Tandoors that burn on the backs of Katkaris

It’s after noon when a few cars arrive outside the community temple at Nadsur Katkariwadi. Vishnu Waghmare peeps to see who has come and says something in Katkari boli. The group of around 15 men and women move out to greet the visitors.

“They have come to pick up labourers in ‘lots’. They are all going to be sitting for negotiations now. Most of our people don’t understand that they are being fooled by these muqaddams [contractors].  They exploit us and we still go back to work for them. I never go to the bhatti,” says 21-year-old Vishnu, who occasionally does odd jobs that come his way in nearby villages. 

Nadsur Katkariwadi is a hamlet in Nadsur panchayat of Sudhagad block in Maharashtra’s Raigad district (or Raigarh in the Census). Many of the 360 Katkari Adivasis here – a community listed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group – migrate every year after Diwali, usually by mid-November. They work in the kilns of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and in Chiplun, Amravati and a few other places in Maharashtra. By early June, they return to the hamlet. These bhattis produce charcoal from the wood of babool trees, which is used for barbecues and tandoors in restaurants.

The trucks carrying the workers reach the kilns within Maharashtra after around 18 hours, and take up to 38 hours to reach the other states.  At the sites, the Katkaris put up flimsy dwellings on open fields using hay, bamboo and sugarcane waste. They stay in these without electricity or toilets, and in constant fear of wild animals and snakes.

The babool groves are in the forests, on land usually owned by locals. The contractors make deals with the landowners for the wood in exchange for clearing up their fields for plantation. The workers cut the babool trees, set up a kiln, pour sand and bake the babool. They then have to fill trucks with the coal. After all the land is cleared of the trees, they clear the field and make it cultivable.

“The muqaddams pay Rs. 20,000-40,000 upfront,” says Sandeep Pawar, 36, of Thanale Katkariwadi hamlet in the same panchayat. The amounts depend on the location of the bhatti and the type of tasks – and on the negotiations. “This much money paid for work in advance is  tempting for our people. Sometimes, if there is a wedding in the family, the muqaddams might pay a family up to Rs. 80,000.”

At the kilns, a couple is regarded as a labour unit. Other family members who migrate, help with carrying sacks and with other tasks. This speeds up the work, but they are not paid separately. The contractors also give each family up to Rs. 400 every week for food and ration supplies – that is, around Rs. 12,000 for seven months. This amount is counted as part of the wages, which too the couple must work to pay off.

The work is gruelling, starting at 7 a.m. and going on till at least 9 p.m., with one day off in the week to buy provisions from nearby markets. Shashikant Waghmare, who is working this year in a bhatti in Khed taluka of Pune district, says, “Today is Makar Sankranti, and we are working non-stop since morning. Sometimes we load trucks with wood or coal till late at night.”

“If you are given an advance of Rs. 30,000, you have to work till the muqaddam tells you that your dues are cleared. If a family manages only about 200 sacks in a season, they have to come back next year without pay and work till their dues are cleared off,” says 79-year-old Bapu Hilam, a respected senior of the hamlets. 

During their months of stay around the coal kilns, the workload is immense and food is inadequate. By the time the Katkaris return to the hamlet, their kids are malnourished. In some districts, the anganwadis provide extra eggs or groundnut chikkis between July-September each year for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children between 2-6 years of age.

Babu Mahadik, the headmaster of the Raigad Zilla Parishad School in Thanale (a non-Adivasi hamlet within the panchayat), says, “We have a total of 40 kids of whom about 20 are from Katkari families. After October, these kids migrate to other states with their parents and return in June. During these months, they are not enrolled in the local public schools. When they return, they are pushed to the next class due to the no-failing policy of the government. By the time they reach the ninth standard, all they know is mulakshar and barakhadi [basic literacy]. Most of them fail in the 9th and drop out.”

Many of the non-Katkari families in hamlets like Thanale own land, and cultivate sprouts and legumes after the monsoon. Some look for daily wage work in and around the taluka. Many have family members working in town and cities.

Sandeep worked in a coal kiln for one season in 2009, then decided never to leave the village to live in those conditions. He had the option because his father Hari Pawar was allotted 33 gunthas (40 gunthas here equal in acre) through the  FRA. His family also cultivates rice, nachani, vegetables and flowers on a bigger plot – for which they don’t have the land title – further inside the forest.

But only three families in Thanale Katkariwadi hamlet, of the hamlet’s 65 families, have got FRA land under ‘individual forest rights’. Many could not access it due to a lack of documentation or even awareness about the legal provisions.

The Integrated Tribal Development Project office in Pen taluka of Raigad district also has funds and schemes for Adivasis, especially for PVTGs like the Katkaris. One of them is a 100 per cent subsidy of Rs. 3 lakhs in three instalments to groups of 10 persons to set up a brick kiln. “Instead of going outside to work in bhattis [kilns], we have our own vit [brick] bhatti now,” says Sandeep. He and a group of nine others run the kiln and share the profits – a total of around Rs. 20,000 per family for eight months of work from around March to October. During this period, from June to October, some also find agricultural work for the kharif season.    

But many Katkaris don’t know of the bhatti scheme. After Sandeep’s success, in 2018, two more applications from Nadsur Katkariwadi and one from another Katkari hamlet in the taluka have been sent in.

The tourism industry is also providing some work. Pali town in Sudhagad tehsil is famous for one of the eight Ganpatis of the Ashtavinayak circuit, and known for a historical fort and caves. Nadsur is an entry point for both. “We don’t migrate because we are employed by farmhouse owners.  The wages are low [Rs. 200 a day for men, Rs. 150 for women], but at least we live close by. We also get some money in advance if we really need it,” says 51-year-old Bhiva Pawar of Bahirampada Adivasiwadi in Nadsur panchayat.