Pagdandi Yatra was an eye-opener for me as I got to know how the tribals live and what kind of problems they face.
What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word: ‘tribal’?
Backward? Lacking? Agriculture? Hut? Animals? Loose black skins? A lot of jewellery on their bodies? Millions of myths?
I know the list is long, and I must tell you that this essay might be woven with sarcasm. I will tell you on your face that the privileges that you enjoy as rights come at the cost of millions of their dying souls, who you, indirectly, consider even less evolved or important than monkeys. But you know it already, right? You do know it.
A tribal man farms throughout the year, invests a sum of fifty thousand rupees in his land, on seeds and water and electricity and the like, and then earns a profit of thirty-four thousand per year from it. And the government comes and makes a ramshackle house for him, thus pulling him out of BPL (below poverty line) and devoids him of all the help it was planning to offer.
Such steps do help us advance in becoming a superpower. Another tribal man, for example, is however always drunk because there are people from outside who buy mahua from him, and he does not understand how to really balance this intrusion of modernity with his way of life. (I am talking about 1720 in 2020, they are at least 300 years behind.) He drinks and drinks to keep himself numb because as compared to the beautiful world on the smartphone (which one of the villagers brought when he went out in search of work), his world is a piece of shit.
And I sit on the balustrade of a little shop and ask him how much will he sell his fish for, to which he at once says in the Bombay style: three hundred rupees per kg sir. And at once, my eyes turn toward his clothes: tattered shirt and pants. I am reminded of the hundreds and thousands of people sleeping under bridges, who have migrated to cities in search of a better home: all homeless, all trying to understand – what the hell just happened?!
And then there is a village, which will drown in a few months because a few sarkari babus came and signed a few papers. A dam is to be built and a family is given a truncated amount of four lakhs per hectare (Talk about corruption!). Sabka hissa hai, babu (Each one gets their share). This could allow him to live for another five years if he and his family were living in the same village rent-free, but they will have to move now, because their whole village is soon going kaboom.
They have gone to Bhopal and Delhi, pleading lawyers and judges and babus but nothing comes out of it. But even in the city also, they will live rent-free, won’t they? Because they will be living under a bridge… paying rent to a thanedaar.That thanedaar was beating a drunk man when I was walking in the village like a babu, wearing a pant-shirt. He thought I had come for a gasht (patrolling).He toned down at once when he looked at me walking in his direction. And I thought I had been a part of a scene from 1970s’ movies.
But they gave us very little. All our money goes on transport, whereas those getting huge money in the municipal towns have their sand and bricks in their homes for free. Six thousand rupees for sand itself, from the town to my house. Why would I build a house then? It is a loss, Sahib, a huge loss.”
I began to think about the planning of the IAS officers who have studied so much, and I began thinking – What is the use of studying so much when they can’t understand such a simple thing that everyone must be treated alike? And, anyway, I am no one to judge, but when I saw a boy – in tip-top hair and tip-top clothes about to beat his parents because they won’t give him money for mahua, I was displeased. Unhappy.Shattered. I thought to myself what the hell was that? Don’t they understand what they are doing to themselves? “All Urban Naxals sahib,” one of them had told me – “All Urban Naxals, in their fancy words and turbans trying to keep our culture intact by stopping any development from coming our way.
They get fat-ass rich themselves. All forest is theirs, everyone is their stooge. They come and kill the babus who have development written on their wrists, and we are telling you, sahib, they are more dangerous than the tigers, which roam like cats in these mountains of Satpura nowadays.”
Only if I could explain what I gained from Pagdandi yatra in a mere essay! Please join it. If not for the sake of the tribals, but yours. Your eyes are closed.
You need to hear their stories:
- Of a guy who sells vegetables in the market and uses that money to run an NGO.
- Of a girl who spends ten days without food because her family was looted by those more educated than her.
- Of another girl, who is continuously tortured by others and her own family for being a strong independent woman, and yet she doesn’t relent.
- Of a little girl who wants to study and become a doctor, but her parents won’t let her because they are so poor.
- Of a young man who does not live in his own village for days because his father is a drunkard and beats his family members.
- Of those thousands of little boys and girls who have no idea that their tribe is dying and they don’t care.
- Of a man who lost two kids successively, in the womb of their mother, and spends all of his time teaching the so-called tribal-kids math and science.
- Of a young man who is full of empathy and love, and loves teaching kids how to use a camera.
- Of a rich man who believes in the system, and yet, when he encounters a poor NGO in need of money, does not shy away from stepping up.
- Of thousands of tribals of Korku tribe who won’t be Korku anymore, except in documentaries and movies.
Join it. It might be a lesson on kindness, empathy and humility.