Manish Chandra Mishra
Satna: A chapati with a pinch of salt and some mustard oil is all that Madhu, a
three-year-old girl from a hard-pressed tribal community in Madhya Pradesh,
gets to eat on a regular basis. Milk and vegetables are rare luxuries that are
available when her mother, Mamta, has enough savings to buy provisions from the
village market. This mother and daughter are not alone in the deprivation.
Madhu and Mamta are part of the Mawasi tribe, a community of
forest dwellers, with a population close to one lakh in Madhya Pradesh.
According to statistics released by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the state
has 21,437 Mawasi households.
The Majhgawan Block in Satna district, where this story is
reported from, has about 12 Mawasi villages, including Madhu's village Barha
Mawan. Her penury is shared by almost the entire tribe as food is scarce,
employment opportunities have diminished, and educational and health facilities
are inaccessible.
In stark contrast, this has not always been the case with the
Mawasi tribe, which is known to have inhabited this region for centuries now.
Until a few decades ago, the Mawasis were skilled in foraging the forests for
fruits, vegetables, grains and even medicinal plants.
Tribal aestheticism
Even today, a typical Mawasi village bears signs of a
well-off past. Unlike other villages in this part of India, Mawasi villages
have a defined sense of aestheticism. Bush fences and wood-crafted decorations
are commonplace in most Mawasi households that are made of mud and terracotta
tiles. Some of these houses also have mud compound walls. In addition, the
Mawasis create unique patterns and paintings on their walls and courtyards.
Living off the forest
Most Mawasi villages are situated at the beginning of the forest
and have pathways leading to the jungle. "We have been living in the
forests forever. I have never seen my forefathers do farming. We used to go to
the forest every morning and pick up things ranging from vegetables, fruits and
medicines. I also used to collect grains from the forest," says Rameshwar
Mawasi, a 75-year-old from Madhu's village.
From food to livelihood, the forest used to be an integral
part of the Mawasi life. Rameshwar, who is also the president of Barha Mawan
village, says, "Forty years ago, on the day of my daughter's wedding, I
had to provide food for close to 150 people. And so, I went into the forest
with my mother and collected 80 kilogrammes of chiraunji in four days. I sold
them in the market and bought grains and oil. Those were the days when the
forest had everything for us."
However, the situation has changed a lot today. "I had
to toil for four long days in the forest, but it prevented me from taking a
loan for the marriage of my daughter. This is not possible nowadays. It does
not matter how many days you spend in the forest, you don't find anything there
now. The authorities from the Forest Department have fenced large parts of the
forest, and we are not allowed there anymore. Only mahua and chiraunji are
available in the parts of the forest that we have access to, and that too only
in particular seasons. Earlier, we used to collect more than 50 herbs, plants,
tubers and vegetables from the forest," Rameshwar adds.
Another senior tribesman, Shripal Mawasi, says, "We used
to collect bilari kand (tuber), kodo, sama, kanku, dhunia, shatawar, behera,
awla and other nutritious food from the forest. Nowadays, these things are hard
to come by. In fact, the new generation of our tribe cannot even recognise most
of the forest produce."
Losing out on tribal knowledge
Research by the International Journal of Herbal Medicine
listed out about 50 medicinal plants that are collected by tribal groups in the
Vindhya region, including the Mawasi tribe. The research paper also says that
with the change in the forest landscape, the tribes are increasingly finding it
hard to continue with the collection of herbs and medicinal plants. The
research goes on to state that migration of the tribes to towns and cities,
along with a shift in the village economy from being forest-driven to other
means, the traditional wisdom of the tribes faces being forgotten. The research
further points out that the government should establish institutional and
financial systems to evaluate and promote the potential role of herbal medicine
in modern healthcare.
"I'm the only person left in the village who has the
knowledge of medicinal plants. The youth are aware of only commercial forest
produces, such as mahua and chiraunji. There are hundreds of medicinal plants
in the forest but due to lack of knowledge, villagers are not able to recognise
them," says Rajaram Mawasi, a 55-year-old resident of Kirai Pukhari
village.
Moving away from the forest
Twenty-two-year-old Rajjan Mawasi, also a resident of Kirai
Pukhari village, says that collecting medicinal plants from the forest doesn't
provide enough to feed his family. "We cannot survive without going
outside the village or touching a fawda (spade). I do not want to learn about
medicinal plants as I know it would be a waste of time," he says.
Rajju Mawasi, a resident of Barha Mawan village, says,
"Firewood is the only thing villagers get from the forest. One has to work
the whole day to collect one or two bundles of firewood, which can be sold for
about Rs 50 to Rs 70."
Malnutrition as an indicator of a crippling ecosystem
The loss of the traditional source of livelihood has led to a
depletion in the quality of the Mawasi life over the years. According to
reports by a section of NGOs, about 50 children had died due to malnutrition in
the district in 2008.
In July 2015, when activists from Vikas Samvad visited these
villages to check the weight of children below five years using ICDS weighing
machines, it was found that 30 percent of the children were severely
malnourished (classified as Grade III and IV) and 42 percent had moderate
malnutrition (Grade I and II); only 26 percent were classified as normal.
A closer look at the high levels of malnutrition among Mawasi
children reveals a complex chain of problems stemming from reasons such as
unemployment and economic insufficiency to ecological factors such as drought.
Losing grip over the forest
Earlier, the Mawasis used to be entirely dependent on the
forest. Today, with the loss of their forest habitat, Mawasis are migrating to
places like Maharashtra and Delhi in search of jobs.
“Forest are shrinking day by day and now, one needs to go
deep inside the dense forest to pick forest produce, which is not possible in
the presence of forest guards," says Shyam Sundar Mawasi, a resident of
Putrichuwa village. Consequently, these forest dwellers are losing grip over
the forest itself.
Rain of woes
To make matters worse, the back-to-back droughts in the past
two years have made this region dry. The normal rainfall in this region used to
be 1,039 millimeters (mm). In year 2018, total rainfall recorded was 784 mm,
while in 2017, it was just 743.2 mm.
There appears to be no respite to this problem in the horizon
as data from Meteorological Department of Bhopal predicts drought conditions this
year as well. It says Madhya Pradesh is under the rainfall deficiency zone with
75 percent monsoon deficiency. This number was arrived at after collecting data
of rainfall in the state between 1 to 17 June this year. The data shows that
monsoon deficiency in Satna is 16 percent.
Bureaucratic hurdles
Though the Mawasi tribe is recognised as a Scheduled Tribe,
it has not been included in the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). As
a result, Mawasi tribals are not entitled for special programmes run by the
government for the upliftment of other tribes like the Baigas.
Commenting on the existing governmental support to tribal
communities, Sachin Kumar Jain, a social worker associated with Vikas Samvad,
says, "We have to understand that tribes are different from other
villagers. Their culture, food habits and livelihood are very different. I feel
that there is a need for special programmes apart from traditional government
scheme for the upliftment of tribes."
Dissent against the forest department
Voices are being raised against the Madhya Pradesh Forest
Department too. According to Maniram Mawasi, a resident of Kelhaura, the state
forest department has occupied acres of forest agricultural land that the
Mawasis had been cultivating for generations.
"Forest guards and officers restrict villagers from
entering the forest. The state forest department has planted small trees to
mark a boundary preventing us from using the forest. Few months ago, they
stopped me from entering the land where my ancestors had been farming for
years. So, I decided to take the legal route and file a claim for my land as
per the Forest Right Act," says Maniram.
Another villager, Buda Mawasi, has also filed a similar claim
over the forest land. They are yet to receive any response from the government.
Buda fears that his claim might get rejected as 70 percent of such claims under
the Forest Right Act have been rejected in Satna district.
However, the district forest officer Rajeev Mishra denied the
charges of the villagers. He said, "Our guards never harass a villager who
goes into the jungle for collecting forest produce. We only make the jungle
encroachment-free and keep an eye on the poachers."
Mishra also assured the tribes not to worry about the
presence of forest guards.
Tribal welfare minister of Madhya Pradesh Omkar Singh Markam
said that he is concerned about the condition of the Mawasi tribe. "I am
aware of all the problems what you have observed on the ground. I also belong
to a tribal community and have faced such problems as well. And that's why I'm
working on analysing the current schemes which are being run by the government.
Our department would make some changes in way of implementation of
schemes," he said.
Markam emphasises that he does not want the tribals to be dependent
on government schemes.
"I know that schemes are important, but they are
temporary support. I want the tribal people to be self-sufficient and I will do
everything to connect them with their traditional livelihood system," he
informs.
Satendra Singh, the District Collector of Satna, was
unavailable to comment on the issue.
संदेश
0 टिप्पणियाँ