment among the Araktondi villagers with the political classes
and the bureaucracy due to their complete apathy for the people. There is also
palpable anger among the poorest, over the Modi-government’s 10 years for
making their lives harder.

“Nothing has changed for us,” Sarthika
says.  “We got cooking gas, but it’s very
expensive; the wages are the same; and there’s no steady work round the year.”

There
is greater resentment for Sunil Mendhe, the Member of Parliament who’s been
fielded again by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the Bhandara-Gondia
constituency. “He’s never come to our village,” is the common refrain in this
large constituency of mainly rural masses.

Mendhe
takes on Dr. Prashant Padole from the Congress in a direct contest.

The Araktondi villagers haven’t forgotten their treacherous and painful walk back home during
the first covid-19 lockdown in the summer of 2021.

On
April 19, when they go to cast their vote, they say, it would possibly be after
spending five hours in the morning collecting mahua. They would most certainly lose a day’s wage since the
MGNREGA worksite would be shut down, they say.

Who
would they vote for?

They don’t reveal the choice explicitly, but do
remark, “old times were better”.

Gondia's poor still bank on 3Ms: mahua, MNREGA and migration

گوندیا: مہوا، منریگا، مہاجرت پر منحصر غریبوں کی زندگی

ಮಹುವಾ, ಮನರೇಗಾ, ವಲಸೆ: ಗೊಂಡಿಯಾದ ಬಡವರ ಜೀವನಾಧಾರ

मोह, मनरेगा आणि स्थलांतरावर गोंदियाच्या गरिबांची मदार

Jhairpara, Arjuni Morgaon Taluka, Gondiya District, Maharashtra, 441701, India

01-9885B581EBA3-AS-In_Palamu-Who_cares_about_the_farmer.jpg

“Paper was
accurate. With the machine you never know which button is being pressed, and
who is getting the vote!” 



So Kalmudin
Ansari says he definitely prefers paper ballots over EVMs (electronic voting
machines). A resident of Kumni village in Palamu, the 52-year-old is at the
local maweshi (cattle) market, a white gamcha wrapped around his
head as protection from the blistering April sun here in Jharkhand. The gamcha is a thin, coarse cotton cloth, traditionally used as a towel, a scarf, or even a turban; It&#39;s also a sartorial garment with adaptive qualities. Kalmudin has
walked 13 kilometres to this weekly cattle market at Pathar to sell his ox. “We
need money,” he says.



Last year
(2023), his paddy crop was completely ruined. He sowed mustard in the rabi season, but a third was lost to
pests. “We harvested about 2.5 quintals. All of that went into paying off
debts,” Kalmudin says.



A farmer,
Kalmudin cultivates four bigha
(almost three acres), and is reeling under multiple debts to local
moneylenders. “Bahut paisa le lewa le [They
have taken a lot of money],” he says and also adds that the five rupees monthly
interest for every hundred borrowed, is crippling, “I borrowed 16,000 rupees,
now it&#39;s become 20,000, but I have only paid 5,000 of it.” 



His only option now is to sell his ox. “Isiliye kisan churmura jata hai. Kheti kiye
ki bail becha gaya [This is why the farmer faces hardships. I practise
agriculture and end up selling my ox], says Kalmudin who had hoped for rain in
2023.

In
Jharkhand, <a href="https://finance.jharkhand.gov.in/pdf/Budget_2024_25/Jharkhand_Economic_Survey_2023_24.pdf">70 per </a>cent of farmers own
less than a hectare of land. Almost all (<a href="https://www.jharkhand.gov.in/agriculture">92
per cent) </a>of the cultivated
land depends on rainfall, wells only accounting for a third (<a href="https://finance.jharkhand.gov.in/pdf/Budget_2024_25/Jharkhand_Economic_Survey_2023_24.pdf">33 per cent) </a>of  irrigation needs. Small farmers like Kalmudin
are not taking any chances with their harvest, and borrow money for seeds and
fertilisers. 



So, in the
coming General Elections 2024, he says that whoever arranges for irrigation in
his village will get his vote. Living 1,000 kilometres from New Delhi, with
neither a television nor a smartphone, he says he is unaware of the national
news on electoral bonds. 



At the market,
after nearly three hours of negotiating with different customers, Kalmudin
finally sold his ox for Rs. 5,000; he had been hoping to get Rs. 7,000. After selling his ox, Kalmudin has two cows and
a calf, and he is hoping to hang on to them while still providing for his
family of seven. “We will vote for those who will do something for the
farmers,” he says firmly. The state
has been badly hit by successive droughts: in 2022, almost the entire state – <a href="https://msry.jharkhand.gov.in">226
blocks</a> - was declared
drought-affected. The next year (2023), <a href="https://x.com/JharkhandCMO/status/1745094598278492162?s=20">158 blocks</a> faced
drought.

Here in
Palamu district, all 20 blocks had a rain deficit last year and so this year,
the relief money pledged by the state – Rs.3,500 per farmer family – is a
talking point for General Elections, as many are yet to receive it. “I gave
money to fill out the drought relief form. I gave 300 rupees one year [2022]
and 500 rupees the next [2023]. But I haven’t received anything yet,” says Sona
Devi. 



It&#39;s around
noon and the temperature is a scorching 37 degrees Celsius here in Baranw
village of Jharkhand. The 50-year-old Sona Devi is splitting wood with a chisel
and a hammer. The wood is for cooking. After her husband, Kamesh Bhuiya
suffered a paralytic stroke last year, Sona Devi has taken up this chore. The
couple belong to the  <a href="https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/558">Bhuiya Dalit</a> community
and depend on agriculture for their livelihood. 
 
Kamesh says he campaigned for the sitting MLA Alok Chaurasiya in 2014,
collecting over Rs. 6,000 rupees for his election campaign, but the lawmaker
“hasn&#39;t visited our area even once in the last 10 years.”



Their
two-room mud house looks out upon the 15 katha
(roughly half an acre) of land they own. “For two years, there hasn&#39;t been
any farming. Last year [2022], there was no water at all. This year [2023]
there was a little rain, but the paddy nursery didn&#39;t grow well,” says Sona. When this
reporter posed a question on the General Elections to her, she shot back at
him: “Who is asking us? Only during the time of voting, do they [politicians]
come calling us ‘didi [sister], bhaiya [brother] and chacha [paternal uncle]. After winning,
they won&#39;t even recognise us.” Sona Devi is reeling under a Rs. 30,000
debt after two consecutive droughts and expenses for her husband&#39;s stroke. “We
will vote for the party that will help us.”Looking at this reporter she adds, “if you go
[to meet the politicians], they will make you sit on a chair. To us, they will
tell us to wait outside.”

Malti Devi,
45, is Sona’s neighbour and also a farmer. She cultivates a bigha (less than an acre) and also works
as a farm labourer. “We used to get at least 15 quintals of rice only through bataiya [tenant farming] of other land,
separate from ours [one bigha]. This
year we cultivated potatoes, but we didn’t get enough to sell in the market,”
she adds.



A happy
recipient of a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, she says the
allotment has made her switch to voting for Modi from panja chap, the election symbol of the Congress party. “We discuss
the issues among other women in the village and then decide [collectively] who
to vote for. Some of us need a hand pump, some need a well, some need a colony.
Whoever fulfils these, we will vote for them,” she adds.

“Pulses,
wheat, rice, everything is expensive,” says Asha Devi, a resident of Palamu’s
Chianki village. The couple are in their thirties and have six children;
husband Sanjay Singh, 35, works as a labourer. The family belong to the <a href="https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/558">Chero tribe – </a>one
of the 32 scheduled tribes in Jharkhand. “In a good agriculture season, we
would have enough food for two years. Now, same thing we are buying,” she adds.




However,
when asked if she would vote on issues such as inflation and drought, Asha Devi
responds saying, “log kahata hai ki badi
mahangayi hai kuch nahi kar rahe hai Modi ji. General humlog to usi ko abhi bhi
chun rahe hai. [People say there&#39;s a lot of inflation, Modi ji isn&#39;t doing
anything. But we&#39;re still choosing him],” she firmly told this reporter. She
also said that they can only manage to send one child to private school, paying
a fee of Rs. 1,600. 



In the 2019
General Elections, Bhartiya Janta Party&#39;s Vishnu Dayal Ram secured victory with
62 per cent of the total votes. He won against Rashtriya Janata Dal&#39;s Ghuran
Ram. This year, Vishnu Dayal Ram is once again the BJP candidate, while
Rastriya Janata Dal is yet to announce their candidate. The constituency has
over 18 lakh voters. 



Besides inflation, drought is a real concern.
“People here have to think about water even for drinking. Many wells in the
villages are dry. The hand pump releases water very late,” says Asha Devi and,
“since the canal was built, there has never been water in it.”

Her
neighbour and fellow tribesman, Amrika Singh incurred a loss of Rs. three lakhs
in the last two years. He says, “earlier, even if nothing else, we could still
grow vegetables. But this year, my well has dried up.” 
Like other
farmers across Palamu, Amrika also highlighted the water scarcity in the
region. “Without water, there is no meaning to agriculture. How much farming
can we do with water from the well.”



The Mandal
Dam on the North Koel river was supposed to help. “Leaders just make empty
promises. Modi said in <a href="https://www.landconflictwatch.org/conflicts/mandal-dam-displaced-people-angry-over-re-construction-plan#:~:text=In%202015%2C%20the%20Ministry%20of,work%20is%20yet%20to%20restart.">2019</a> that a gate would
be installed in the Mandal Dam. If it was installed, there would have been a
water supply,” says Amrika Singh. “Who cares about the farmer? Look at how much
the farmers have protested, demanding fair prices, yet nothing has changed. The
government favours Adani and Ambani, waiving their loans. But what about the
farmer?”   
 
“Look, right now it&#39;s the BJP government. Whatever little we&#39;re receiving, it&#39;s
because of them. Suppose they haven&#39;t done anything, then the other party
hasn&#39;t done anything either,” says farmer Surender. He brushes off issues of
electoral bonds and unemployment saying, “those are issues for the big people.
We aren&#39;t that educated… The biggest problem in Palamu district is irrigation.
Farmers here are desperate for water.” 



Surender owns five bigha (3.5 acres) of land in Palamu’s Baranw village and depends on
the rain to cultivate. “People sit and gamble. We gamble in farming.”