The Chhattisgarh Dilemma:

The tagline of the small lodge like hotel that we stayed at in Kawardha said ‘Temple. Tribals. Trees. Tigers.’  Apart from the Bhoramdeo temple which is a smaller replica of Khajuraho but with tribal features, I’m not too aware of temples of Chhattisgarh. As for tigers, there are a few tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries on paper yet nobody knows anything about them. But what you can see everywhere in this state are tribals and trees. Lots and lots of them.

Carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, Chhattisgarh now has 27 districts. Whether it’s for better administration or making politicians happy, is something which is debatable.  What can’t be debated however is the beauty of this state. Chhattisgarh is exquisitely rural and thick with trees. The forests and hills have largely evergreen Sal and Mahua; while the plains are filled with trees which are huge, full of character and gnarled with age and wisdom like Mahua, tamarind, peepal, mango, leechi, banyan and many more which I couldn’t recognise.

(a beautiful full grown mango tree)

Most of the tribals are abysmally poor with only a few options to eke out a living – like farming in land less than an acre, labour work and collection of tendu leaves, mahua flowers and sal seeds as per season. To give a perspective, the Forest Department (now regulated) pays Rs.100/- for 100 bundles consisting of 50 tendu leaves in each.

  (a tribal woman making tendu bundles)

Since our plan was to see the collection of tendu leaves (used for making beedis) which happen early in the morning (to avoid the heat) we decided to stay back at a village. After a refreshing bath in the open at night (as that’s the only time for women to feel comfortable) we had simple food cooked over a chulha and slept in the open. By morning the temperature had dropped drastically and I shivered under a cover wondering how much difference trees can make!

Early morning, we followed a few tribals into the nearby forest which was devoid of wildlife. What left me uneasy was the technique the tribals used to collect the leaves. They usually do not allow a tendu tree to grow and keep cutting it down...so that tender new leaves will grow. Often they put fire to the forest, so that from the ash new tendu plants will grow which will fetch them good leaves. Not surprisingly, one can hardly find any full grown tendu trees in the forests these days. The tendu fruit, a better tasting version of chiku is a rare find here. But if you stop the tribals from doing this, you take away their one source of livelihood; and if you don’t you let an existing forest get depleted.

(a hacked tendu tree)

Our next stop was Sarguja district which is situated in the Sarguja highlands, an extension of the Chotanagpur Plateau.  Replete with mythology as the place where Sita was kidnapped from, Sarguja is thickly forested and more beautiful than Kawardha. Here in the midst of a thick healthy evergreen forest we saw signs of a strange campaign run by the state forest department called ‘Bigre Vano ka Sudhar’ or regeneration of degraded forests. The forest nowhere looked degraded but was infact an elephants’ corridor and full of wildlife including bears. Looking closer, we found that most trees had cuts around the bark, a method used by the tribals to kill off a tree slowly. Things suddenly fell into place when we were told that the area was being surveyed by infrastructure companies and power plants. What best way to give away prime forest land than by killing off trees and declaring it degraded.

Chhattisgarh has an abundance of natural wealth which even the tribals in an effort to live a decent life, are forgetting. Tribals like Pahari Korbas who till now only lived in deep forests are cutting down trees to make space for agriculture and roads. A pristine land devoid of urban waste like plastic is slowly and surely headed for a similar fate like that of rest of India.

(a village inside a forest - full of natural wealth)

Just where to stop so that the tribals can have a better life and the natural wealth can also be saved is a huge task for all concerned, be it the government, the ngos, environmentalists or even its people.

Time however is slowly running out.

The (un)ordinariness of Mumbai:

A girl in a very short skirt and high boots walked down the crowded streets of Dadar nonchalantly. None of the street vendors who were sitting on the road even looked up to see her pass.

This was a scene way back in 1992, which as an outsider visiting the city had fired my imagination. Freedom to live life the way I wanted it seemed to be here in Mumbai. It took me around 15 years since then to finally find my way into this city. But when I came here I saw a city which was fraying at the edges and its people edgy and guarded. The riots of 1992 and a series of disasters after that had completely changed the fabric of the city. And post the economic boom of the 90s, people started flooding in leading to overcrowding, traffic, too many buildings, chaos, cheating and callousness. Like Elizabeth Gilbert mentions in her book Eat Pray Love, the word that described Mumbai had shifted from ‘carefree’ to ‘struggle’ over these years.  That scene and that carefree world is nowhere to be found anymore.

But despite that, Mumbai continues to hold its lure on many people, a pull which only an outsider like me will ever understand. The city still has the innate ability to draw you in, make you dream and virtually spin you around till it decides that it’s okay with you. The moment the city accepts you, it lets you be and lets you find your own warm corner or space.

And in the daily chaos and humdrum of regular life, you can still find hidden the warmth and remnants of a carefree life. A taxi driver who at 2 am will take the straight route to your home and quietly wake you up on reaching the destination;  a guy who will continue to hold his girlfriend’s hand standing by the door till the train picks up speed;  an old man who will buy a packet of Parle G everyday and feed the society dogs; a commuter who hurrying to catch a train stops to make sure that the tiny kitten is out of harm’s way; five hands that reaches out to pull the person trying to board a running train; or an auto wala who will defy the strike and backlash to ferry somebody in dire need.

One evening, I was waiting for the three young girls dressed in salwar kurta to get down from the auto. It was apparent that they were excited about something. After I sat down, one of them shyly told the auto driver to give her a call. A quick exchange of phone numbers and names happened post which they went away giggling.

I smiled to myself thinking of a possible romance unfolding. In a seemingly unfeeling city, perhaps all is not really lost.   

Living ‘inside’ the Earth:

I am not too fond of children. I would rather they stay at other people’s homes. Yet even I agree that all children should be given education, which will give them an opportunity to explore possibilities in their lives in future.

For the government saddled with various issues, education is the softest one because there is no controversy or opposition attached to it. All CSOs, citizens, officials, media, world are on the same platform. Yet it took the government more than 60 years to get it right.

Well almost.

The SC’s upholding of 25% reservation of seats across all schools under RTE (Right to Education Act) is being touted as historic by many and is also being seen as ‘the great leveler’. I am going to take a lot of flak from many people for saying this – but forcing 25% reservation in all schools for economically and socially poor students will not lead to equality.  

Social and economic equality as far as I see, exists in a utopian world....in the world of Any Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and not in the current world as we know it. There will always be rich and poor, intelligent and dumb, smart and lazy, powerful and marginalised people. Forcing one on the other in order to gain equality on paper is so not equal or even fair. All idealistic Communist countries have also failed terribly in this aspect.

Like Gandhi calling untouchables Harijan, like reserving jobs for SCs and STs, even this might lead to more widening of the gap than before (apart from creating monetary and social peer pressures on both sides). And though this seems like a good excuse for the government to shrug off responsibility in the urban areas, what about creating opportunity of good education for children in rural India where most villages have access to only government schools? And what about the rest of the 75% in urban areas?

 I have been to government schools in Mumbai where Std 8 students have told me that all living beings live ‘inside’ the Earth. So when a rocket is set off, the Earth parts and it goes into the sky! I have heard teachers explain to the students that only one Emperor Penguin lays an egg and the rest huddles to give that egg warmth!

Like all great laws of India, the RTE (Right to Education) also seems excellent on paper and has the possibility of turning things around if implemented correctly. But with school teachers who cannot spell BLACK, the future of the children with or without RTE does not seem too bright and with that the future of the country too.  

Because half education I feel is far more dangerous than no education at all.

Nature of Greed:

At what point in our lives do we say – that’s enough? 

Is it after you get your first house or going by the rate of inflation now, your second house? Or is it after you’ve stuffed your wardrobe with Gucci bags, Jimmy Choo shoes and Paris Hilton perfumes (eww!)? Or is it after your tenth trip to Milan or London just to buy certain products available there? 

I know of people who run up to Rs. 20,000 in credit card bills every month and still crib that they don’t have any money. I also know of people who own two or more loan free houses in Mumbai or Delhi and still say that they don’t have anything.  

A few years back, when I decided to move out of corporate life and take the plunge into social sector, I took up a job which paid me barely enough to meet my expenses (like rent, monthly household items, travel to office and saving Rs. 1000/- per month). I lived for a year without buying a single piece of new cloth, shoes or anything else for that matter and piled on my friends who happily (or so I would like to believe) took me out for movies and dinner. I would not like to go back to that stage of life (financially) ever, but those months made me realise how far ahead we have gone in pursuing superficial stuffs and in our greed to accumulate.

My work thereafter has taken me to many villages, some even in remote areas. Strangely, I have found that the poorer a community is, the more generous they are. If they don’t have milk, they will serve you black tea. If they don’t have tea leaves, they will collect money and get you a soft drink. They might not have bed to sleep but they will make sure you don’t sit on the naked floor. They might not get full ration from the ration shop but they will make sure you eat a hearty meal. And if anything catches your fancy like a piece of handicraft, cloth etc, they will immediately take it down and shove it in your hands to take home.

One foreign delegate visiting us had once asked me – why is that the city people are so serious and unhappy and these (village) folks are always smiling. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? 

When do we take a real DEEP look at ourselves and try and answer that question honestly.

Mainstreaming of Tribes versus Environment:

It’s interesting to see how views differ in different sectors. My friends from the corporate sector feel that tribes should be urbanised. They should also get what we have. While people in the social sector feel that they should live their traditional way of life protected by various government laws and schemes (required as people from the cities can do anything to take their land and life away) and still get all modern facilities.

There are more than 600 scheduled tribes in India. Mind you, not all of them are under-clothed, overly tattooed forest dwelling people as many tend to think when one says ‘tribes’. There are many tribes who now live very close to urban areas and have adapted to urban culture well. Those tribes who live in remote areas and have distinctive features, attire and lifestyle are called Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.

My views on mainstreaming of tribes are conflicting and on the opposite ends of a spectrum. To my corporate friends I end up saying, let them be. While to the NGOs, I say get them out of the forest, let the animals be.

Let me try and explain.

Korkus of Melghat:

 I went to a village which lives in the buffer zone of the Melghat Tiger Reserve. They farm for livelihood and sometimes go out of the village looking for labour work. Due to the work of an NGO there, they have got land rights, diesel engines for water pump, relatively better roads, school, market linkage etc. Many have motorcycles. The younger lot wants a stake in the common forest land so that they can use it for grazing of animals and sell forest produce. They said ‘give us the forest land and we will conserve it’ while the older lot lamented the thinning of forest around. A group had once gone to Nagpur and found the concept of toilets in a building ridiculous. I felt a pang when I left the village – I would also never like to live in any place if I were living in a forest. But looking down from the turn at the top of a hill, the village appeared like a big gash in the green all around and with population increasing the gash will continue to grow.

Baigas of Chhattisgarh:  

They live in remote regions, in forests which have so far been untouched by modern humans. They don’t have much idea about government schemes, earning money for future, education etc. Their needs are limited – a good (liveable) house, medical facilities and some source of livelihood and food security. Since the state government was unable to reach out to all of them, they asked the Baigas to come down or out of their forests so that they could avail of government schemes. But like most governments, promises have not been fulfilled leaving the tribe with nothing. On the other hand, mining companies are throwing them out by giving them a lakh of rupees as compensation which they have no idea what to do with.

Kutia Kondhs of Orissa:

I have not gone to any village of this tribe but I know these tribes and many similar ones are closest to the forests they live in. They still practice ancient forms of living like hunting and gathering of food and they worship nature. They see wealth in the form of trees around them and not money as we know it. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t need us or any government schemes.

To the first, I will say get them out of the forest. They are modern people with modern demands and have cell phones and TV. With the way human greed works, they will soon forget their roots – that is the forest. The younger lot thinks about earning money first and then conservation.

To the second, I will say give them what they want because their needs are less. Give them a home near their forest and let them use it for livelihood. Provide them with health facilities, food they are used to (kodu-kutki and not polished rice) and education that they can use (like natural resource management etc). They are not yet ready for the transition....so let them be.

To the third, I can only hope and pray that the forest cover remains as much and not cut down by people or mowed down by mining companies, so that they can live life their way – in touch with nature. (Story of a Sacred Mountain)

To both sides I would say, we should know where the limits are and learn to draw the line there.

How fundamental are our duties:

Here’s a situation.

Meena and her husband, along with their 3 daughters and 1 son travel all the way from a village in UP to Mumbai in search of a job. They come to Mumbai where even a kholi in a slum is expensive. So they go to the slums of Malvani near Malad and negotiate for a place. The land all around on which the slum is built is illegal, grabbed by some muscle-man and then sold to these hapless migrants for as much as Rs. 3 lakhs. The worst areas in the slum are given at a rate of Rs. 90000/- for a 10ft by 12ft plot. The kholis are built with bamboo and tin sheets so that if razed by police, they can be rebuilt. Needless to say, there is no drinking water, sanitation, education etc.

In comes an NGO who works with the urban poor and moved by their plight decides to fight for their basic rights. So they are told about their rights, taught some slogans (zindabad being the most used), rallies and meetings held etc. With the success that most families get ration card, identity proof, ICDS (Integrated Child Development Service) in schools, and perhaps water too (thus beginning the process of institutionalising an illegal slum...which anyway is a different story)

Then a few foreign delegates come to see the NGO’s work and ‘poverty’ in the cities. There’s an interactive session, where these slum members asks the delegates about the benefits they get from their government. Post which a leader from the slum community rises and matter of factly declares “Your government gives you so much. Our government is bad.” All NGO people proudly clap...their job is done.

Nothing wrong, you might say but this kind of situation always gets my goat. I end up fuming. NGOs and government works in the same space. Yet what I have never understood is why the flow of information is only one way. Yes, I know that our government is corrupt, inept, inefficient and now suppressive. But some of our laws (whatever little I understand of them) are great. So if at one hand you want to avail of all these rights and laws, don’t you in return need to give some things back to the government?  Most NGOs fail to tell people what their basic duties are and should be.

So, after getting water in the slums, taps are left open. Garbage is thrown everywhere except the dustbins, people will have 5 children when the government asks you to have 2. Even an NGO working for pure conservation fails to tell villagers the harms of using too many plastics.

Who then will show them the whole picture? Of rights and duties, of give and take, of use and misuse. That the governments of other countries can provide for them because people in turn also help the government achieve the goals.

If you give the people a full picture, then they will be able to take an educated decision. And that’s what will lead to real progress.        

Modern culture’s Superiority complex:

Let’s face it. Given a choice, don’t we all want to just relax, eat, drink, be with nature, live in a society which doesn’t have gender related issues and work only when we have to? Most of us will spend an entire lifetime working hard, following ambitions or fighting for rights so that in the end we individually get to that utopian state. 

Yet, when we see a tribal specially the PTGs (Primitive Tribal groups and now Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups) we automatically think of them as backward and in need of help. Why? Because they like to keep to themselves, wear little or no clothes at all, drink a lot, don’t own money as we know it, their idea of wealth is a few more trees than the next guy and they like to live life at their own pace. And in our well meaning but misplaced intentions, we rush to help them get their rights and make them live the ‘real’ life – in the modern world.

If we can ever stop rushing about and forming quick judgements, we will be able to see that their attitude, culture and lifestyle are far more superior to ours. They have a few things in place which we as ‘modern’ society have been striving for years to achieve. Firstly, their closeness to nature (many city friends might not agree though I think it’s very important). Secondly, their comfort with their body and sexual freedom. In many tribes women wear saris which are folded till knee length and no blouses and take bath in the open. Pre-marital sex is allowed in most tribes. In some tribes a woman chooses a husband by sleeping with him first. If she’s not happy with him sexually, she can leave him and chose another partner. Though an unwed mother is not likely to get married, she is accepted within the society and lead a full-fledged community life.  Thirdly, equality of gender. Women are not treated as submissive but as equal partners in a relationship. Husbands encourage their wives in anything she wants to so. Nobody frowns if a woman gets drunk.

Over the years, people have taken away their land, cut down forests, reviled them for not being conservative and treated their women badly. Livelihood issues have forced them to slowly adapt their lifestyles to ours. And with that, negative influences are slowly creeping into their culture and thinking like dowry system, cutting of trees for easy money, domestic violence etc.  

Whether it is limited media attention, the inability of NGOs to tell their stories or just plain lack of interest on our part but we know very little about them and their culture. We look at the western societies for answer to our ills. Maybe it’s time we start looking at our own backyard and discover the wealth there.