I have spent three and a half decades in Madhya Pradesh and travelled throughout the state and yet had never visited the easternmost part where the Baiga Adivasis reside in Mandla and Dindori districts. There are three tribes categorised "Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups" (PVTG) in Madhya Pradesh - Baigas in Mandla and Dindori districts, Sahariyas in Sheopur district and Bharias in Chhindwara district. The PVTGs are those tribes people who are the most removed from the modern economy and culture and are living in their distinct world which can be easily ravaged by unmoderated contact with the mainstream economy and culture. There are special provisions for these people. Therefore, when my friend Naresh Biswas, invited my wife Subhadra and I as resource persons to a training workshop among the Baiga Adivasis in Dindori we seized the opportunity to visit the area for the first time.
The eastern part of Madhya Pradesh also happens to be the source of India's longest west flowing and only non-Himalayan perennial river, the great Narmada. I have spent so much time by the banks of the Narmada in Alirajpur but apart from a brief visit to Amarkantak where it originates I have not seen the river in its upper stretches above Jabalpur. So along with the meeting with the Baigas we also relished the privilege of seeing and swimming in the Narmada. Even though I used to swim a lot in the Narmada at one time, ever since it has been dammed by the Sardar Sarovar dam it has become heavily populated with crocodiles and so one can't swim in the river in Alirajpur anymore where it has become a big reservoir. Therefore, the prospect of swimming in the river was an added attraction. The first sighting of the river was five kilometers downstream of Dindori where we had to cross it and it was somewhat of a shock as naturally the river was very narrow as opposed to the broad swath that we are used to in Alirajpur.
The flow in the river was less for the time of the year. Primarily because a lot of deforestation has taken place in the catchment over the years and the withdrawal of groundwater and surface water for agriculture has increased. With modern satellite imagery and computer models along with data of velocity, rainfall, evapo-transpiration, agricultural production, soil type, terrain, underlying hydro-geology and water extraction it is possible to fairly accurately determine the flow in the river. However, this data is mostly not there and what there is regarding the flow in the river is classified and not available to ordinary citizens. So there is no information in the public domain about the actual flow in the River Narmada as it is kept secret by the Central Water Commission and the Narmada Control Authority.
Anyway we reached Dindori which is a small town of about 25000 people on the 18th of March. By this time the Covid 19 virus had made its presence felt in India with the first death having occurred in Karnataka on 13th March. So advisory had been given not to hold any gatherings. The workshop that we had gone to attend was to be held in a government agricultural research cum training centre. Thus, even though the workshop had been planned and permission got for it much earlier nevertheless it should have been called off. But since another training of the centre was going on, the principal of the centre allowed this workshop of Naresh's also to take place. So in those early days there was no social distancing practiced. However, Dindori is still safe even today without any cases even though our own city Indore is now a national hotspot with 200 cases.
I had been tasked with explaining global warming and its consequences to the Baiga farmers who had never heard of this before. So I did my best to try and explain the whole issue and ended up by saying that the Baigas being the children of the earth were doing everything right by using very little electricity and other forms of energy and also protecting the forests amidst which they reside. Apart from a few mobile phones and one or two motorcycles, the workshop participants had none of the energy guzzling appliances that we use. None of them had ever seen a laptop before participating in this workshop.
But why talk to the Baigas about global warming? Naresh Biswas has accomplished something unique. In the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006, which is popularly known as the Forest Rights Act, there is a special provision for PVTGs as follows - "In view of the differential vulnerability of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups among the forest dwellers, the District Level Committee should play a pro-active role in ensuring that all PVTGs receive habitat rights in consultation with the concerned PVTGs’ traditional institutions of these groups, after filing claims before the gram sabha”. Since the PVTGs are in greater danger of being rendered destitute if their habitats are destroyed, this special provision has been made for them in addition to individual and community rights. Thus, while individual farmers can claim individual rights and village communities can claim community rights, an area of a set of villages where PVTGs reside and have resided for a long time can be claimed by these PVTGs as their habitat. Naresh Biswas along with the Baiga communities of Baiga Chak in Dindori initiated this process a few years back for the first time in India and after following the process of claims and verification involving the traditional Baiga community institutions and the administration, habitat rights were granted.
Even though Naresh had thereafter tried to replicate the process in other areas where PVTGs are living, notably in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, so far not much headway had been made. Now Naresh was trying to implement habitat rights in other areas of Dindori. This meeting was organised to initiate the process. In the meanwhile Naresh had decided that the contribution of the Baigas in mitigating climate change through their greater conservation of the forests after granting of habitat rights should also be highlighted. That is why this workshop was held to introduce the subject to the Baigas.
Baigas also practice sustainable agriculture. They do not use chemical fertilisers or high yielding varieties of hybrid seeds and neither do they use irrigation, relying completely on rainfed agriculture. In this way too they are champions in mitigating climate change. Subhadra had a discussion session with the participants explaining to them how their agriculture was very important in the context of global warming. Subhadra has taken a sample of her collection of indigenous seeds to compare with the seeds that the Baigas were sowing. A young scientist employed at the Government Research Centre also saw these seeds and was impressed. He asked for some of these seeds so that he too could grow them on the farm at the centre. Subhadra told him that he could get the seeds but he would have to pay Rs 650 for them. The scientist went to ask the principal and came back and said that the principal had said that Subhadra would have to make a formal request to the Centre and then that request would be processed in due course and the payment made after that but she would have to give the seeds then and there!! Subhadra obviously refused saying that if this is the bureaucratic way the centre works then it could continue to stew in its rot. In fact the training programme the centre was running for the farmers was on organic composting with the use of NADEP pits and vermi-compost pits. However, when we went to see the NADEP and vermi-compost pits we found them in disuse. This is the moribund state of the Government Agricultural research and extension programme. The employees are wasting their time and public money and doing nothing. While people like Naresh, Subhadra and the Baigas who are actually doing worthwhile work in sustainable and equitable development are having to fend for themselves.
The eastern part of Madhya Pradesh also happens to be the source of India's longest west flowing and only non-Himalayan perennial river, the great Narmada. I have spent so much time by the banks of the Narmada in Alirajpur but apart from a brief visit to Amarkantak where it originates I have not seen the river in its upper stretches above Jabalpur. So along with the meeting with the Baigas we also relished the privilege of seeing and swimming in the Narmada. Even though I used to swim a lot in the Narmada at one time, ever since it has been dammed by the Sardar Sarovar dam it has become heavily populated with crocodiles and so one can't swim in the river in Alirajpur anymore where it has become a big reservoir. Therefore, the prospect of swimming in the river was an added attraction. The first sighting of the river was five kilometers downstream of Dindori where we had to cross it and it was somewhat of a shock as naturally the river was very narrow as opposed to the broad swath that we are used to in Alirajpur.
Anyway we reached Dindori which is a small town of about 25000 people on the 18th of March. By this time the Covid 19 virus had made its presence felt in India with the first death having occurred in Karnataka on 13th March. So advisory had been given not to hold any gatherings. The workshop that we had gone to attend was to be held in a government agricultural research cum training centre. Thus, even though the workshop had been planned and permission got for it much earlier nevertheless it should have been called off. But since another training of the centre was going on, the principal of the centre allowed this workshop of Naresh's also to take place. So in those early days there was no social distancing practiced. However, Dindori is still safe even today without any cases even though our own city Indore is now a national hotspot with 200 cases.
I had been tasked with explaining global warming and its consequences to the Baiga farmers who had never heard of this before. So I did my best to try and explain the whole issue and ended up by saying that the Baigas being the children of the earth were doing everything right by using very little electricity and other forms of energy and also protecting the forests amidst which they reside. Apart from a few mobile phones and one or two motorcycles, the workshop participants had none of the energy guzzling appliances that we use. None of them had ever seen a laptop before participating in this workshop.
But why talk to the Baigas about global warming? Naresh Biswas has accomplished something unique. In the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006, which is popularly known as the Forest Rights Act, there is a special provision for PVTGs as follows - "In view of the differential vulnerability of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups among the forest dwellers, the District Level Committee should play a pro-active role in ensuring that all PVTGs receive habitat rights in consultation with the concerned PVTGs’ traditional institutions of these groups, after filing claims before the gram sabha”. Since the PVTGs are in greater danger of being rendered destitute if their habitats are destroyed, this special provision has been made for them in addition to individual and community rights. Thus, while individual farmers can claim individual rights and village communities can claim community rights, an area of a set of villages where PVTGs reside and have resided for a long time can be claimed by these PVTGs as their habitat. Naresh Biswas along with the Baiga communities of Baiga Chak in Dindori initiated this process a few years back for the first time in India and after following the process of claims and verification involving the traditional Baiga community institutions and the administration, habitat rights were granted.
Even though Naresh had thereafter tried to replicate the process in other areas where PVTGs are living, notably in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, so far not much headway had been made. Now Naresh was trying to implement habitat rights in other areas of Dindori. This meeting was organised to initiate the process. In the meanwhile Naresh had decided that the contribution of the Baigas in mitigating climate change through their greater conservation of the forests after granting of habitat rights should also be highlighted. That is why this workshop was held to introduce the subject to the Baigas.
Baigas also practice sustainable agriculture. They do not use chemical fertilisers or high yielding varieties of hybrid seeds and neither do they use irrigation, relying completely on rainfed agriculture. In this way too they are champions in mitigating climate change. Subhadra had a discussion session with the participants explaining to them how their agriculture was very important in the context of global warming. Subhadra has taken a sample of her collection of indigenous seeds to compare with the seeds that the Baigas were sowing. A young scientist employed at the Government Research Centre also saw these seeds and was impressed. He asked for some of these seeds so that he too could grow them on the farm at the centre. Subhadra told him that he could get the seeds but he would have to pay Rs 650 for them. The scientist went to ask the principal and came back and said that the principal had said that Subhadra would have to make a formal request to the Centre and then that request would be processed in due course and the payment made after that but she would have to give the seeds then and there!! Subhadra obviously refused saying that if this is the bureaucratic way the centre works then it could continue to stew in its rot. In fact the training programme the centre was running for the farmers was on organic composting with the use of NADEP pits and vermi-compost pits. However, when we went to see the NADEP and vermi-compost pits we found them in disuse. This is the moribund state of the Government Agricultural research and extension programme. The employees are wasting their time and public money and doing nothing. While people like Naresh, Subhadra and the Baigas who are actually doing worthwhile work in sustainable and equitable development are having to fend for themselves.
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