Reflections from 2018: Exploring the fabrics of traditional knowledge, values and experiences at grassroots.
It was January 2018 and we had just joined Digital Impact Square, a social innovation lab in Nashik which enables young people to find solutions to the most pressing problems. We were a team of 6 given a problem statement that how might be enable sustainable livelihoods in rural areas?
We had been partnered with Rural Caravan- a social enterprise which builds and supports rural enterprises in tribal areas. I shall write further more about their work, impact and our learning from that. Credits of photos used in this article go to Adarsh Ganesh, Mitul Jhaveri, Prasad Gulhane, Adithia Ramakrishnan, Megha Gupta, Tanushka Malhotra.
Since none of us were from the background of development sector, this was a very new experience for us. We started our field visit from the village Amale situated in Mokhada taluka of Palghar district which Rural Caravan has been working with since 2 years.
I want you to imagine a village which is in a forest reserve, has a river on its three sides, has no direct road connectivity and no grid electricity but only a solar grid provided by Siemens CSR. A village with a population of only 263 people, most houses were made from mud, roof tiles and hay and some with teak wood made by the people themselves! Little did I know that I could learn so much from my experiences with these villages and communities.
On our very first visit, we started conversations with the people and we used to record them so that we can come back, listen to it and derive insights.
We learnt how farming is mostly used for self-sustenance and very little is sold at the weekly market which is around 10 km away. The best part is that the elders of the village gave away their land for community farming and communities farm together. We saw mogra farms, some vegetables cultivation and took a walk around the village knowing about the trees, forest honeybees and their everyday life.
As the sun went down, we saw cattle moving back and kids playing near a fire which was lit to burn the crop stubble and the ash produced from it could be used as a fertilizer. We went into the house of Raju Bhau were we had our dinner.
We knew nothing about how big a problem is to cook in a traditional cook-stove with the smoke coming into the women’s eyes. The traditional cook-stove looks something like a mold made from clay or bricks sometimes. The efficiency is very less and firewood burning produces CO, CO2 and other harmful gases in heavy amounts which results into lung diseases and even cataracts in women who cook the food.
To address this issue, the social enterprise has developed a community owned rural enterprise which builds and installs smokeless cook-stoves.
Thankfully, all the stoves in this village were smokeless. Pretty interesting adoption of the cooking method; which taught us that it is more important to understand people’s cooking habits,their respect for the cook-stove ( some communities worship the chulha/cook-stove and consider it very sacred ), how many items they cook in one meal ( One model of cook-stove failed just because it only had one burner while the community needs three at a time to cook rice, vegetables and curry) , the taste difference that they have to face if a new method of cooking comes in, the value proposition for the community. Women are the catalysts and driving the stories. One women can always relate to other women’s pain and therefore other villages relate easily to it and since one of their own is constructing this, they give it a nod. Otherwise, believe me, communities are so fed up of external organizations/ government officers/ students who come for research, give them hope and they never come back.
One of my team members went with the rural enterprise which was selling and building these cook-stoves in other villages and we came to know that a lot of families consider a new cook-stove as a form of social status; they would build it in their house when a marriage is near and call out neighbors to see how big it is.
Once one of our team member went with them into the forest where they go and cut the firewood and they had to spend 4–5 hours and carry huge weight on their shoulders. Women also complained about back pain caused due to gathering the firewood.
Men and women both go for gathering firewood. When asked about Ujwala Yojana, almost everyone had an LPG cylinder but no one was using it.
Since the refilling center is very far away and it costs much more to travel and refill, it is not affordable for them. Cases have also been there where the government changes the status of their ration cards from BPL (Below poverty line) to APL (Above poverty line) because they’re enrolled in the scheme. Had seen lots of posters on the success but the reality is quite different in some areas. The drudgery involved with women in the villages is incomparable. I have learned to never give false hopes to the people. If you want to understand the situation, just live with them. Forget questionnaires, surveys and try participatory research and just listen to them and forget whatever you know.
Interesting to note that in summer, when they go to collect firewood, they have found underground pits in the forest which has water stored throughout the year and are covered by stones. They remove the stone, drink the water and again keep the stone.
Most of the traditional knowledge is localized and transferred through ancestors and some information is only passed when the ancestors are about to die. They also knew a lot about plant varieties and we tasted a stem of a plant which had a very high water content.
They happen to care a lot about the trees and the forest and do not cut trees which are green; prevents other people from cutting trees. In other villages near Trimbakeshwar, forest officers beat people who try to cut and gather firewood; but they do not have any option because they cannot afford LPG. Some villages are deprived of water for irrigation from dams because the water is to be sent to Mumbai. It is funny how we take our resources for granted and how government gives a free hand to industries but these communities have little access to resources. Once riding on the bike and visiting villages, I saw a scene which moved me; there were about 40–50 women with water filling utensils waiting outside a well with a water tanker arriving. Trust me, life of a women is the hardest.
Almost everyone stocks up firewood before the rainy season and the variety of wild fruits and vegetables are so much that 100+ such wild veggies and fruits are cooked during monsoon. We also tasted some wild varieties of banana, Karvand and a sugarcane-like stem.
The community cares a lot about sustainability. Many times they eat in leaf plates made by Palash ( Patravali ) or Mahua; do not like plastic waste too.
It is very difficult to cross the bridge when river is in full flow during monsoon which makes it difficult for them to go the nearest Public Health Center if anyone is not well. During one of our conversations, we heard stories from the past about how the whole community came together to install solar panels during one monsoon season in the past and how everyone formed a human chain to transport materials into their village. The community can predict rains and monsoons are very busy for them since they’re involved in rice and Nagli (Finger millet) farming.
Forest honey is a very good livelihood option for them and they’ve been trained and learnt bee-keeping. This is wild and pure honey which is produced and sold. Honey is extracted in different seasons and as different flowers bloom with change in seasons, so does the type and taste of honey produced changes.
Bamboo is in abundance and they know how to make topli (baskets) with it. Bamboo has a wide variety of applications and the community makes different products which serve household purpose as well.
There is also a huge old Mango tree near the place we used to sleep in our tents where the roosters used to wake us up early. Mangoes are shared between everyone and anyone can pluck and eat during summer.
The school was small and a fencing constructed by the people of the village. They all came together and offered Shramdaan (a voluntary contribution through physical effort). The teacher was quite happy and passionate! He drives 30–40 km daily to the school. In his past, he has even crossed the river when it was monsoon. I have a lot of respect for his work. The infrastructure of government is very deep at the grassroots level and it is amazing to see school teachers, ASHA workers, ANMs working in the remotest areas passionately. They indeed form the second line of our country’s defense after the military.
Talking about the migration, before these rural enterprises started, the people used to migrate in summer to do sand-mining. We heard horrific stories about the atrocities and illegal work involved in that but when they had no option in the past, they had to work there. In other villages, alcoholism was very high but in Amale, it was almost not there except a very few households. The people here follow a Baba who organizes workshops, runs his organization, gives lectures and this had a profound effect on the people here.
They have left eating non-vegetarian food, stopped consuming tobacco and consuming alcohol before some years. The community also left consuming meat because they develop affection when the goat is grown up in their own house and hence do not kill it. The local influencers played a big role in the transformation. They also have access to pendrives of this Baba’s lectures and religious songs which they hear every morning and have a prayer every sunday. Interesting to note that everyone belongs from the same caste and family in this village.
They all come together on festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi, Holi, Diwali and they organize lectures of religious people.
In-fact, their frame of reference is not in weeks or months, it is in seasons and festivals. If one thing that I’ve learned is that festivals which resonate with people’s culture and values really have a massive power of transformation. People cook food together, respect each other, have fun and they all spread good wishes and it showcases their values. I hope people from urban areas who are alone and depressed come here and experience the social culture.
The Self Help group is quite amazing and haven’t taken any loan since last one year and manage it very well. The women’s group make delicious chutneys from til (seasame) and Khurasani (Parsley) seeds.
In another village named Rajewadi, a family welcomed us into their house and offered us very tasty groundnuts and black-tea with lemongrass.
Villages which are near to cities or big hubs have many people with different castes and also have relatively more livelihood opportunities. We observed that the Trimbakeshwar Mahadev temple acted like a big hub and was a point for demand.
If we look through history, temples acted like markets. They were a point where a lot of people come together and thus users can avail different products and services which would boost the local economy. Temples always had a huge role to play from educating people, organizing festivals, creating green spaces, feeding the poor and boosting the local economy.
Unlike a village which had only one caste, the distribution of houses in some villages were according to castes and also the professions done in the village. Since those villages which are near to cities have more exposure to urban life, the migration is also very much and almost no youth wants to take up farming. The information consumption in rural areas has grown multi-fold and young people are becoming a part of the aspiration driven society where they on the internet are marketed a good urban perfect life and when they migrate to cities it is even more difficult for them. And which makes me think, why do people feel that villagers are reluctant to change or they do not want to change? It is a misconception. They have been showed so much of hope with so little opportunities that they do not believe in everyone who comes with their agendas of development.
A very different scenario is observed in villages which are very interior and remote. They somehow are satisfied because they are not exploded to such information. We saw that the barter system still prevails. It is very interesting how the whole mindset, values and motivation change with respect to geography. In some villages, people are very hesitant to take up a loan just because they belong to a particular caste, some people consume the birds and animals while some communities use them as an asset which could give them instant cash like a goat or a chicken.
After going through the experience, I know that I learned more than any school or University taught me about life, about gratitude. I am thinking of the day when we start learning from them, their values and their models.
They know more about the problem they are in and are capable to find solutions with just a little bit of access to resources, information and financial support. The traditional knowledge that they have gained through generations is simply a national treasure along with their unique festivals and livelihoods. The immense constraint on access to resources and information makes the community resilient and innovative in their approaches to solve their own local problems.
Sharing some more moments from our experience:
Plenty of toilets constructed in villages but most do not have pipelines or a water tank. This one, villagers said, it was so small that one cannot even fit into it.
Understanding the local context, community’s perception of a value in terms of an intervention and their desires are a must. Our idea of development is always different from them but when they match, the interventions truly create a ripple effect at the ground level. All these experiences have changed me a lot, as a person and my only request to everyone is that this is something which should be experienced by everyone; the forests, grasslands, rivers, wild fruits with a warm community full of values, with people serving selflessly and working at the grassroots, with stories of immense courage and resilience, with a lot of knowledge and a higher sense of being is what truly makes us Indian and the idea of Indian development is not only money and good lifestyle, but it is sustainability, deep moral values, art and a higher sense of being.
A sincere thanks to Digital Impact Square, Rural Caravan, the communities of village and our team, Grasshoppers for all the learnings and fun!
