Leaving all her troubles in one bamboo basket

“If anyone in our community were to make a parara [a flat plate used for drying things], or a soopa [a winnowing basket] from bamboo, they will need to pay a fine in the form of grains and money to the other group.” Mangali Bai is explaining the livelihood code followed by subgroups of the Baiga Adivasi community, like, Binjhwar, Nahar, Narotia, Bharotiya, Rai Maina, and Kath Maina. Baigas in Madhya Pradesh are among the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). “Each community makes different things from bamboo.”

She herself is a Binjhwar Baiga Adivasi, living in Panda tola, a settlement of 10 to 12 Adivasi families in Balaghat district’s Nata village. It is Friday morning and Mangali Bai, along with others from her community, is on her way to the forest area near Maldhar village to source bamboo. It’s a little later than their usual 4 a.m. but still before the sunrise, as they wait for me to join.

On the way they hide their food boxes under the dry bed of a river and walk carrying only a water bottle and an axe each. “It is a way to reduce the weight we are carrying,” Mangali Bai says. Past noon they will be walk the same 8 to 10 kilometres towards Panda tola. They will be carrying three to four bamboo poles on their head, weighing about 25 kilos.

This is her Friday routine. The rest of the days in the week she peels, cuts, prepares the thin bamboo strips and weaves bamboo baskets. Her work, she says is determined by birth. “We make only baskets. I grew up watching my people making only those. So that is all that I have learnt. That is all I know.”

But that is not quite true. Mangali Bai, living on the edge of the forest, knows a whole lot about the jungle and its ways, its colours, textures, fruits, greens, flowers, trees, herbs. She knows the paths and the places to find those, the geography and history of the forest. She knows it all. As they say: Gond se achha jameen ke baare men koi nahi jaan sakta, Baiga se achha jungle ke baare mein koi nahi jaan sakta, aur Dhimar se accha paani ke baare mein koi nahi jaan sakta. (No one knows about land better than a Gond, a forest better than a Baiga, and water better than a Dhimar.)

On the way to the forest Mangali Bai collects tendu flowers and charota (Cassia Tora) leaves to carry home. “We get it all from the jungle only. Bhodo pihari [termite mushrooms or Termitomyces], baans pihari [local bamboo mushroom or Cantharellus], puttu [a type of wild mushroom], bhaji [greens].” Baigas, are forest dwellers who depend on it for survival and livelihood. Almost 75 per cent of their total population in the country live in Madhya Pradesh – 4,14,526 according to the 2011 census. But this community never treats the forest like a resource. They know what to take from it, when, in what quantity. They also know how to return it.

“Ab to jungle bhi bhag rahise, pahale to iha hi rahaay [Now the forests are running away. Earlier they used to be right here.” Knowledge that lives on Mangali Bai’s tongue and reflects in her actions is not stored in any books. She is speaking of the changing world around her as she has seen in the last two decades. She is not sure about her age but believes herself to be in her 40s.

When Bai got married, bamboo was available within a three-to-four-kilometre walk inside the forest, and they used to go about three times a week to collect it. But now, they have to travel about nine kilometres to get bamboo, and they only go once a week, bringing three or four culms (long poles) at a time.

“All the trees have been cut down. Now, wherever you look, you will find only sagwan [Tectona grandis]. Where do you see new trees now? You have the same kind all around. They keep cutting them and replanting. What all did we not bring from the forest in our times! Kakora [spine gourd], bhaji [greens], tendu[persimmon]. You hardly get anything now,” she says.

There are times in summer though when they still try to collect mahua [Madhuca longifolia] and tendu leaves. “This year I hardly collected 500 pooda [a single pooda has 100 leaves].” During rains, when the work of bamboo basket making slows down Mangali Bai goes to other people’s fields to transplant seedlings and make a little money. Her 62-year-old mother-in-law, Maho Bai, gets an old age pension of Rs. 600.

Mangali Bai's father-in-law had died before her marriage, and it’s almost two years since her husband, Madan Uikey died in January 2024 at the age of 45. He was a migrant worker and travelled to wherever there was construction work. “He had gone to Haryana then,” says Mangali Bai. “We didn’t know what happened, he died in a foreign land. Even the contractor did not tell us anything. When we reached there, we realised he had died because of the cold weather.”

“I couldn’t even see my son’s face,” complains Maho Bai. “They were asking for 3,500 rupees in the hospital to release the body, on top of it the money to rent a vehicle. Where to get it? We couldn’t bring the body back. We cremated the body there in the hospital itself,” explains Mangali Bai.

Her son Sukesh Uikey dropped out of school after Class 8 when his father died. “Mein school kabhi nige haao, unla kaahin bolahu, nahi padhre aao, to mat padho, kaam karo, kehan karahun aur. [I never went to school. What would I tell them. If you don’t want to study, don’t. Work. What else can you do?]” she says. Today her 18-year-old son, migrates like his father for work and sends 7 to 8 thousand rupees home every three months. Most of what he makes goes into food and rent.

Mangali Bai and her mother-in-law live in the village and weave bamboo baskets to earn some 600 rupees a week. They have a small patch of land, about 1.5 acres, where the family cultivates paddy once every year. Sukesh comes home at the time of cultivation, works in the field and goes away until harvest time.

“Now he will come,” says Mangali Bai, “then we will be in the business of farming again. Only once in a season we earn. We get about 20-30 quintals of paddy, but we don’t sell it. Bechenge to ka se khabo fir [If we sell what we grow, what would we eat]? We bring bamboo and make baskets, after the farming is done; we work with bamboo only.”

But bamboo is becoming difficult to source. Madhya Pradesh has the highest bamboo bearing area in India. And the growth-related industries and plantations under the National Bamboo Mission, have to be placed alongside the increasing struggle of this PVTG community whose livelihoods depend on it.

“How will you get bamboo if you keep cutting the forest every year?” she asks. "Now there is hardly any bamboo. Every day some government contractors cut the forest. Even our people from the village used to go there for work. Earlier, we used to bring more bamboo, but now the police officers don’t allow us to bring it, they take it away,” she says. Mangali Bai has finished cutting her bamboo and is struggling to tie the poles with a rope they have made from peeling another rather green pole.

Baigas know how to use everything from the leaves to the roots of a tree. They have lived in harmony with the forest for centuries. They depend on it for most of their livelihood needs and that is why, perhaps, they even worship the forest, consider it their god.

When I see everyone bending down to tie their load, I ask them if it would not be easier to just sit and tie the poles. "No, we believe this to be our deity. How can we sit in front of the Gods? We worship this place."

But are you not cutting down the forest as well?

"Hum janate hai kaunsa kaula hai aur ugane vaala hai, kisko lena hai, kisko chhodana hai, sarkar ko thodi pata hai, woh to sub kaat deti hai. [We know which one is tender and is yet to grow. We know which one to take, which one to leave. What does the government know? They just cut down everything].” Mangali Bai’s voice betrays a little impatience. I realise that this respect for and devotion towards nature is not just a matter of words but also of their acts.

The group of 10-12 people from the tola, young and old alike, help each other as they are ready to walk back. On the way, still four to five kilometres away from home, they run out of drinking water. So, they walk a little further inside the dried up river bed. A tall Arjuna tree has fallen there creating a little shaded area. Mangali Bai and others identify a slightly wet patch near the bottom of the trunk and start digging the sand away. And there they find water!

“If a police officer were to come here when we are collecting bamboo, they will confiscate it. They will even take away the axe. That is why we girls and women all go in groups to collect bamboo. It helps us face the police officers,” says Mangali Bai.

What work do you do when there is no bamboo?

“What will we do, we can’t do any work. Baans rahega to tokani banate hai, nahi to chuppai rahate hai. [When there is bamboo we make a basket. When there is none, we sit quiet]” she says.

This story is originally reported in Hindi

This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).