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When Mookambika’s grandfather caught her imitating Yakshagana movements, “he was very upset and scolded me.” He cautioned the teenage girl saying that women were not allowed to perform this folk-dance theatre from coastal Karnataka and Kasargod in Kerala.As a young girl, Mookambika Varamballi, now 75, was drawn to Yakshagana performances in her village, Marvi in Udupi district. These dance dramas here often stretched from dusk to dawn, and she recalls walking long distances with large groups of women, family and neighbours to watch. The following day, she would gather friends in her front yard, imitating the dance moves using bed sheets or towels as costumes for the prasanga (drama).“We used to perform in the front yard but only when my grandfather was not around” she says. “He believed Yakshagana was not meant for girls.”Yakshagana literally translates to ‘songs of the gods’ and has been performed across Coastal Karnataka, and in Kasaragod district of Kerala, for centuries. Using music, dance, dialogue and narration, the performance draws on stories from mythology and epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Yakshagana melas were often patronised by the prominent temples of the region.A physically vigorous art form, it is known locally as Gandu kale which literally translates to 'male art form.' The dance calls for high leaps and twirls which demand agility and fitness, typically considered the domain of men. When female characters had to be played, men stepped in.“The audience already knows the dramas and the stories,” says M.L. Samaga, veteran Yakshagana performer and former president of the Yakshagana Academy. “But they see it in a new light with every performance, and relive the experience each time. What draws them in is how an actor interprets a character differently.”

Mookambika Varamballi says she grew up watching her grandfather Marvi Ramakrishna Hebbar perform. He was a revered artist, but was not keen on her joining. In those days Yakshagana artists were underpaid and seen just as entertainers; they were not respected in society, she adds.But Mookambika, then in her early twenties, was not dissuaded: “I felt a deep urge to learn and perform Yakshagana.” Then employed by a bank, she looked around and found four to five women colleagues who also wanted to learn. They all had to take permission from their families to participate. The keen artist recalls asking her husband, a schoolteacher. He supported her decision, saying, “there are no restrictions in pursuing any art form.”The group struck lucky when they found a colleague at the bank, Sreedhar Aithal, who was a trained Yakshagana artist, and he agreed to teach them. The group practiced after work, diving into the complexities of this demanding art form. There was no looking back, and in December 1976, Mookambika Varamballi and her all-women troupe made history by performing for their bank’s recreation day.Their debut marked one of the earliest known instances of women taking the stage in Tulunadu, breaking the long-standing tradition of this male-dominated art form. “We had so many questions in our heads. How would people respond? Would they accept us?” she recalls. “But to our surprise, we received an encouraging response from the audience. Of course, there were a few who were not very keen on this experiment, but we were happy. The people came, they watched, and they enjoyed it.”With Mookambika playing the lead role, the group chose to learn a play titled Babruvahana Kalaga (Battle of Babruvahana). “People had their reservations,” she recalls. “They were sceptical, yet curious to see women wearing men’s costumes and performing both male and female characters in Yakshagana. But for us, the desire to learn and perform was stronger than all the speculation around us.”After their first performance, the troupe was invited to perform again in Mangalore. The next year, 1977, they were on stage to present Indrajeet Kalaga, and Mookambika portrayed Hanumantha.“People ask me if I was the first woman to enter the realm of Yakshagana. To claim that is difficult, as it is a vast region spanning Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada, and even Kasargod in Kerala,” says Mookambika.

The art enjoys a wide geography and women may have learned or even performed without leaving behind formal records. But since Yakshagana has historically been performed in the open, known as bayalatha, it is unlikely that women participated in melas as regular performers.Even to this date, melas feature Yakshagana in open fields on makeshift stages that run through the night. Troupes move from one village to another, setting up temporary stages and tents that double as green rooms.A handful of women did and do perform in melas but usually when their husbands are already part of the troupe, as musicians or performers. On such occasions they are paid. But no financial structure exists for women to sustain themselves solely through Yakshagana even though melas are booked years in advance and draw audiences from across social and economic strata.“Women performers are not taken seriously as traditional artists. Since they do not perform in the melas, their work has often been dismissed as hobbyist performance,” says Shruti Bangera, a research scholar at the Manipal Institute of Technology. She adds that most of the early women came from relatively well-off families, and often had jobs in banks. “They did not charge for their performances and continued to refuse personal compensation. That pattern remains. Even today, there are no women-led mela troupes,” adds Shruti, a Yakshagana artist herself.But experts say that Mookambika’s troupe formally opened a path that had long been closed. It paved the way for experimentation and bold departures from what was once a tightly guarded form. In all women troupes, performers take up men’s roles often those of rakshasas compelling them to alter their voices and meet the physical vigour such parts demand. In outdoor performances, the stree vesha – women’s roles – were for centuries carried by men, often exaggerated, sometimes reduced to caricature. With women performing them in melas, the roles discovered new textures and a different kind of presence.

Yakshagana also moved from only mela-like surroundings to more formal stage performances, and it became easier for women to perform. So, while women from across social backgrounds learn and perform Yakshagana, their opportunity is a cultural event – a staged gathering, and rarely the melas.In recent times it has gone even further: there have been experiments where men take on all the women’s roles and women step into men’s roles.

Yakshagana has two distinct styles: Tenkutittu and Badagatittu. Tenkutittu is primarily performed in southern Tulunadu – a region of Karnataka that lies on the coast of the Arabian Sea, i.e. Dakshina Kannada and Kasargod districts. Badagatittu is more common in the northern region and is performed in the interior parts of Udupi and Uttara Kannada.Mookambika initially learned and performed Tenkutittu but she was keen to learn Badagatittu, and so she and a few colleagues approached the Yakshagana Kendra to learn the Badagatittu style.The Yakshagana Kendra was established in Udupi in 1972 by Dr. K. Shivarama Karanth, a Jnanpith awardee. When Mookambika and her troupe approached Kendra, the teachers agreed to train them whenever they could find time outside their regular classes. After two to three months of training, they were ready to perform Tamradhwaja Kalaga when a co-founder of the Kendra who was an influential figure in coastal Karnataka's cultural community, dropped by unannounced to watch.Mookambika recalls him saying, “women should not perform Yakshagana.” Promptly after that he placed a board at the Yakshagana Kendra stating that female students would not be taught there.“I cried so much after this incident,” she told PARI.

But the group of 10 women picked themselves up and sought training from Hiriyadka Gopal Rai. The group called themselves the “Syndicate Bank Recreation Club Mahila Dashaavatara Mela’.Training was intense and Mookambika recalls experiencing dizziness. When she collapsed one day, she went for a check and found that she was four months pregnant. So, in 1981, she decided to take a year-long break from Yakshagana.When she resumed, performances of the mahila Yakshagana were met with enthusiasm. Changes in the seventies were not institutional reforms but individual breakthroughs that gathered into something larger over time, she says. “We did not perform in the melas, the all-night village shows that travel from village to village, but were invited instead to auditoriums, cultural gatherings, and staged events.” Her troupe was invited to perform at several events across North and South Canara districts, Bangalore, Goa, and Andhra Pradesh.“Mookambika was a pioneer in bringing women onto the Yakshagana stage,” says M.L. Samaga. The veteran artist reiterates that since women performers do not charge, they are not taken seriously, and women-led troupes have remained largely confined to leisure performances, never truly evolving into professional Yakshagana troupes that tour and perform regularly like their male counterparts.

“Yakshagana is still dominated by men, not only in performance but also in areas like make-up and costume preparation. Regular overnight performances in different parts of the region make it difficult for women to commit long-term,” adds Samaga.The women performers were sometimes met with derision – some onlookers mocked when they performed male roles. But overall, their shows met with a heart-warming response. Mookambika recalls receiving an anonymous letter that read, “We were all curious whether women could execute the energy and stamina required. But after watching your performance, we were amazed. You have done justice to this attempt.” She notes that letters of appreciation far outnumbered those of criticism.

For the next 10 years, Mookambika and her troupe of women Yakshagana artists continued to perform; she took a break in the nineties.Life came full circle when her daughter, Sahana Varamballi, then a high school student, wanted to perform Yakshagana at a school function. She was also turned down at the Yakshagana Kendra, a place her mother was once rejected. The staff suggested Sahana and Mookambika approach the Kendra’s founder, Dr. K. Shivarama Karanth, for permission.

Mookambika recalls, “My daughter and I went to Dr. Karanth’s house. I was restless and slightly angry about past restrictions, and when we met him, I burst out about my passion for Yakshagana and my daughter’s desire to learn it.”Dr. Karanth took a moment to respond. He said, “the Yakshagana Kendra was established to teach Yakshagana to anyone interested. There should be no objections to anyone learning Yakshagana based on gender, anyone and everyone is welcome to learn the art form.”Mookambika’s pioneering efforts had a lasting impact, experts say. More women are embracing Yakshagana. “The exaggerated, broad, and open movements, typically considered atypical for a ‘feminine’ body, are found to be liberating,” explains Shruti. “And there is also the desire among women to play and explore male roles over the traditional streevesha [female characters].”Yakshagana has danced its way into the daily lives of homemakers, many of whom now take up the art weekly for joy and recreation. “They are the new storytellers of the old ways,” Shruti adds.This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

Yakshagana’s women performers take the stage

যক্ষগণত মহিলাৰ বাবে ঠাই উলিওৱা আগৰণুৱা মুকাম্বিকা   

দিনবদলের মঞ্চে নারী যক্ষগান শিল্পীরা 

મંચ પર છવાઈ ગયેલા યક્ષગાના મહિલા કલાકારો

नृत्य, अभिनय और साहस का स्त्री यक्षगान

ಯಕ್ಷಗಾನ ರಂಗಕ್ಕೆ ಲಗ್ಗೆಯಿಟ್ಟ ಮಹಿಳಾ ಕಲಾವಿದರು

അരങ്ങ് കീഴടക്കുന്ന യക്ഷഗാന നർത്തകിമാർ

परंपरेच्या चौकटी मोडून महिलांची यक्षगानात वाटचाल

ਔਰਤ ਕਲਾਕਾਰਾਂ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਯਕਸ਼ਗਾਨਾ ਦੀ ਪੇਸ਼ਕਾਰੀ

மேடையை மாற்றிய யக்ஷகானா பெண் கலைஞர்கள்

ମଞ୍ଚ ଅଧିକାର କଲେ ଯକ୍ଷଗାନର ମହିଳା କଳାକାର

यक्षगान के मंच पर अब महिला कलाकारन के पैठ 

महिला यक्षगान: जुन्ना तौर-तरीका के नवा गढ़ेइय्या

Dakshina Kannada

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“I heard the sound of a heavy explosion and ran in its direction, following the smoke clouds. Some of the factory walls had collapsed in the blast. I saw Lingasamy emerge from the rubble, running half naked, with clothes all burnt. He kept asking me if he was alive, whether he had survived, as we arranged to take him for treatment. He wasn’t able to sit on a two-wheeler, so we had to take him to the hospital lying on a push-cart .” Mareeswaran, a local reporter is speaking to me a day later. He lives at a walking distance from the firecracker factory in Sivakasi where the explosion happened on July 1, 2025.I am back at the site a day later. The gates of the factory are locked, the structure of one of the units has been destroyed, and the surrounding area has no paved roads. I had a tough time manoeuvring my two-wheeler up here. I wonder what it must have meant to take people from here to a hospital 25 kilometres away.

About 20 people had reached the workplace in the morning on the day of the blast. Eight of them died on the spot, two succumbed to injuries a few days later, and three others have been hospitalised for a long time with serious injuries.I have been scared of firecrackers since I was a child. I fear burning myself. But that day in the Sivakasi Government hospital, I knew I was facing a nightmare worse than any of my fears. The emergency ward of the hospital is full of burnt bodies. How does one speak with the victims or even their heartbroken family members? I spend the afternoon there.

Lingasamy, 47, is critical. His entire body is covered in burns, what the doctors call a 100 per cent burn. I try to speak to him, but he cannot say much. He repeatedly asks only one thing: whether or not he will survive. In the evening after I leave the hospital, I get a call saying he is no more. His last words from the hospital bed still echo in my mind. This was the man who played with fire all his life to make sure his daughters had a good education. Both of his daughters are merit-based double degree holders."My father told us that he worked as a driver in the firecracker factory, but we didn't know that he prepared explosives there. This has been unbearably painful for us," says Krishnaveni, his elder daughter. A year ago Lingasamy, then a bus driver, had joined the Kamal Kishore firecracker factory in Sivakasi, Virudhunagar district. “He was a driver but also worked as a chemical mixer. The wages from driving alone were not enough to feed the family. Now I am left alone with our two unmarried daughters. Don’t know how I will manage their wedding,” says his wife Rajammal.

The factory owned by Kamal Kumar, Mayakrishnan, and Selvam, all three from Chinnagamanpatti village in the district has a 100 people working on its floor. All of them Dalits, working in unsafe conditions, without proper training or safety equipments while handling hazardous materials, and many without proper Employees State Insurance or other benefits they are entitled to under the labour laws of the country.It is easy for us to ask: Why do you choose to do this work?

“This is our fate,” says 48 years old Muruga Lakshmi, also an injured worker from the same factory. “To earn 500 rupees a day, I come here to work.” She stays in the census town of Soolakkarai, about 25 kilometres away and takes a transport tempo arranged by the factory owners from a pick-up point near her house to reach work every day. She works from 7 in the morning till 12 in the night. Men in her place would get about 1,000 rupees daily for the same hours of work.“I have lost my husband. I am the only bread-winner of my family. I have two children to look after," says Muruga Lakshmi, "I was working in the paper mill for 200 rupees, but the money wasn't enough. I joined the firecracker factory for Rs. 370 a day. When I began mixing chemicals, for fancy firecrackers I started getting 500 rupees a day," she says.Muruga Lakshmi was working for a year when the blast happened. "I was doing things correctly," she says, "It was someone else's mistake and I nearly lost my life. I ran but I slipped. I burnt my leg and arms in the explosion. I didn't even know what to do afterwards. I poured water on my arms. Already I have had an operation for elephantiasis. My legs are swelling up again. So I wasn't able to run at that moment. I took this job because of my family's hardships. Who are we supposed to blame?"We always think of Diwali as lights and crackers. Until now even I had never thought about the dark realities of the people behind the lights, whose struggles remain unnoticed, and stories are unheard of. How do we forget to celebrate those who work in the dark all though the year?

A sculpture, unveiled by finance minister Thangam Thennarasu at Karanesan junction for that very purpose “to honour the iconic firecracker workers of Sivakasi” – only adds to the irony of the situation. The sculpture of a disjointed, larger than life palm of a factory worker holding a miniature figure of a young boy with a sparkler sheds little light on the number of worker deaths the town has seen. That sculpture has certainly borne witness to three more explosions, the first one in July, barely a month since its installation.The district known as a match and cracker manufacturing hub has more than 1,000 licensed units and almost 3 lakh people depending on the unsafe work they do there. About 55 per cent of these workers are women, labouring for less money than their male counterparts. In the year 2025 alone, Sivakasi has seen about 18 explosions leaving 30 dead and 29 seriously injured. According to the numbers from the district collector’s office, between 2011 and 2023 another 190 fire accidents killed 337 workers in this town, when factory owners were boasting of competing with China in cracker manufacturing.

The industry with a history that goes back to colonial India has seen huge growth in the 78 years since Independence. According to the Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufactures Association almost 80 per cent of the fireworks in India today are made in Virudhunagar that has a market share of about Rs. 6,000 crore – and rising every year.The association with its eye on expanding into international markets has recently applied for a Geographical Indication (GI) tag under “manufactured goods” category for Sivakasi fireworks. The state on the other hand, concerned about air pollution, is drawing up policies for 'green' crackers, banning the use of barium nitrate.

The euphoria around the GI tag application and the green crackers idea is only matched by the apathy towards workers who continue to manually mix dangerous chemicals on the floors of the factories. Many of these are unlicensed, designed flouting the rules, and operational in the absence of modern machinery that reduces the risk to the life of workers.It is only when I spoke to the workers I realised that in Tamil Nadu there is a firecrackers owners’ association but there is not one for the workers. No union to take up the fight and grievances of those who live and work on the edge of life and for whom Diwali after Diwali brings little light.What is the point of getting a GI tag when the workers are denied their basic rights?This piece honours the memory of the 10 workers who died in the factory explosion on July 1, 2025 in Sivakasi.Vairamani,35, from Soolakkarai Nagapandi, 28, from Servaikaranpatti&nbsp; Ramajayam, 27, from Meenampatti&nbsp; Mahalingam, 46, from Meenampatti&nbsp; Chellapandi, around 30, from Anupankulam,&nbsp; Ramamoorthy, 55, from O. Kovilpatti,&nbsp; Punniamoorthy, 47, from Virudhunagar&nbsp; Lakshmi, around 25, from Madhya Senai&nbsp; Lingasamy, 47, from Sevalpatti Azhaguraja, 28, from Sewakaranpatti

Playing with fire in Sivakasi

پٹاخہ مزدوروں کی زندگی میں اندھیرا

শিৱকাশিত জুইৰ সৈতে খেলা

শিবকাশী: আগুন খেলায় জীবন বাজি

શિવકાશીમાં આગ સાથે ખેલ

लोगों की दिवाली की ख़ातिर धमाकों में जलते पटाखा मज़दूर 

ಶಿವಕಾಶಿ: ಜೀವ ಪಣಕ್ಕಿಟ್ಟು ದುಡಿಯುವ ಕಾರ್ಮಿಕರು

ശിവകാശിയിൽ തീകൊണ്ട് കളിക്കുന്നു

ਖ਼ੁਦ ਸੜ ਕੇ ਹੋਰਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਦੀਵਾਲੀ ਰੁਸ਼ਨਾਉਂਦੇ ਰਹੇ ਸ਼ਿਵਕਾਸੀ ਦੇ ਪਟਾਕਾ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ 

ଶିବକାଶୀରେ ନିଆଁ ସହ ଖେଳ 

शिवकाशी: अंजोर के पीछे अन्हार जिनगी

उजियार बर, अंधियार मं परे जिनगी  

சிவகாசியில் தீயில் வெந்து மடியும் மக்கள்

शिवकाशीतील विस्तवाचा उद्योग!

Sivakasi

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The main asphalt road that passes through a part of the corn belt in Purnia district is studded with gold on both sides this time of the year. The maize harvest is over, and the farmers have carpeted sides of the road adjacent to their fields with yellow corn kernels to dry. Nearing Chandwa-Rupaspur Adivasi tola, we see Santhal men and women turning over the grains with a wooden plough-like tool to help the moisture evaporate faster. Somewhere, a chowkidar must be keeping a watch and will soon descend at their doors to collect the share of the landlords, on whose fields the Adivasis have been working for generations as sharecroppers. And to whom they still pay a part of their harvest, years after land rights reforms in the state.Somewhere a little further from the main road, closer to the village, their ancestors keep a vigil too, from a memorial raised in memory of their death during a five-decade old massacre. A white pillar on a raised platform inside a gated field has a marble plate with names of all the 14 brutally murdered by their landlords on November 22, 1971.“The whole village looked like a cremation ground. Wails and smoke were rising from every house. People were inconsolable. They [private army of the landlords] had burnt 45 houses to ashes.” Age has not dimmed the memories of a massacre that Shivnarayan witnessed as a teenage boy. Neither has time changed many things for his lot in Bihar.Even then, “it was a fight over land,” says Shivnarayan Murmu, now 70-year-old. He had lost two of his relatives in the massacre. “The Sun had not set.” He slips into another time as we speak to him on a July evening in 2025. “They had come armed with guns, sticks, axes and had surrounded our settlement from all sides. They set ablaze our Adivasi houses and shot at and burnt alive anyone who came in their way,” he says.But for Shivnarayan himself the trauma went deeper and further in the past. About seven years before the massacre, when he was hardly 10, his father Lakhan Lal Hembram was murdered. Once again, the cause was the land. “He was educated and used to go to the court to fight for the ownership rights of Santhal Adivasis. Once he went to drop the people from the landlord's side who were visiting him and did not return. Three days later, they found his body, with his throat slit, in the forest some four kilometres away from the house.” No one was convicted.Shivnarayan thought times were changing when a decade after the massacre in Purnia, a lower court pronounced 20 years of imprisonment for the 25 to 30 landlord convicts in the case.But he knows only half the story.

“Some 25-30 people were convicted, but later all were acquitted by a different court, and no one was punished,” says Harshvardhan, the 55-year-old grandson of Laxmi Narayan Sudhanshu, a landlord accused in the Chandwa-Rupaspur massacre. “That incident should not have happened,” he says. “I regret that. Because of it an entire generation kept fighting the case for more than 20-30 years and those people could not do anything else.”Harshvardhan claims that the Santhals were never given the land. “The land belongs to us. We are paying the land tax, but we are not able to do farming. They may have got the land on a sharecropping basis, but ownership rights were never with them.”The Santhals were brought to Bihar, originally in the 19th Century, by the British, through the East India Company to clear the forest and cultivate the land for revenue. Historian Christopher V. Hill in his book, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://books.google.co.in/books/about/River_of_Sorrow.html?id=kFS6AAAAIAAJ&amp;redir_esc=y">River of Sorrow</a> documents the migration of Santhal Adivasis to Bihar and their land struggles in detail. He says that the Santhals came to the northern part of the region bordering Nepal and West Bengal, which was under Darbhanga Raj’s largest and richest zamindari system. The Adivasis came in many groups, each headed by a Santhal leader. The heads were then asked to get their people to clear the forest land and later cultivate.Each Adivasis leader collected the rent from the cultivators and paid it to Darbhanga Raj. The Santhals were turned into bataidars or sharecroppers without any kind of rent receipts. They did everything from ploughing the jungle and marsh, planning the cropping pattern, planting the crop, to harvesting, threshing, and sifting the grain. But finally, they divided the produce in accordance with the terms of the lease and handed over a share to the landlord.“They remained tenants-at-will. And the middlemen became powerful by getting the land registered in their names,” writes Anand Chakravarti in Report on the Regional Survey and Settlement.Those Santhal Adivasis who did not give a part of the produce to the owner were evicted from the land. Their struggle for land rights never saw any results, not after 1938 when they submitted a demand letter to the District Magistrate of Purnia, William George Archer; not after 1940s when they refused to give a share to the landlords without rent receipts; and not even after the country’s independence when Bihar Land Reforms act was introduced that abolished the zamindari system in 1950.These issues of land ownership are not limited to Adivasis in one or two districts. The population of Santhals according to the Bihar Government’s caste survey report - 2023 is around 5.76 lakhs in the state. That is 26.18 percent of the total Adivasi population of 21,99,361 in the state and most of the Santhals from North Bihar are fighting for the ownership rights.Undivided Bihar had a very large Adivasi population. When Bihar was split in the year 2000, the overwhelming majority of its Adivasis were now in the new Jharkhand state. And so Adivasis in this region are mostly discussed in terms of Jharkhand.Those remaining in Bihar numbered about 2.2 million, or just 1.68 per cent of the state’s population. Also, they were scattered across more than half a dozen districts. According to government data, tribals are a majority in only around 180 of Bihar’s over 45,000 villages. It means they have nothing like the bargaining power or collective strength of their fellow Adivasis in Jharkhand.

Shivnarayan now tills his 0.9 acre of land which was given to him by the government after 1971. “The landlord still says that this is their land not ours, but we are paying the rent to the sarkar. We want the land disputes to end, otherwise they are rich and can take over any time.” For Shivnarayan his emotional attachment to the land overrides how little it gives him. “We spend 10 rupees to grow each granule of corn, we make no profit, but since we have land, we cultivate. Our forefathers have been farming, so why should we leave it?” he asks.About 100 kilometres away in Hansa village of Supaul district, 50-year-old Taleshwar Baski is another Santhal Adivasi walking in the footsteps of his father. “Sarkar koi salusan de [Let the government give some solution],” is his refrain as he flips through a thick bundle of papers stapled together. Sitting inside his mud house, he is examining the land documents of 200 Santhal Adivasi families to ensure that the khata number and raqba (area) of land being cultivated are mentioned properly.He fights a quiet battle with the government, writing applications with the help of social activists in the area, visiting sarkari offices and making demands for those sharecroppers who still don’t have ownership rights. None of them can afford a legal battle. “My father passed away a decade ago, so I am doing this work,” says Baski. “We have taken these papers to the district headquarters many times but haven’t got any reply.”The last time they submitted an application at the Land Reforms Deputy Collector in Supaul was on March 31, 2025. When they gave the papers to an official, he returned them saying he couldn’t understand what was written there. “So, I asked him, if he couldn't read the papers, then how did he get the job,” says Baski.The Santhals in Bihar claim that they have been farming on their land decades before the Bihar Land Reforms Act was implemented in the state between 1950-56. The Act should have given the Adivasis clear ownership of the land. But, instead, the middlemen got the lands registered on their names and kept collecting the rent wrongfully.Lal Soren, 48, a farmer in Hansa village says, “when our ancestors came here, this entire area was a forest. But as the soil was fertile, they cut the forest and made the land cultivable by toiling tirelessly. When the crops started to grow well, the landlord started claiming that this was their land. Then the landlords said, ‘you people grow and give some to us too’. Our ancestors had agreed to this,” he says.In the last decade and a half the Adivasis have seen an increasing number of cases where their land is being sold without their knowledge. “There is no response from the government. We don’t know what it’s doing. If it can’t be done from here, then tell us, but even that the officials are not telling us. And the landlords are selling our lands,” says Taleshwar. He estimates the landlords have sold 10 acres of land in his village already.

Eight years ago, in 2017, some unknown people had stopped Surat Lal Murmu, 55, of Hansa from reaching his land. “When we went to plough the field, the people already present there said that the land was sold to them and it was not mine anymore. They told us that the land owners had sold it to them. And now they’ve built a house on that land,” he says.Surat Lal had tried to find the owners of the land but could not find them. There was not one owner, but several. He doesn’t have an idea about the exact number as he only deals with the chowkidar. “Zamindar ne chowkidar rakha hai, jo lathi lekar ghoomta rahta hai. Woh dekhta rahta hai ki kab fasal kata [The landlords have appointed a watchman, who roams around with a stick. He knows when you harvest]. He can even find out who has how much grain and take half of it away,” he says.Murmu is now left with only 2 acres of land but he fears that even this land will also be sold, and he will be landless. He has been to the Land Reform Collector’s office several times, but hasn’t got a response. He says that the last time, “an officer in black coat asked me whose name was in the khatian [land record document]. I told him that the name was that of my father who is no more. The man bluntly said that when my father is gone, I can’t have any claim over the land. I was angry. I told the officer that if my father is dead, so is the landlord’s. The land doesn’t belong to them either. I asked him why he doesn’t write the land off to the anabad Bihar sarkar [unaccounted land considered government property].”Vijay Oraon, the president of the Adivasi Parishad in the state, says, “selling of sikmi land (leased out to tenant farmers) by owners without knowledge of the Adivasis is rampant in Bihar. But if a sikmidar (the cultivator) is dead, the contract doesn’t end. His son can claim to be a sikmidar and claim the land.”Sociologist and writer Tejkar Jha says that the Santhals have a legal right to ownership of the land. “If someone is claiming ownership of their land and selling it, that is completely illegal. The land the Santhals are tilling, they have a right to – and if they go to court, the decision will be in their favor.”But according to Vijay Oraon it is even simpler. “Adivasis will have to submit an application to the local circle officer for ownership, who will forward it to the Directorate of Land Records of Survey, which will grant them ownership rights.” The process is easy, he says, but the officers never pay attention.

The landlord has secretly sold 0.625 acres of Surat Lal’s land. And from what he grows on the remaining, he continues to pay half to the landlord as agreed by his ancestors. “We mainly grow paddy, maize, and ragi. Farming is a lot of hard work and is very expensive. Our input cost in cultivating one kotha [0.03125 acres] of land is 1,500 rupees. We do everything and then the landlord takes half of the produce,” he says.“We are worried that our entire land will be taken away. If jamabandi [land records] are cleared and the government starts giving the rent receipts to us, we will be relieved,” he says.In the meanwhile, his now grown-up children aged 20 and 27 have migrated to work in a factory in Tamil Nadu. He too migrates to work in brick kilns in the neighbouring districts and sometimes even to far off places in Punjab and Delhi, while his wife Anjula Devi takes care of the house. “How will the family survive if we continue to give half of our farm produce to them?” Surat Lal asks.This story published by the reporter under the Takshila Fellowship 2025.

Santhals in the promised land of Purnia

వాగ్దాన భూమి పూర్ణియాలో సంథాలులు

পূৰ্ণিয়াৰ প্ৰতিশ্ৰুতিভৰা ভূমিত স্বাধীনতাৰ দিন ধৰি ভূমি-সংগ্ৰাম 

পূর্ণিয়ার ‘পুণ্যভূমি’তে কেমন আছেন সাঁওতালরা? 

પૂર્ણિયાની વચન અપાયેલ ભૂમિમાં સંથાલ આદિવાસીઓ

बिहार: आज़ादी के इतने साल बाद भी ज़मीन के हक़ से वंचित संताल आदिवासी

ಪೂರ್ಣಿಯಾದ ಹೋರಾಟದ ಭೂಮಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂತಾಲರು

പൂർണിയയിലെ വാഗ്ദത്ത ഭൂമിയിലെ സന്താളുകൾ

पुर्नियाची वचनभूमी : संथालांचा भूमीहक्कासाठी लढा

ਪੂਰਨੀਆ: ਕਰਾਰ ਕੀਤੀ ਭੋਇੰ ਲਈ ਅੱਜ ਵੀ ਸੰਘਰਸ਼ ਕਰਦੇ ਸੰਥਾਲ ਆਦਿਵਾਸੀ 

புர்னியாவில் சொந்த நிலம் மறுக்கப்படும் சந்தால்கள்

ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣିଆର ଇପ୍‌ସିତ ଭୂମିରେ ସାନ୍ତାଳ

‘माई रे माई संथालन के बिहान होई कहिया’

जमीन के मालिकाना हक बर आज घलो लड़त संथाल आदिवासी 

Rupaspur

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-UKR-Santhals in the promised land of Purnia.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-RM-Cold, hot and wet-road workers in Ladakh.jpg

"This is the spot where I nearly got buried in snow. Many assumed I had died.”Sharap recalls the heavy snowfall raining down at 17,480 feet on Tanglang La mountain pass. “The other labourers rushed to save me,” he adds. He was lucky that the army hospital was close and he could be treated quickly.Road construction labourers like Sharap working in the high-altitude ranges of Ladakh routinely face uncertain weather and the risks that follow. Temperatures frequently dip below freezing, but in the last two decades, there’s more. “We face higher risks now as late snowfall – brought on by a climate change -- brings heavy snow,” says Sharap, a resident of Gya village in Leh district.It’s the responsibility of workers like Sharap and his team to re-open Tanglang La – the second highest pass in the region. The intense cold and extreme weather closes the pass from October to May. Opening the pass ensures smooth traffic on the Leh to Manali highway – a 428-kilometre journey that goes over four passes, and Tanglang La is the highest point. While the view from here is stunning, the wind and cold make it difficult for anyone to stand and look around for more than 10 to 15 minutes.

When PARI met Sharap and his colleagues, they were busy building a retaining wall beside the mountain road to prevent rocks from falling, endangering vehicles and damaging the road. The ground in Leh is made up of granite and loose sediments. Rain, especially cloud bursts, unseats the rocks and sends them crashing downhill. The sharp gradients aid run-off, and farms, construction labour and pastoralists are greatly impacted.“Repairing roads is a tedious job. We need to mix the cement by hand. We work in the heat and cold for 7-8 hours with two breaks in between for tea and lunch," adds Sharap.Months later, in August 2024, as the sun was setting, I observed a group of Ladakhi villagers returning to their village of Hunder on foot. It was about 6:30 p.m., a tad late for them to be returning home. "Jullay!” I greeted them using the familiar term in the high mountains. “Why so late?"They stopped to respond: "Jullay! We were unable to work in the afternoon. It was really hot, so we took a break,” they said pointing to a small shed near the road site. “We do hard work. Dust and heat are really exhausting for us."There is a significant rise in surface temperatures throughout the Himalayan region, over the past six decades, says this <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/assessment-of-climate-change-over-the-indian-region/">report</a>: Assessment of Climate Change Over the Indian Region. While extreme cold weather is expected in this region, extreme heat is something new and worrying.

And not just cold and heat. Even rainfall is out of sync.Sonum Lotus looks worriedly outside his window where rain in August is blurring the view. “We have received 44 mm of rain in July and August [2025] which is way too high by any standard,” says the Director of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) in Ladakh.His anxiety is based on recent catastrophic events. Ladakh has experienced a series of devastating flash floods since 2005, the worst being in 2010 which took<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ldma.ladakh.gov.in/cburst.html"> 233</a> human lives. Similar incidents of cloud burst resulting in low intensity flooding and mud slides were also reported in 2012, 2016 and recently in 2018. As Ladakh warms up, Sonum Lotus says more flash floods are expected.There is little doubt that climate change is exacerbating the occurrence and severity of flash floods in the Ladakh region, says a government-funded <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.idsa.in/publisher/comments/ladakhs-vulnerability-to-flash-floods-adaptation-and-mitigation-measures">research</a> body. It recognises that Ladakh’s “unique geographic and climatic conditions make it especially vulnerable to these events, with far-reaching consequences for local communities and ecosystems.”

On August 24, 2025, it begins raining and continues without a pause for the next four days, bringing the Union Territory of Ladakh to a standstill. Leh airport closes operations for four days, and schools, anganwadi centres and other state institutions remain shut.The next day, my friend Tenzin Dorje calls to tell me I will not be able to travel to Khardung La top to interview villagers working there. “The district administration has banned vehicular traffic due to the heavy snowfall. Imagine it’s snowing in August? Everything is very different now,” he says over the phone.In mid-August there was a flash flood in Saspol at 5 p.m. The town is a critical junction between Leh to Srinagar Highway. When I reached Saspol a week later, signs of devastation from flash floods were all around: uprooted trees, mud covered terrain, fallen boulders that destroyed the 14 feet wide road.Workers from nearby villages such as Likir and Saspol were working on restoring the road. Migrant workers had also been employed. I met Rajesh Bhalla from Jharkhand who is on night duty, watching over the materials. “We must always be prepared to remove the obstruction or fix the route. Sometimes we have to work round the clock,” he says.Staying at this altitude in this weather is tough. “It’s summer time, but suddenly it started snowing at night. I felt the tent come down on me. It was very scary,” the 39-year-old told PARI. It was already noon and time for lunch so the conversation came to an end.These jobs have always been a magnet for migrant workers from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and other regions of the country. Building projects have received a fillip since Ladakh became a Union Territory in 2019, where earlier it was a district in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Ladakh's strategic location has led to significant changes, particularly after the Indo-China conflict in June 2020,” says Tenzin Dorje, a local travel agent from Leh. “Road projects paced up, connectivity to border villages improved to facilitate smoother army movements.”Ladakh has <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s395192c98732387165bf8e396c0f2dad2/uploads/2020/09/2020092627.pdf">4,300</a> km of roads, and the administration's ‘<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s395192c98732387165bf8e396c0f2dad2/uploads/2020/09/2020092627.pdf">Vision 2050</a>’ wants all roads to become all weather roads, so road labour is in high demand here.Tsering Angmo is one of a group of 13 labourers working on repairing a road in Saspol. “It's a very risky job [repairing roads] but we have to fix this junction of the road before winter sets in., At this altitude, the more we have to work in the rain, we will have higher chances to get fever, cough and cold.”She and others are on contract with the General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF), the parent of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).“I hope the rain won’t start again. If it does then work will be delayed,” says Tsering, who everyone calls ache Tsering. In Ladakhi, ache or ache-le means elder sister. Delayed work, is delayed payments, and extreme weather like rain can shut down working days for them, resulting in financial loss.

As ‘non-permanent labourers’ with the GREF, their average salary varies between Rs.12,000 to 25,000 a month, depending upon how much of an emergency it is, and how risky it is. This group of 13 will take home around Rs.16,900.“It gets really hot throughout the day. I thought I'd faint one day from the heat,” says another worker Sonum Montop, also in Saspol.The 39-year-old from Likir picks up a cup of tea and continues talking: “Rainy days are becoming more common; I was born and bred here, and while the weather pattern has changed, the taste of gur gur [traditional Ladakhi salt tea] has not. So have a cup of gur gur.”

Most people take a deep breath on seeing the wide open expanse of the high mountains. But that may not be a good idea – there has been an increase in dust storms and airborne allergens are degrading air quality even in this region.Dr. Sonam Norboo says he found many Ladakhi patients suffering from respiratory illness. “I investigated further and learnt they had TB [tuberculosis],” adds Norboo who is among the region’s first physicians. Early on, the now 82-year-old doctor had done extensive research on villagers of the Indus river region.His later research showed that a group of pulmonary diseases clinically known as Pneumoconiosis was highly prevalent here. Pneumoconiosis is a group of occupational lung diseases caused by inhaling fine dusts and fibres, such as coal dust, silica, or asbestos.

His readings are echoed in a 1991 research <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/pmid/1663387/">paper</a> on the prevalence of pneumoconiosis in three villages of Ladakh. The writers say that it corresponds with the severity of dust storms and the use of chimneys in the kitchens, as well as the high silica content in the air during a storm. “Exposure to free silica from dust storms and soot from domestic fuels are suggested as causes of these cases of pneumoconiosis,” it says.Dr. Norboo says that while climate change does not directly cause pneumoconiosis, it can worsen its effects and create new risks. “Warmer temperatures can lead to increased dust, which carries pathogens and mineral particles that cause lung conditions like silicosis and desert lung syndrome. So, any workers who already have these conditions will suffer more,” he told PARI.

At one time, Ladakhis would cite August as the month to travel in the region. But in the last decade and more, it has become hazardous to take trips here.Later that day, at the monastery of Tsemo Goenkhang, I notice a few workers resting in a makeshift tent nearby. They told this reporter: “we can't go back because the road to Nubra Valley is closed today. The rain will stop only when it has impacted our jobs, health, and homes. We are at the mercy of nature.”

Cold, hot, wet: road workers in Ladakh

سخت موسم میں لداخ کی سڑک بنانے والے مزدور

లద్దాఖ్‌: చలి, వేడి, తడిలో పనిచేసే రహదారి నిర్మాణ శ్రామికులు

লাডাখত প্ৰতিকূল পৰিস্থিতিত শ্ৰমিকৰ জীৱন 

ಚಳಿ, ಬಿಸಿಲು, ಮಳೆ: ಲಡಾಖ್‌ ಪ್ರಾಂತ್ಯದ ರಸ್ತೆ ಕೆಲಸಗಾರರು

'আমরা যে প্রকৃতির হাতের পুতুল'

ટાઢ, તાપ, વરસાદ વચ્ચે લદ્દાખનો રસ્તો ને પરસેવો પાડતા મજૂરો 

सर्दी-गर्मी-बरसात में लदाख की सड़कें बनाने वाले कामगार

തണുപ്പിലും ചൂടിലും മഴയിലും വലഞ്ഞ് ലഡാക്കിലെ റോഡുനിർമ്മാണ തൊഴിലാളികൾ 

वाटेवर काटे वेचीत चाललो...

ਕਦੇ ਸਰਦ, ਕਦੇ ਗਰਮ, ਕਦੇ ਗਿੱਲੀ: ਲੱਦਾਖ ਦੇ ਸੜਕ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰਾਂ ਦੀ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ 

குளிர், வெப்பம், ஈரம்: லடாக்கின் சாலை தொழிலாளர்கள்

ଥଣ୍ଡା, ଉଷ୍ମ ଏବଂ ଆର୍ଦ୍ର ପରିସ୍ଥିତିରେ ଲଦାଖ ରାସ୍ତାଘାଟ ନିର୍ମାଣ ଶ୍ରମିକଙ୍କ ଜୀବନ

लद्दाख: बिगड़ल मौसम के मार झेलत सड़क मजूर

लद्दाख: जाड़, घाम, बरसा झेलत रोड वर्कर  

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-RM-Cold, hot and wet-road workers in Ladakh.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-DS-Thirra performers-cast in, caste out.jpg

Thirra artist, M.K. Kelukutty, once plucked a leaf from a tree during a performance in a sacred grove. “He was told to pay four annas for having ‘polluted’ the place. It didn’t matter that he was performing as a god when this happened,” recalls his grandson, M. K. Kunjiraman.Thirra artists are people from scheduled caste communities, and although welcomed as performers in upper caste temples, these places are off limits. This ceremonial dance is performed in kaavu or sacred groves, as well as the premises of a temple. But entering or performing where the deity is kept, is out of bounds.Kunjiraman is from the Vannan community, those who traditionally washed clothes, generally of the upper castes. They are listed as Scheduled Caste in Kerala. He was a young boy when he began accompanying his father and grandfather, both Thirra artists. He finally started performing in his early forties.“Talachilon, Kariyathan, Kuttichathan, Vettakorumakan, Kannikakaruvon…” the 87-year-old reels off names of Hindu deities he enacted.And then Kunjiraman begins to sing the ‘Anjadi’ and ‘Tottam Pattu’. The first is sung to invoke the God who will take hold of the dancer’s body and the second narrates the history of Kuttichathan. Although some scholars say that Tottam Pattu invokes the goddess Bhagavathi and not Kuttichathan, who is worshipped for protection and prosperity. He is depicted with eight pulli (dots) on his chest.His musical voice fills the space. “Kuttichathan was born to a valluva [lower caste] mother and a Namboodiri [Brahmin] father. Once, when he was a boy, he felt very hungry. He had been starving for a long time. He then killed a buffalo from his herd and drank its blood. Furious, his father killed him and cut him into 399 pieces,” narrates Kunjiraman.He is seated on the veranda of his two-storey house in Sivapuram village in Kozhikode. “That is how we have so many Kuttichatan today – Pookutti, Teekutti, Karikutti,” he tells this reporter.

Mimicking the beats of a chenda (percussion instrument), he is drumming on the seat of a chair. He speaks of Naayikettu – a prachannavesham (character who appears in the interlude of a Thirra performance to entertain the audience). “I am probably the last person to perform this character,” says the now elderly performer.

Held widely in north Kerala from mid-December to April, some of the performances, like the Bhagavati Thirra, last 24 hours with breaks in between. Others begin at midnight or later, and end in the early hours of dawn.Performances take place in the outer area of the temple or the temple groves – an open space where caste hierarchies are set aside for the duration of the performance. But not always. “If the kaavu [grove] is controlled by a Namboodiri or Nair [upper castes], things are different,” points out Kunjiraman.Agreeing with him about the caste lines in this, Swamidasan, also a Thirra artist, recalls a time when people from his Panan community could never even share the same road with the upper caste patrons of the temple. But when they performed there, dressed as a God in Thirra, the same people come bowing before them.

Swamidasan is from the Panan community (listed as Scheduled Caste in Kerala). He is acutely conscious of Thirra’s political role, and says that is what impels him to perform. Ruffling the hair of his granddaughter just home from school he adds, “we developed this consciousness, and we cannot let them [upper castes] hijack even the gods.”He believes Thirra was formed out of the privileged castes’ need for entertainment. “That is why they do not let us into the premises of the deity, even during the times when we are the ‘God’,” he adds.He performed Bhagavati Thirra at an upper caste Narakassery Nair temple in the village. A few steps below where he was performing, sat the temple’s deity, and he was stopped from going to that part of the temple.“Ayithham [untouchability] is still there. Be it a kaavu or a temple, if the owners belong to the upper caste, there is untouchability,” he says while pointing in the direction of the temple in his village, about 300 metres from his home in Nanmanda village in Kozhikode, Kerala.The 73-year-old is a retired tehsildar. “There is some element of ‘noble resistance’ we found in [performing Thirra],” says Swamidasan, referring to how the art could be used by communities to counter caste hierarchies. “If Thirra is 100 per cent spiritual it would not have survived. I think it is part social, part cultural, part political and part spiritual,” he says.

“Earlier, no one was allowed to perform at temples that are not a part of one’s own desham [locality],” says Cheruvottu Balan, a Thirra artist from the Vannan community. “Can anyone live by just relying on the income from a single temple? But things have changed,” he adds. Today artists perform at different temples.Balan, now almost 90 years old, has been performing for almost seven decades. Recent photographs of him in Thirra attire are framed and kept on a shelf in his single-storey house in Nanmanda village in Calicut district.Balan started in his early twenties in the temple where his family performed. Today he has a troupe – members are from the Vannan community. He says his children and grandchildren have never performed. What was earlier a matter of compulsion is today a choice for families like his.Earlier, the art did not bring in cash, as the mode of payment was not money. Performers like Balan and Kunjiraman’s grandfathers were given rice, oil or jackfruit. But today a troupe earns around Rs.50,000 to 80,000, depending on the number of performances. The amount is then distributed among the artists and musicians associated with the performance, and a performer can earn around Rs. 2,000-3,000 for a show.

Prajeesh, an auto driver and Thirra artist from Chelavoor village in Kozhikode says he learnt Thirra at the age of 13 and now performs with multiple troupes. “It is hard to survive by merely performing Thirra during the short span of three months, so everyone is engaged in different jobs. They take a day off or adjust shifts to come and perform,” says Prajeesh. A Vannan, he doesn’t want his child to follow in his footsteps. “I ask my child not to get into Thirra, unless he can manage both studies and performance, because income from this is never stable.”

In the months leading up to the event, the entire household fasts and prays, becoming a part of the event. “Women in the family, whenever and wherever a jackfruit was plucked, stored the jackfruit resin to use as gum for the Thirra attire,” Kunjiraman recalls.Kaippani – the art of making accessories, has the involvement of people from different communities. Then there is the costume of the Thirra artist which is elaborate: traditional, thiruvudayada (sacred clothes) clothes washed in rice broth, mudi (hair of God) made from shells, coconut leaf, and areca nut sheath, for mukhathezhuth (face painting) and melezhuth (body writing), the white is arichand (rice paste), yellow from turmeric and red from a mix of limestone and turmeric.

Before the performance, many of the gods are offered toddy by an elder from the Tandan community (listed as Other Backward Classes in the state). People from different caste-based occupations contribute during the show: there are marar (percussion artists, performing in temples), and aasaari (carpenter), moosaari (metalsmiths), perumkollan (master blacksmith) and thattan (goldsmith) among others.And Thirra (God himself), expresses gratitude to people from all caste backgrounds who contributed to the performance in the Vaakkenal -- recited after the performance.The Oonasharam recital during the lunch is part of the recital. It acknowledges – and reminds every one -- of their traditional occupations.In a way, it is a subtle reminder of how the system ensures people adhere to their traditional roles.

Thirra performers: cast in, caste out 

ذات پات کے حصار میں کیرالہ کے تیرّا فنکار

తిర్రా ప్రదర్శకులు: ప్రదర్శనకారులుగా స్వాగతం, కులపరంగా అంటరానితనం

থিৰা শিল্পী: মন্দিৰ আৰু কুঞ্জবনত দৈৱনাচ 

দলিত তির্রা শিল্পী: দেবতার সাজ জাতে বাঁধা কাজ

તિરા કલાકારો: ભજવવાના ભગવાન ને વેઠવાના ભેદભાવ

जाति के ताल पर नाचते तिर्रा कलाकार

ತಿರ್ರಾ ಕಲಾವಿದರು: ಕಲೆಗೆ ಜಾತಿಯಿಲ್ಲ, ಆದರೆ ಕಲಾವಿದರಿಗೆ ಜಾತಿಯಿದೆ

തിറ കലാകാരൻമാർ: കലയിൽ അംഗീകരിക്കപ്പെട്ടവർ, ജാതിയിൽ പുറത്തും

तिर्रा कलाकार : रंगमंचावर गौरव, वास्तवात उपेक्षा

ਉੱਚ ਜਾਤੀਆਂ ਦੇ ਮਨੋਰੰਜਨ ਲਈ ਹੋਇਆ ਥਿੱਰਾ ਕਲਾ ਦਾ ਵਿਕਾਸ 

சாதியத்தில் அலைக்கழிக்கபப்டும் திர்ரா கலைஞர்கள்

‘ଥିରା’ କଳାକାର: ଜାତି ଅଛି, ଜାତି ନାହିଁ 

‘देवता’ बन के भी, देवता से दूर

जात के ताल मं नाचत तिर्रा कलाकार

Kozhikode

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This story is part of a series by Parth M. N. supported by the Pulitzer Center.A promise he made before the monsoons has come back to haunt Deurao Nagare, 53.He spent the month of September standing in knee-deep water, trying to save his farmland from a devastating downpour. His 8-acre farm is located on a hilly slope in Chaklamba village, which makes it even more vulnerable during floods.“The water flows directly through my farm,” he explains. “Every day, I spent hours creating an outlet for the water.”That backbreaking labour turned out to be futile, and he couldn’t win against the angry clouds. His cotton, pigeon pea and sugarcane crops were destroyed, causing him a loss of over Rs. 3 lakh. The force of water flowing down the hills also washed away some of the topsoil in his farmland, jeopardizing his livelihood.The thought of recovering the losses though, disturbs him less than the possibility of failing to raise the Rs. 1.7 lakh Nagare had promised for a temple at one of Maharashtra’s important pilgrimage spots.

The Bhagwangad complex, located on a pristine hill along the border of Beed and Ahilyanagar districts, is a massive expanse thronged by devotees from all over the state. The annual footfall at this temple dedicated to Bhagwan Baba, a revered ascetic of the Warkari tradition, is anywhere between 15-20 lakhs. In 1958, he installed an idol of Vithal in Bhagwangad. While people from across different communities visit Bhagwangad, its predominant constituency is the Vanzari community, a prominent OBC caste.Former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Gopinath Mundhe, had begun the tradition of holding a Dussehra rally at Bhagwangad, recognizing the importance of the place in the lives of Vanzari farmers and labourers. Over the years, his rallies grew stronger, attracting lakhs of devotees, and Bhagwangad emerged as a political power too, along with being a religious pilgrimage.Currently, the Mahant of Bhagwangad, Namdev Shastri, is in the process of building a lavish temple dedicated to Dyaneshwar, a 13th century poet and philosopher-saint revered across Maharashtra. That is estimated to cost over Rs. 25 crore. The inauguration is scheduled to take place on Dussehra 2026 at their sprawling premises. And the money is being raised from the devotees, many of whom may not know where their next meal would come from.Nagare’s village of Chaklamba in Beed district’s Georai taluka has pledged to raise Rs. 2.41 crore for the construction of the temple. That, from the 410 households of this village overwhelmingly comprising farmers, farm labourers, and sugarcane cutters. Krushna Maharaj, the next-in-line to succeed Namdev Shastri, said that soliciting contributions has been a longstanding tradition right from the time of Bhagwan Baba – the seer who originally founded Bhagwangad in 1958. “At the time, people didn’t have money, so they donated in foodgrains,” Krushna Maharaj explained. “Today, the form of donations has changed to cash. That’s it.”

However, when Nagare and the rest of Chaklamba promised to donate the handsome sum of Rs. 2.41 crore for the temple, they had little idea of what the next few months would look like.As of the last week of September, over 31 lakh farmers had been affected across nearly 18 lakh hectares of farmland in Maharashtra, due to one of the heaviest downpours in the state in recent times. Thousands of people have lost their homes overnight.Chaklamba isn’t an exception to the disaster Maharashtra is facing. Farmers like Nagare are already staring at a debt-ridden future. The state has announced a relief package of Rs. 2,215 crore but the losses are actually much higher. If that amount is divided among the affected, it comes down to merely Rs. 7,000 per farmer.Later, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, announced over Rs. 31,000 crore as help for farmers. However, farm activist Ajit Navale pointed out that Fadnavis had deceptively counted the money already allocated to farmers under different schemes, and the actual help stood at Rs. 6,500 crore.Yet, the village is adamant on meeting their promise to Bhagwangad, and have justover a year to do that. “I have time to stitch together the amount,” Nagare says. “I will save up and fulfil my promise. I have given my word. I can’t go back on it.”Chaklamba is among 60-70 villages which send a truck-full of bhakris (a round flatbread) once every month to Bhagwangad. “It is used to feed at least 3,500 devotees every day at Bhagwangad,” Krushna Maharaj says.Besides that, Bhagwangad runs two schools, he adds, and looks after the education of more than 100 poor children across caste and religion. Some 30 of them stay at a hostel in Bhagwangad. They are all boys because “it is a place of Brahmacharya,” he says.

Maharashtra is known for famous temples like Shirdi or Pandharpur which see an annual footfall of close to 40 million visitors between the two. However, over the years, even pilgrimage centres that are relatively less known outside of the state, have been attracting massive crowds. People in these centres have developed an association with their local temple trust over time, and their loyalties don’t shift regardless of who occupies the religious seat. Unfortunately for the locals, the temple trusts have begun to extract more and more from their devotees, promising a better life in the distant future.In the last week of September, a local Marathi newspaper, Karyarambha, questioned the lack of help from temple trusts and pilgrimages to farmers in distress. Farmers and labourers, the paper argued, spend out of pocket for religious programs, festivals and temples. Now that the farmers are devastated by floods, the same institutions should come forward and help them out, the newspaper said.Temple trusts like Shirdi and Tulja Bhavani have donated Rs. 1 crore each for flood relief – a negligible fraction of what they earn annually.Within 100 kilometres of Bhagwangad are two more bustling pilgrim centres – Devgad and Sarala Bet – which are currently helmed by Bhaskargiri Maharaj and Ramgiri Maharaj, respectively.In August 2024, the police filed an FIR against Ramgiri Maharaj for derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammad. It created a riot-like situation in Ahilyanagar district’s Srirampur town, where Ramgiri is based. Yet, because many have worshiped at the pilgrimage site of Sarala Bet, the same Ramgiri Maharaj continues to be invited for programs where villagers shell out from their pocket to arrange feasts in his honour.

Over the past 10 years, followers of Bhaskargiri Maharaj in Newasa – the taluka in Ahilyanagar where he enjoys most influence – have been running a campaign to build temples in each of the villages. The money comes from the villagers and the gram panchayat. The fundraising happens on WhatsApp.The shops and homes of Newasa are adorned with Bhaskargiri’s garlanded photos. Almost every village here has a dedicated committee consisting of 30-40 people to sing devotional songs and religious hymns in his honour. “During festivals, Bhaskargiri Maharaj himself travels through villages and sings devotional songs to raise awareness about religion,” says Ramdas Wakchaure, 47, one of those committee members in the village of Saundala in Newasa.Just before the 2024 state assembly elections in Maharashtra, Bhaskargiri Maharaj told his followers to “vote for religion,” which is said to have changed the fortunes of the contestants overnight. Muslims make up about 7 per cent of Ahilyanagar district’s population.His followers have ensured that every village in the taluka of Newasa has at least four temples dedicated to different Hindu gods, Wakchaure says. “We make sure that people don’t have to donate every few months. It’s mostly one temple every two years or so per village.”Newasa has 127 villages. At four temples per village, the followers of Bhaskargiri Maharaj have built around 500 of them in one taluka in just 10 years. “The cost of one temple is around Rs. 10 lakh,” Wakchaure added.In other words, the population of Newasa, normally struggling with farm crisis, poor healthcare, and education, has shelled out Rs. 50 crore for the construction of tiny temples across their villages. “Nobody refuses money for God's work,” Wakchaure says.

However, conversations with farmers and labourers in the privacy of their homes reveal an additional layer. While their devotion is unshakable, the amount they donate might in some cases boil down to peer pressure. Things like “you can’t say no” or “it may not look good” or “you might alienate the rest of the village” are heard after promising people anonymity.Nonetheless, the trend has far-reaching implications.In remote villages at a local level away from any spotlight, small-time godmen mushroom and extort money from poor people, promising them better times. This is now a successful business model.Namdev Shastri’s reach is at quite another level. His YouTube channel – with over a quarter of a million subscribers – even has a neatly edited video of him traveling in a helicopter through Switzerland. Ahead of the 2024 state assembly elections, he had backed the Mahayuti candidate, Dhananjay Mundhe, which was widely seen as a critical factor behind Mundhe’s win. However, that doesn’t matter to the devotees of Bhagwangad. For them, he shows them the path.Nanabai Ugalmugle, 48, and her husband, Shivaji, 50, are both migrant Vanzari sugarcane labourers in Chaklamba. For a meagre amount of Rs. 50,000 across six months, couples mostly from Marathwada migrate to western Maharashtra or Karnataka to engage in one of the most gruesome forms of bonded labour in appalling conditions. Their children too are in the same profession because, Shivaji says, “We never had the money to educate our sons.”The couple has promised a Rs. 1 lakh donation for the temple at Bhagwangad. That’s about as much as their annual income.“We treat the pilgrimage site like we would treat our kids,” says Shivaji. “Even if we don’t have footwear or a roof over our heads, we will do what we can for the temple. We have been brought up to worship it.”

Sitting just outside their one-room house in Chaklamba, Nanabai, who is struggling with joint pain and frail knees due to hard labour, concurs with her husband. “Whatever little we have,” she adds, “is because of Bhagwangad and Namdev Shastri. He is the one that has given us everything. We shouldn’t think twice before giving anything to him. No questions asked.”The residents of Chaklamba even attribute the onset of the monsoon to Namdev Shastri. “The region had not had any rainfall until he visited our village for a program. The moment he came here, it started raining,” says Bhausaheb Thore, 52, a migrant sugarcane worker in the village.It is another matter that the rain – after it started – didn’t stop until it ravaged 30 districts and caused a serious loss of life and livelihoods. Bhausaheb has a counter to that too. “At least our drinking water concern is taken care of, and we will have water during our winter cropping season,” he says.Bhausaheb has promised Rs. 1.25 lakh for the construction of the temple. He doesn’t have his own farmland, and lives in a rented one-room house, paying Rs. 1,500 per month. “Contributing to the temple is an honour we won’t get for the next three generations,” he adds. “When the time comes in a year and half, we will keep the cash at Baba’s feet.”It would be a matter of pride, he adds, when the temple is constructed. “Years later, we won’t exist,” says Bhausaheb. “But the temple will be there, and will have a bit of us in it.”

Drowning in devotion, donations and debt

عقیدہ، چندہ اور قرض میں ڈوبے کسان

పుణ్యాన్ని లెక్కించేదెవరు?

ঋণ আৰু বৰঙনিৰ বোজাত কোঙা অথচ ভক্তিত গদগদ      

ভক্তি, প্রণামী ও কর্জের ত্রিফলায় বিদ্ধ কৃষিসমাজ

દાન અને દેવામાં ગળાબૂડ ભક્તિ  

भक्ति, दान और क़र्ज़ में डूबे किसान

ಭಕ್ತಿ, ಕಾಣಿಕೆ ಮತ್ತು ಸಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಳುಗಿದ ಬೇಸಾಯಗಾರರು

ഭക്തിയിലും സംഭാവനയിലും കടത്തിലും മുങ്ങിത്താഴുന്നവർ

पुण्याची गणना कोण करी?

ਸ਼ਰਧਾ, ਦਾਨ ਤੇ ਕਰਜ਼ੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਡੁੱਬੇ ਲੋਕ

பக்தி, நன்கொடை, கடன் ஆகியவற்றில் மூழ்குதல்

ଭକ୍ତି, ଦାନ ଏବଂ ଋଣରେ ବୁଡ଼ି ରହିଥିବା ମଣିଷମାନେ

कपार पर उधार आ भक्ति के बोखार

करजा मं बूड़े, दान अऊ भक्ति  

Beed

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She is sitting on a big bundle of dry grass amidst a rather appalling scene of destruction. Broken bamboo sticks, torn tarpaulin sheets, plywood planks, rope pieces, crumpled sarees, household utensils, mud-soiled clothes and other everyday items lie in complete disarray. This is the place they called home. It still is. But looks very different a couple of days after the Delhi Development Authority’s bulldozers flattened their makeshift houses. Rita Devi’s was one among the 10 to 15 huts within this settlement in the census town of Chilla Saroda Khadar.&nbsp; She, however, looks quite unfazed as she holds in one hand a flat, golden-brown leaf blade of grass, about an inch wide, and rips it into two or three thinner strips with a sickle that she is holding in another. A bulldozer at the door is neither new nor any longer scary for her or any of the people in her settlement near the Yamuna Kshetra, where the government plans to develop one of the six biodiversity parks in Delhi. “Yah zameen sarkari hai isliye to zhuggi-vuggi tod deta hai. Patte par zameen yah vahi log saal bhar ke liye lete hai jo kheti karte hai. [The land belongs to the government, so they break our huts. Only those who cultivate take the land on lease for a year.]”“This happened when we were near Akshardham also,” Rita says. “Someone was cleaning the fish, and a crow took some of the fish waste inside the temple. So, they demolished the entire jhuggi [settlement]. That was in 2015. Then we came to this neighbourhood in Chilla Khadar. Here also 4-5 times the same thing has happened. But we are staying here.” Her family has built a small 8X10 feet room on the land she is renting for 500 rupees a month.“We give the rent to a Gujjar guy. His is name is Rajveer. He stays in Chilla only. This land was already sold to the government by his grandfather. They even got compensation for it. But he still claims he owns this land. He beats and threatens us poor folk and extracts money,” says Rita. “Tumhara khet, tumhari zameen, tu jaan. Hamara to rahene se matlab hai [Your field, your land, you know better. What do we care? We just want a place to stay]. We never make pucca houses. Who will keep making a new house every time they demolish?” She is tying the strips of grass she cut into one small bundle.Rita’s family has managed to put back the two side walls of their hut and a plastic roof after the latest demolition drive. Most of the people in the settlement are daily wage migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Rita herself is from Bihar’s Supaul district. She has been in Delhi since 1993 when her parents moved from Baspiti village to Delhi in search of livelihood. About 9.3 million people from Bihar migrate to other states for the same reason, according to the 2011 census. Rita belongs to the Mallah, a fishing community also known as Nishad and Dhimar, now listed as a Scheduled Caste in Bihar.

Many from the settlement are engaged in wage labour or cultivation near the Yamuna riverbed. Others sell fruits, ice cream, sugarcane juice around Mayur Vihar Phase-I. Some work as security guards and domestic workers at the Samachar Apartments. Rita and her family of five make a living off the grass she is cutting into thin strips outside her ramshackle house.It’s called patera (Typha elephantina, popularly known as elephant grass) she says, speaking in Hindi. “It grows on its own in the forests. You do not need any seeds or manure. All who are in agriculture know of this.” There are many uses of this tropical grass species including, in pest control, paper pulp production, making bio-oil and bio-gas, and feeding livestock. Even Ayurveda claims to put its medicinal properties to use in healing various ailments. But Rita and her family gather and sell this to the farmers and vegetable vendors who use it to tie greens in bundles before taking them to the mandi.“Patera is used to tie green leafy vegetables like palak [spinach], methi [fenugreek], kalami [water spinach], sarson [mustard leaves], bathua [wild spinach] and all. If you notice carefully while buying these vegetables in the market, you will find that they are tied with patera grass only.“The grass is long, almost five to seven feet,” Rita explains. “And even while it is found through all seasons, it is of no use to us during monsoon. We get no patera work between Bhado and Ashwini [roughly between August and October] since the plants wilt in the rains.”

Rains bring even more miseries for them living in the low-lying areas in the flood plains of Yamuna. Every monsoon, if she does not go back to her village, she has to shift like others from the settlement, to living under the blue line metro bridge that connects the New Ashok Nagar station to Mayur Vihar – 1 on the main road, about a kilometre away. A 10-15 minutes’ walk from where she lives, life from under this bridge, looks different. Asphalt roads, concrete houses, shops, schools, hotels and malls surround it. And right opposite is the entrance, a rather broad muddy slope leading into a green patch in the middle of this metropolis.A walk through that opposite lane, crossing the desolate open spaces surrounded by trees all around, and a couple of open drains, eventually leads to the few migrant settlements of Chilla Khadar. They sit at a little distance from each other, separated on regional lines – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal. Rita lives with people from her state – Bihar. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://lokniti.org/media/upload_files/Remote%20Voting%20for%20Domestic%20Migrants%20in%20Delhi%202023-Survey%20Findings.pdf">A report</a> published in 2023 by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies says that about 22 per cent out of the total migrant population in Delhi comes from Bihar, the second highest after Uttar Pradesh at 50 per cent.Rita was really young when she came to Delhi. “I was hardly five,” she says. “Then we used to stay near Akshardham. Then also we lived in makeshift huts.” She does not want to leave this place. “Here there is this open space, there is patera, I get enough firewood, the rent is less. Why would anyone go back? There is nothing back there in my village today.”She has been doing the same work that her parents did in Delhi. “When my parents came came here, they found out about patera. They brought a sickle and started working. Go where it grows, bring it home, cut it, sell it, go there again…” Now there are five of them doing the same work: Rita, 37, her husband Shambhu, 40, two sons Okil, 20 and Sushil, 18 and her daughter Radha, 16.

“When all of us work together we make about 1,000 rupees in a day,” Rita says. “But rice, pulses, vegetables, everything has become very expensive. And if we eat fish someday, then more money goes into buying it and then spices, oil, gas cylinder – everything adds up. At the end of the day, we hardly save 300 rupees.“And if you add up each and every expense, you will realise we do not even earn 10,000 rupees in a month. Almost 3,500 of that goes towards milk alone. Add to it tea leaves, sugar, ginger… When you have a family, it [income] seems very little. Clothes, medicine, food every other thing has to be managed from this amount only. We hardly save anything. Even during festivals all of us cannot buy clothes. Aage tu le le, peeche hum le lenge, aaise hi chalata hai [This time you take, I will buy later. That is how we live],” she says.

It is May 27, 2025. Rita is going to the forest to cut patera. Two days earlier, there was unseasonal rain in the capital and today the temperature is soaring. It is around 34 degrees Celsius in the morning, but it feels like 39. A heat alert has been issued by the government regarding the rising temperature and people have been advised to restrict themselves from going out of their homes. Rita knows that none of this is for her because if she does not step out her family will go hungry.She walks about a kilometre and half in the direction of the forest to cut patera every day, carrying a water bottle in hand. Her daughter Radha, carrying a sickle in her hand, accompanies her. Rita knows that this work is not for a single woman. Most of the time Radha and younger son Sushil help her. Today Sushil has promised to join them later.

Rita has to cross more than one enclosed field to reach the patera growing in the open areas behind. The water in that area looks almost waist-deep after last few days’ rains. Neither the smell, the slush around the area, nor the sight of the turbid water with small insects floating around deter Rita from entering it. She leaves her worn-out sky-blue slippers at the edge and walks inside the water with a tarpaulin sheet in hand.Radha in the meanwhile has already disappeared among the tall grass and is only seen when she returns with a bundle of cut patera on her head. Sushil arrives in time to help her take the bundle down and spread it on the open field nearby. “The water is always knee deep. The Yamuna water floods this area. Apart from thorny bushes, there are many other things, we wade through it all. You can’t imagine how dirty the water is. What all we do for our stomachs,” says Rita.Both mother and daughter make multiple trips like this for the next couple of hours. They go inside the waist-deep waters, cutting the patera, carrying it in little bundles of about 10 kilos over their head, and spreading it to dry in the field. After the grass is dry, they make bigger bundles, this time of about 30 to 40 kilos each and come home where they cut the grass into thin strips.The razor-sharp leaves of patera can cut through your fingers. Rita shows some marks on her hands. “See, all these marks are from those cuts only. If we get cut, we do some home remedy. If it pains a lot, we put some hot oil. It will go. Yamuna mai takes all our wounds and pains away.

“Only when we get high fever, we take an injection or medicine. And we never go to a government one,” says Rita. “We go to a private one in Chilla village itself. There are one or two doctors, jhola chaap [self-proclaimed medical practitioners], who come here. We get our pills from them for 50-100 rupees. I wonder if they just give us those because they think we are poor. Whatever it is, it works for us.”The dry patera is cut and tied into small bundles. “We sell one bunch for 10 rupees to the farmers.” Every morning Rita’s day begins at 4 a.m. when they tie the cut patera and load it on the cycle rickshaw that her husband Shambhu Mukhiya owns and rides. By 8 o’clock everyone is out. Rita and her children finish the house work and head towards the forest, Shambhu is out to sell the grass. He travels anywhere between 3 to 25 kilometres from Chilla Khadar with 100 kilos of patera on his cart and goes to farms and mandis. And yet not everything gets sold."We go all the way to UP and Haryana,” says Shambhu. “If it doesn’t sell, we have to pull it back. Often, we don’t get food on time. We have to go to the city if we want to eat. Now when we go far away to earn 1,000 rupees, and then we spend 500 on food and drink, our earnings are halved. The day we can’t sell, we come back hungry.” He returns home by 10 in the night.

Meanwhile, their existence in this census town is very fragile and yet another demolition can be round the corner at any time. A census town is not notified statutorily nor administered as a town. It is one that meets some urban characteristics such as a minimum population of 5,000; a density of 400 persons per square kilometres; and where at least 75 per cent of male workers are no longer in agriculture.

In the middle of gruelling life circumstances Rita has managed to educate her children. The eldest Okil Kumar has completed Class 12, Sushil dropped out after Class 9, and Radha has studied till Class 8. “I was married when I was 12. Here my youngest brother was born and there I was getting married. These days people get married when they are 20-22, even at 25. I had three children by then. I was very fond of studying but never got a chance,” she says.

Rita’s only encounter with education was through a few women social workers who used to come into the basti to teach children in the afternoons. She studied in that informal way for just six months before she moved to stay with her husband. “But today because of those madams I know how to write my name, the names of my family members, everything. I know!” She hurriedly picks up a diary and a pen to demonstrate it for me.What I see is a proud smile writ all over her face.This story was originally reported in Hindi

Living off grass blades in the national capital

قومی راجدھانی میں گھاس کے سہارے چل رہی زندگی

దేశ రాజధానిలో గడ్డి రొట్టె మీద సాగే జీవనం

ৰাজধানী চহৰত খাগৰি বন বেচি জীৱিকা নিৰ্বাহ

শুখা ঘাসে বাঁধা রাজধানীর পরিযায়ী জীবন 

દેશની રાજધાનીમાં ઘાસના તણખલા પર ટકેલી જિંદગીઓ

चिल्ला खादर: घास की रोटी पर पलता जीवन 

ದೇಶದ ರಾಜಧಾನಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬದುಕಿಗೆ ಆಸರೆಯಾದ ಹುಲ್ಲಿನ ಎಸಳು

രാജ്യതലസ്ഥാനത്ത് പുല്ല് വിറ്റ് ജീവിതം

गवताच्या पात्यांवर चालतंय जीवन!

ਘਾਹ ਦੀਆਂ ਤਿੜਾਂ ਬਣੀਆਂ ਰੋਟੀ ਦਾ ਵਸੀਲਾ

தலைநகரில் புற்களை கொண்டு பிழைத்தல்

ଦେଶର ରାଜଧାନୀରେ ଘାସ ଆଶ୍ରାରେ ଜୀଵନ

देश के राजधानी में उनका घासे से आस बा!

देस के रजधानी मं घास के भरोसे जिनगी 

Chilla Saroda Khadar

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-S-Living off grass blades in the national capital.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-R-In Birbhum-forest on a Santal wall.jpg

A forest is growing on the mud walls of a small Santal house in Gopalnagar. Trees rising through the roof merge with the umbrella of the neem tree growing beside it. The path on which a male spotted deer with its fawn amble along, is lined with tiny flowers and rather giant butterflies. Bright colours fill the decorated wings of these larger-than-life versions of bulbuls, babblers, barbets and parakeets. These avian creatures of the near-by Illambazar forest, flutter against the dull white of the wall.It is not the movement of these creatures on the wall, or the illusion of it, that alerts 75-year-old Churki Tudu. Nor does the music of the unseasonal showers on her tin roof on this afternoon in May. But the sound of our footsteps as we walk alongside this painting on the outer wall of the house, spreading like kantha-in-clay.A pitch road that cuts across this village in Ilambazar block is dotted with many such close-knit Santal mud huts on either side. The colourful murals on the outer walls of the homes catch our attention as we pass through.“Kids these days do new designs from phones and newspapers. Where was such variety in our times? We’d simply get some mud from the field and splash colours on the walls,” says Churki Tudu as she steps out of her room and reaches the entrance of her house. The ease in her voice with which she starts speaking, tells us that she is used to curious visitors who frequent the village to photograph the decorated walls of her house.She doesn’t wait for us to ask, but rather dives straight into the subject she assumes we are interested in. “White mud, red mud, black mud [colour] made with hnarir tel [burnt oil residue scraped from cooking utensil] – these were the colours.” A momentary pause, and she continues: “First the old clay layer would be scraped off the wall. Then a fresh layer of mud would be plastered and then we would apply another coat. Finally, we would colour the border with kharimati [limestone or chalk].”Churki is nostalgic about her childhood days in her birth home at Purba Barddhaman’s Akulia village. But she is aware of the Santal community’s rapidly changing ways, and the manner in which the new generation is adapting to the changes. She is currently living with her daughter in Gopalnagar. Their home is one of the 304 households in this village situated on the left of the Sriniketan Road, on the way to Ilambazar forest from Bolpur.

Roughly seven per cent of the total population of Birbhum are Adivasis. Santals (also pronounced as Santhal) are the majority -- over 80 per cent (Census 2011).“Most families in the village have two houses – a mud house and a cement one. The wall art is made on the mud house,” says Sumi, Churki’s 40-year-old daughter. As she explains the practice and the tradition, we suddenly notice that everyone here has built a pucca house of brick and cement, right adjacent to their traditional houses. Much like a modern extension to the old, ancestral one. For them the acceptance of the new, doesn’t seem to have come at the price of the old.The mud for the walls comes from the fresh layer of silt that gathers on the grounds during the monsoon. “We collect the silt from fields in the months of Bhadra and Ashwin [mid-August to mid-October],” says Sumi. For the annual Santal ritual of painting the house, the colours were traditionally sourced from various types of earth available around.“Adivasis have four primary colours,” says Gagani Mandi, 40, Sumi’s friend and next-door neighbour. She goes to list them: “Kharimaati [chalk] is used for white; Laalmaati [red mud] brought from Ilambazar forest is soaked in water. Typically, we make borders with it. Sometimes we find yellow mud while boring a well. We don’t get much of this. So, whenever we get some, we preserve it carefully in sacks to be used later for painting. Then there’s black. We burn straw and then mix the ash with water to get that colour.”“Sometimes we mix kharimaati with readily available blue in the market to create new colours for painting. We also extract green from the leaves of shim [snow peas],” says Gagani. “These [natural] colours often fade and disappear over time and so we need to apply them again [annually].”And what about all the other colours used in the mural depicting birds, flowers, and animals on the wall of that house we saw first? “The rest of the colours are all bought from the market,” says Gagani.

“See those two houses with butterfly designs? All painted by Purnima. We just help her,” says Sumi’s daughter Rekha Murmu. The 16-year-old proudly introduces us to the busy artist working intently on a wall a little further in the village. Both she and her young painter friend Purnima Murmu, 15, study in Class 11 in Raipur Sitikantha M. High School and Daranda Chandimata Vidyalaya respectively. Rekha, a native Santali speaker, is also fluent in Bangla, like everyone in Gopalnagar.All those birds, butterflies, and the human figures on the walls of Rekha’s own house are not their traditional motifs, nor are their methods like those her dida Churki or mother Sumi have learnt. “We have learnt all these from a didi [elder sister, as teachers are addressed] who comes to teach us painting,” says Rekha making it clear that the teacher is not from the Santal community. The paint, brush, pallet that Purnima is using are bought from the local market in Bolpur.“Earlier, we did not paint the entire wall in our house. There would be a red clay border painted on the mud wall right under the straw thatch. Flowers and vines would be painted under that. It was simpler [artistic style],” says Rekha explaining the generational changes in the painting style. Like her grandmother Churki, she understands that the figures and designs in the older paintings were part of a larger way of life which is not the same any more.

Churki Tudu cannot remember the last time she saw a child paint a bow and an arrow. She says that people don’t paint those things nowadays; hunting itself is now banned. What they practice once in a year on the day of<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/article/chadar-badni-puppets-at-santhal-festival"> Bandna Parab</a> [celebrated in the first week of January in Birbhum’s Santal community] is more of a performative ritual than real hunting. It is a symbol that traces back to their status as hunter-gatherers prior to being cultivators. Birbhum is also fast losing its forest cover.“Most Santal families in Gopalnagar are sharecroppers working on others’ fields. We grow paddy in monsoon and potato in winter and depend on this harvest for our yearly grain for meals,” says Gagani, sitting on the floor inside the pucca part of the house scattered with harvested potatoes. The division of the harvest is decided between the landowner and the sharecropper on the basis of who invests most in seeds and fertilisers. Only a handful of families have land of their own. That too one or two bighas at the most. (A bigha here is 0.33 acre.) Besides paddy, they cultivate potato, mustard, sesame, brinjal and tomato.Livestock rearing, tea and snack stalls and battery-operated e-rickshaw are additional avenues for earning for the community. But life here still revolves round the harvests. “We usually paint our walls during the month of Aghran [mid-November to mid-December] before the [Bandna] festivities,” says Sumi. The process of applying a fresh coat of mud on the walls every year and maintaining it are largely done by women in a Santal family.But why decorate the houses now when it is not festival time?It’s also done during family weddings, says Rekha. And they are expecting one soon in Purnima’s house and so, the women in the family are decorating the walls. The resident artists have moved the furniture around. The portraits of Raghunath Murmu (renowned Santali scholar, playwright and creator of the Ol Chiki script), Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Rabindranath Thakur are off the wall, resting on a bed. Rekha says that the three portraits housed here are community assets and are in demand for display during community festivals and celebrations.

These are the images and shades that still bind the Santal community at Gopalnagar village together through generations. Just like the colours of the distinctive tattoo that women - Gagani, Sumi and Rekha’s friend Brishti wear on their upper chest. “It hurts a lot. So, I didn’t do it on the chest. But see, I got it on my hand,” Rekha says enthusiastically, stretching her arm adorned with flower-patterned tattoos similar to what her mother has on her chest. The tattoo becomes a rite of passage – of time and traditions - from Sumi to Rekha.“We all have to get these tattoos done when we are 5 or 6 years old. People from Bihar come here to do these. It hurts a lot if we are to do this later when one grows up. This is our symbol. Ma-Dadi [mothers and grandmothers] have passed these on to us. The colour fades slowly [with time],” Sumi says with a smile.A smile that spreads across the faces of girls gathered there – Purnima, Rekha and Brishti. A smile that doesn’t fade but shines bright like the colours on the painted walls on this rain-washed afternoon.This story was originally reported in Bangla.

In Birbhum: forest on a Santal wall 

بیر بھوم: سنتالی دیواروں پر اُگا جنگل

বীৰভূমৰ ঘৰে ঘৰে, দেৱালে দেৱালে একোখন অৰণ্য 

બીરભૂમમાં: સંતાલ ઘરની દીવાલ પર એક આખું જંગલ

बीरभूम: संताल घरों की दीवारों पर उगा जंगल

ಬೀರ್ಭೂಮ್‌: ಸಂತಾಲಿ ಗೋಡೆಗಳ ಮೇಲಿನ ಕಾಡು

ബീർഭും: സന്താൾ ചുവരുകളിലെ വനം

बीरभूम : संथाल घरांच्या भिंतीवर उमललेलं जंगल

ਬੀਰਭੂਮ ਵਿੱਚ ਸੰਤਾਲ ਕੰਧਾਂ ‘ਤੇ ਉੱਕਰਿਆ ਜੰਗਲ 

பீர்பூம்: சந்தால் சுவரில் முளைத்த காடு

ବୀରଭୂମରେ, ସାନ୍ତାଳଙ୍କ ଘରକାନ୍ଥରେ ଜଙ୍ଗଲ

बीरभूम: संताल घर के दीवारन पर जंगल के नजारा  

संथाली भिथि मं झूमत जंगल 

বীরভূম: দেওয়াল জুড়ে বন-বনানী

Gopalnagar

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-R-In Birbhum-forest on a Santal wall.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-UKR-In Bihar-‘dead’ Adivasis tell their tales.jpg

“Isko dekhiye! Mar gaya hai…aur chal raha hai [Look at him! Dead but walking].”Amit Marandi has been getting a few laughs lately, and today is no different. He is walking towards the machan (bamboo bench-like structure) where half a dozen of his fellow villagers are now enjoying a giggle at his expense.The 32-year old Santhal Adivasi joins in the laughter, but soon his expression changes. Angst shrouds his face as he says, “Dekh lijiye, hum zinda hain lekin humko mar diya hai [Look at me, alive yet declared dead].”The daily wage worker from Lohsinghna village in Bihar, is referring to his name on a recent list of deceased voters. This damming list was made during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters names. The exercise was undertaken in the state by the Election Commission to weed out ineligible voters from electoral rolls. But here in Loa tola many eligible Adivasi voters have been struck ‘dead’. On the phone, I had alerted local sources that Amit's name was on the list.Knowing his name is on the deleted voters list does make him feel bad: “Bura to lagta hai na [I definitely feel bad].”It is around 12 noon and I am in Loa tola – an Adivasi hamlet – with a list of deleted voters of booth number 223. I found the village while doing a random check on the Election Commission website for lists of deleted voters. That’s how I came across booth 223 of Lohisingha village where many Adivasi names had been deleted.Loa tola is a Santhal Adivasi hamlet that gets its name from a tree. Dumar or gular (cluster fig) tree is called ‘loa’ in Santhali – an Austroasiatic language spoken by roughly 74 lakh people in India.Locals say that their hamlet or tola once had a giant fig tree which became the identity of this Santhali hamlet of largely mud and thatch houses. The average monthly income of most Santhali people is around Rs. 6,000 or less, says the Bihar Caste Survey of 2022-2023. Around one in five Santhal Adivasis work in agriculture as small or tenant farmers. The rest, like Amit, do wage labour – he works as a driver in Patna.