Owing to socio-economic challenges and rising ecological concerns, this tribe from Madhya Pradesh has lost more than just its traditional livelihood

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 come on 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 a community of forest dwellers called the Mawasi tribe, and close to one lakh Mawasis live in Madhya Pradesh today. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the state has 21,437 Mawasi households.

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 her entire tribe as food is scare, 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 sings of a well-off past. Unlike other villages in these parts 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 farming. We used to go to the forest every morning and pick up things ranging from vegetable, 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, "40 years ago, on the day of my daughter Munni's wedding, I had to provide food for close to 150 people. And so, I went into the forest with my mother and collected 80kg 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 helped 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, adds, "We used to collect bilari kand (tuber), kodo, sama, kanku, dhunia, shatawar, behera, awla and other nutritious food from 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

A research by the International Journal of Herbal Medicine has listed out about 50 medicinal plants that are collected by tribes 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 the collection of herbs and medicinal plants. The research goes on to state that migration of the tribes to towns and cities, along with the shift of the village economy from being forest-driven to other means, the traditional wisdom of the tribes stands the threat of 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 a 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

Rajjan Mawasi, a 22-year-old from the same village, says that collecting medicinal plants from the forest does provide him 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, another villager from Barha Mawan, says, "Firewood is the only thing villagers get from the forest. One has to work a whole day to collect one or two bundles of firewood, which can be sold for about Rs50 to Rs70."

Malnutrition, indicator of a crippling ecosystem

With their traditional source of livelihood lost, the quality of the Mawasi life has depleted over the years. According to reports by a section of NGOs, about 50 children 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 per cent of the children were severely malnourished (classified as Grade III and IV) and 42 per cent had moderate malnutrition (Grade I and II); only 26 per cent 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 even 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 for picking forest produce, which is not possible in 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 here was recorded at 784mm, while in 2017, it was just 743.2mm. There appears to be no respite to this problem in the horizon as data from Meteorological Department of Bhopal predicts drought conditions this year too. It says Madhya Pradesh is under the rainfall deficiency zone with 75 per cent percent monsoon deficiency. This number was arrived at after collecting data of rainfall in the state between June 1 to June 17 this year. The data shows that monsoon deficiency in Satna is 16 per cent.

Bureaucratic hurdles

Though they are recognised as a Schedule Tribe, the Mawasi tribe does not belong to the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). As a result, they are not entitled to special programs run by the government for the upliftment of other tribes like the Baiga.

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 programs apart from traditional government scheme to uplift them."

Dissent against Forest Department

Voices are being raised against the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department too. According to Maniram Mawasi, a resident of Kelhaura, the 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 Forest Department has planted small trees to make 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 forest land. They are yet to receive any form of a response from the government. Buda fears that his claim might get rejected as 70% of such claims under the Forest Right Act have been rejected in Satna district.

The District Collector of Satna, Satendra Singh, was unavailable to comment on the issue.