Prabir Mitra

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On
the Bagalkot-Belgaum
road, S. Bandeppa was walking with his herd of sheep one afternoon when I met
him. He was looking for farmland to stay on for a while with his animals. “Our
job is to find landlords who will give us good money for the manure that my
animals produce for the land,” he said. It was winter, the time when Kuruba
shepherds are on a journey that starts from October-November, while agricultural
work is at a low. 

From
then till around March-April, the pastoralist Kurubas of Karnataka, listed as a Scheduled Tribe, move from
place to place in groups of two or three families, usually along the same
routes, covering, they estimate, a total distance of 600 to 800 kilometres.
Their sheep and goats graze in the fallow fields, and the shepherds earn modest
sums for the manure of the animals from the farmers. Bandeppa earns at most Rs.
1,000 per stop from a ‘good landlord’, he says, for a few days of stay. Then he
sets out for the next stop, from where he looks for farms nearby to arrange a
decent deal. In the past, he also received items such as food grains, jaggery
and clothes, but says this is becoming harder to negotiate with the farmers. 

“Living on the landlords’ land with our animals and children is
not easy [now],” says Neelappa Chachdi. I met him on a farm near the Bailhongal-Munavalli road in
Balihongal taluk of Belgaum (now Belagavi) district, where he was
erecting boundaries with rope to restrain the herd.  

But that’s not the only change the pastoralist Kurubas are facing. Over the past two decades,
the demand for the wool of their sheep – animals bred in the rugged terrain of
the Deccan region of south-central India – has been falling. The sturdy Deccani sheep can withstand
the semi-arid climate of the land. For long, a major portion of the earnings of
the Kuruba shepherds came from supplying wool for the coarse black woollen
blankets locally called kambali (and gongadi or gongali in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh).
It supplemented their income from the manure their animals produced for
farmers. As a readily and locally
available fibre, the wool was relatively cheap and in demand. 

Among
the buyers were the weavers of Dadibhavi
Salapur, a village in Ramdurg
taluka of Belagavi district. Many
of the weavers are also Kuruba, a sub-group of the community. (The Kurubas also
have permanent homes and villages, and different sub-groups are pastoralists,
weavers, cultivators and so on). The blankets they wove were once popular with
the country’s armed forces, but are no longer in much demand. “They use
sleeping bags now,” explains P. Eeshwarappa, a weaver, who owns a pit loom in
Dadibhavi Salapur, where the traditional black woollen blankets are still
produced.

“The
reduced demand for Deccani wool is also due to cheaper alternatives, including
mixed synthetic fabrics as well as other varieties of woollens that have
flooded the market now,” says Dinesh Seth, the owner of a shop in Ranebennur town in Haveri district,
some 200 kilometres
from Dadibhavi Salapur.

Over two decades ago, when the demand for these blankets and rugs was robust, the weavers bought raw wool from Kuruba shepherds for Rs. 30 to Rs. 40 per kilogram. Now they obtain it for about Rs. 8-Rs. 10. The ready blankets are sold to local shops for anything between Rs. 600 to Rs. 800, with smaller-sized rugs selling for Rs. 200-Rs. 300. But this income is highly variable for the pastoralists. A family that owns around 100 animals, estimates from my conversations show, would make roughly Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 80,000 in a whole year from various sources, including wool, manure and selling animals. To try and bring in a stable income from wool, the women of several families in Dadibhavi Salapur and other villages, who still spin yarn and weave with Decanni wool, have formed self-help groups to try to bring in a stable income. The men in their community mostly focus on agricultural work now.  And to
stay afloat, the Kurubas are improvising too. In Mekalmaradi village in Sampgaon block of Belagavi's Bailhongal taluka, Dastagir
Jamdar, a physically disabled Kuruba weaver, has started improvising with jute,
leather and wool to make bags and rugs. “These products can be sold in local
markets. Sometimes, retailers from Bengaluru come and place small orders too,
but the demand is uncertain,” he says.    

For some of the pastoralists, the
emphasis has shifted to earning a living by selling their animals for meat and
milk. With the state government (through the Karnataka Sheep and Wool Development
Corporation) promoting breeds
of sheep other than the Deccani, such as Red Nellore, Yelgu and Madgyal, which can produce
more meat than wool, some of the Kurubas are also increasingly keeping these
breeds. A male lamb fetches a good sum in the meat industry – up to Rs. 8,000 sometimes. In February 2019, P. Nagappa, a Kuruba pastoralist, earned Rs. 6,000 from selling a healthy three-month-old lamb at the
sheep market in Sira town in
Tumkur district. And with a growing goat milk industry in the region,
some of the Deccani sheep owners are focusing on rearing goats for milk.

A
local veterinarian, who has been working with pastoral communities in Karnataka
for over two decades, told me that to ensure their animals look healthy, some
of the Kurubas now medicate them liberally, often buying the medicines without
consulting a veterinarian, and from unqualified dealers.

Back
on the Bagalkot-Belgaum road, S. Bandeppa is continuing his search for
favourable farmland. Starting from around a decade ago, many farmers in North
Karnataka have been turning away from organic practices and moving to chemical
fertilisers. As a result, manure too is no longer a steady source of livelihood
for Bandeppa and other shepherds, who try to look for more agricultural work
during the rest of the year. 

And with the traditional symbiosis between farmers and
pastoralists on the decline, some of the shepherds are migrating across greater
distances with their herds and belongings – on an ever-harder journey in search of
friendly farmers and flat lands.

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Kuruba shepherds lose their security blanket

കുറുബ ആട്ടിടയർക്ക് കമ്പിളിയുടെ സുരക്ഷ നഷ്ടപ്പെടുമ്പോൾ

হারিয়ে যাচ্ছে কুরুবা পশুপালকদের নিরাপত্তার চাদর

ಬದುಕಿನ ಕಂಬಳಿ ಹರಿದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಕುರುಬ ಕುರಿಪಾಲಕರು

নিৰাপত্তাৰ নিশ্চয়তা নোহোৱা হৈছে কুৰুবা ভেড়াপালকৰ

कुरुबा मेंढपाळांच्या घोंगड्याची ऊब हरपली

बदलते वक़्त में आजीविका के संकट से घिरे कुरुबा चरवाहे

کروبا چرواہے اپنا معاش کھو رہے ہیں

குறுபா ஆடு மேய்ப்பர்கள் தங்களது பாதுகாப்பு போர்வையை இழந்து வருகின்றனர்

କୁରୁବା ମେଣ୍ଢାପାଳକମାନେ ସେମାନଙ୍କ ସୁରକ୍ଷା କବଚ ହରାଇଛନ୍ତି

Belgaum

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Kuruba shepherds lose their security blanket

For long, the pastoralist Kurubas of Karnataka have journeyed for months to graze their hardy Deccani sheep. But with declining demand for their animals' manure and wool, many are seeking other sources of income

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