61 A Field Worker’s Diary
I told you in my last post (Goddess of wisdom in a tribal forest! _ Field Worker’s Diary _ Part 60) that we had done a study on non-timber forest products (NTFP) in 6 tribal villages. Ahobilam was another one of the villages. There is no need for me to talk about this pilgrimage that lies in the middle of the Eastern Ghats in the Nallamala forest area. Nonetheless, I am writing this small piece to talk about a small Chenchu colony that is at a corner of the main village of Ahobilam; looking as though somebody had flung it away from the village.
In a Chenchu colony with 80 households, almost all of them were mainly dependent on NTFP collection for a living. Just like in Sivapuram, here also they have put in rules as to which households collect which forest products. Maredu gaddalu, karakkayalu, kanuga chettu, mushidi ginjalu, kumkudukayalu, oosiri, tandra gaddalu, and many more such forest products can be found abundantly in this region. According to our study, around 75% of the household income of these people comes from the collection of NTFP. The rest of their income comes from employment guarantee work. There was a lot of difference between the Chenchu people we saw in Sivapuram and Ahobilam. The continuous movement of outsiders due to the place being a pilgrimage seemed to have made these Chenchu people used to ‘civilized’ living. In all of the adivasi villages that we had visited, we could observe one thing in common in — their love and responsibility towards trees. They take a lot of care while collecting NTFP to ensure that the tree is not harmed in any way. The forest is their home and their livelihood as well. They always take care of their home. On the contrary, I observed many Chenchu families of Ahobilam cutting down trees for timber. I felt that these people were moving away from the tribal lifestyle of earning just enough for sustenance and are slowly joining the mainstream society’s philosophy of earning and saving more than necessary. We could also see that the forest products were not processed even a bit before selling. Since it is a pilgrimage, many tourists flock to the place. Although the locals could score a good profit by doing a little bit of processing on tamarind, oosiri, kumkullu, etc., somehow they weren’t showing much interest in it. There were a few honey collecting households even here. In order to collect honey from the honeycomb hanging from the edges of hills, these people tie a rope to their waist and dangle from the hill to collect the honey in the most hazardous fashion. If the rope loosens even if a little bit, then that person’s life is in danger. To put these people out of that risk, a voluntary organisation has been manufacturing ladders that can be suspended from the hill. Some youngsters were cutting bamboo into small pieces and putting them as steps on a long rope to make it into a ladder. When we asked the staff of that organisation if the risk came down through these ladders, they replied that this was just an attempt and that they didn’t know how useful it would turn out to be. Earlier, this organisation had also provided honey collectors with safety suits to mitigate the risk of attacks from honeybees. By wearing the fully covered suits, there is no danger even if the honeybees were to bite, they said. But, honey collectors have kept them aside and are doing collection in their routine method: by wearing only loincloths and tying ropes to their waists and dangling over the hill. The Chenchu people stated that the safety suits were very heavy so they couldn’t suspend themselves with ease.
In a situation where even an organisation that is continuously present in the village and discussing and debating with the people there and has understanding of their problems has no chance of coming up with a solution that is completely successful, I felt that it is highly impossible for the governments to be fruitful in their efforts to come up with plans by looking at the problems from outside for the people who are living very far apart from the mainstream society.
Bharathi Kode