A patient being checked for BP at Mann PHC. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
MANN, India, Aug 26 2025 (IPS)

Generally thought to be diseases of the wealthier classes, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like hypertension and diabetes are on the rise among India’s underprivileged working classes in semi-urban and rural sprawls.

Take the case of Mohan Ahire. A middle-aged gardener in Pune, Mohan never realized that the heaviness in his head was a symptom of hypertension. Last summer, a mid-morning visit to the market saw him fall unconscious on return. Upon regaining consciousness, his wife and sons discovered the paralysis on the right side of his body, leading doctors to diagnose it as a stroke.

Bahinabai Gaekwad, a 56-year-old sweeper in Mann village, was at work when she suddenly collapsed and died. Doctors from the Primary Health Centre (PHC) next door found that she had been suffering from undiagnosed hypertension for a long time. The ailment ultimately led to a fatal cardiac arrest.

The worst problem is that most patients from underprivileged sections are not aware of their health condition.

Praful Mahato, a migrant laborer from Balasore in Odisha, who is currently employed in a dhaba (roadside eatery) in Mann, a fast-industrializing rural outpost of Pune city, had been suffering from heaviness and dizzy spells for some time. But he attributed his symptons to long hours at work and resulting fatigue. A chance visit to a medical camp confirmed high blood pressure and diabetes. Since the last four months, medication has controlled his blood pressure and brought down his sugar level.

Jagdish Mondol, in his 50s, did not realize he had hypertension and diabetes until he needed to undergo a hernia operation at a government hospital in Bhadrak, Odisha. This was despite blurred vision and difficulty in walking. Thankfully, the operation got him to wake up to his health condition. Regular medication has now improved his blood pressure and sugar level.

Fortunately, some patients may seek help on their own. Lalita Parshuram Jadhav, a 40-year-old migrant construction worker from Yavatmal, is one such. “Since the last two years, I have been experiencing pain in my legs; it became quite acute over the past year,” she tells IPS. A medical check-up confirmed hypertension and high sugar levels.

India’s Hypertension and Diabetes Epidemic

The cases cited above exemplify the rising burden of India’s non-communicable disease (NCD) of Hypertension and Diabetes. Ranked among the top ten NCDs responsible for untimely deaths worldwide, these two diseases are interlinked. This means those with hypertension are also vulnerable to developing prediabetes and diabetes.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 1.28 billion adults in the 30-79 age group suffer from hypertension, with two-thirds of them living in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, only 21 percent of those affected have their hypertension under control, while around 46 percent of these remain unaware of their condition and remain undiagnosed and untreated.

Diabetes, notably, can be of two varieties. Type 1 Diabetes is a congenital condition, while Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle disease that develops later in life. South Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans have a significantly higher risk of developing the disorder.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recorded a dramatic increase in the number of people affected by Type 2 Diabetes globally since the 1990s, and since 2000, the rise has been dramatic. In India, there are an estimated 77 million people above the age of 18 years suffering from diabetes (type 2), while nearly 25 million are prediabetic (at a higher risk of developing diabetes in the future). Yet, more than 50 percent of these are unaware of their diabetic status.

In India, the prevalence of Diabetes rose from 7.1 percent in 2009 to 8.9 percent in 2019. Meanwhile, 25.2 million adults are estimated to have Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT), a prediabetic condition that is estimated to increase to 35.7 million in the year 2045. It is also estimated that approximately 43.9 million people suffering from diabetes remain undiagnosed and untreated in India, posing a major public health risk.

It is a matter of concern that most deaths from these diseases occur in the 30- to 70-year-old age group, posing a major economic loss.

In Mann, doctors at primary health centers (PHCs) are battling this scourge, with hypertension affecting around 28 percent of the population and 12 percent being diabetic. The scenario is similar to that at Mullaheera, in rural Haryana, located just outside the national capital region of Delhi.

Dr. Sona Deshmukh, from the People-to-People Foundation, which is collaborating with the Government of India on its Viksit Bharat @2047 initiative and the in-charge for the Pranaa Project, tells me, “Diabetes is common among the older population, but hypertension is rising among the youth.”

Dangers Posed by Hypertension and Diabetes

The problem with both Hypertension and Diabetes is socio-cultural, with most people viewing these diseases as benign. Yet, ignoring them can lead to paralytic strokes and ultimately, death.

Characterized by headaches, blurred vision, nosebleeds, buzzing in the ears, and chest pain,  uncontrolled and untreated hypertension can lead to—

• chest pain (also termed angina);
• heart attack, which occurs when the blood supply to the heart is blocked and heart muscle cells die from lack of oxygen.
• heart failure, which occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen to other vital body organs; and
• sudden death due to irregular heartbeat.

This is because excessive blood pressure can harden arteries, decreasing the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart. This elevated pressure and reduced blood flow can result in the complications listed above, besides bursting or blocking arteries that supply blood and oxygen to the brain, causing a stroke. It can also cause kidney damage, resulting in kidney failure.

In the case of Diabetes, the body is unable to either produce or use insulin effectively. While individuals with Type I diabetes have a congenital condition wherein the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are attacked and destroyed, patients with Type II diabetes—which is a preventable lifestyle-related disease—either do not produce enough insulin or are unable to use insulin effectively for the body’s needs. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to blindness and organ failures that affect the kidneys, heart, and nerves, ultimately leading to diabetic strokes and death.

Reasons Behind the Spurt

So, what are the reasons behind the spurt? Government Medical Officers Dr. Mayadevi Gujar and Dr. Vaishali Patil say, “The transition of many rural outposts into semi-urban industrialized zones has brought in lifestyle changes. Locals, who once partook of healthy home-cooked millets or cereals, now eat cheap, oily snacks from wayside kiosks cooked in reused palm oil. With more disposable income, workers lean towards sugary soft drinks and fast food, making them prone to diabetes. Addictions like tobacco and alcohol are on the rise. Tobacco-chewing remains common to both men and women in rural India.”

Additionally, with climate change affecting agricultural incomes in rural India, the younger generation is stressed with employment issues. These make a potent recipe for hypertension and diabetes.

Dr. Sundeep Salvi, a noted specialist in cardiovascular diseases, who heads the Pulmocare Research and Education (PURE) Foundation and has chaired the respiratory group for the Global Burden of Disease Study, adds, “Unlike in the past, people eat and sleep late, watch late-night television, drink endless cups of tea and coffee, and work late hours. Skipping meals is common, with little time for exercise. Sleep deprivation is a fallout of this. Stress and inadequate sleep are a deadly combination, feeding hypertension and diabetes.”

Salvi calls for hydration and good nutrition to stave off hypertension and diabetes. “Excess tea and coffee are harmful. Caffeine-present in tea and coffee-is a diuretic; it prevents hydration. A dehydrated constitution results in hypertension and diabetes, which, in turn, cause heart disease, stroke, kidney diseases, and eventually, death.”

He also views air pollution as a major risk.

“By air pollution, I am referring to both indoor and outdoor pollution. In rural areas, the burning of crop waste causes outdoor pollution. But indoor pollution in rural homes and urban slums is 5–10 times greater than outdoor pollution. High levels of particulate matter contribute to 20 percent of the global burden of diabetes, as well as hypertension.

Diabetologist and Director of the Diabetes Unit at Pune’s KEM Hospital Prof. Chittaranjan Yajnik, who has been working on this issue for over two decades, has an interesting take on the matter based on his findings.

Yajnik sees a direct correlation between vulnerability to diabetes and poor intrauterine growth.

“Poor intrauterine growth reflects in poor organ growth, especially of the infra-diaphragmatic organs (liver, pancreas, kidneys, and legs), reducing their capacity to perform adequately in later years. Such individuals, when faced with overnutrition and calories later in life, end up with prediabetes and diabetes.”

Yajnik’s research found that two-thirds of prediabetic girls and a third of the prediabetic boys were underweight at birth.

“These findings are suggestive of a ‘dual teratogenesis’ concept, which envisages a combination of undernutrition and overnutrition over a life course due to rapid socio-economic and nutritional transition…” This means intrauterine programming of diabetes needs to be supported in growth-retarded babies since metabolic abnormalities develop very early in life.

Yajnik certainly has a point, since anemia in expectant mothers and low birthweight babies is a major problem all over India. The National Family Health Surveys conducted over the years by the Government have shown a persistently high prevalence of fetal growth restriction in Indian babies. This phenomenon is linked to low birth weight in newborns, which is as high as 18.24 percent, according to the latest data.

The Solution

Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) of the Government of India has implemented several schemes nationwide at the primary health level, starting with nutrition, medical care, and immunization for pregnant mothers while ensuring institutional delivery. Offspring are also extended comprehensive help for the 4 D’s (defects at birth, diseases, deficiencies, and developmental delays), immunization, supplementary nutrition, and WASH interventions. These continue through adolescence to prepare a healthy population for reproductive age.

Meanwhile, weekly wellness sessions have been introduced all over India. Deshmukh adds, “Regular screenings for hypertension and diabetes are done every few months for early detection and follow-up. Counselling sessions encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles, while Yoga is being popularized through events like the International Yoga Day.”

These initiatives, one hopes, will arrest the epidemic.

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Lingadbael homestay dining hall with its doorway decorated with an illustration of crawling ants, which are ground to make the traditional “saavli” chutney. Credit: Rina Mukheerji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
LINGADBAEL VILLAGE, Karnataka, India, Mar 10 2025 (IPS)

The Siddi community, descendants of slaves from Africa, is now becoming more involved with mainstream enterprises, including a forest homestay venture—which is changing their fortunes after years of discrimination on the Indian subcontinent where they were originally enslaved.

In the 15^th century, when the Portuguese arrived on the western coast of India, they brought with them several thousand slaves from the southeastern coast of Africa. These slaves, possibly hailing from African language-speaking tribes, were initially brought to the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu and were then sold to local Indian rulers at a profit.

Much later, around the early 19^th century, once slavery was declared illegal, the slaves were released by the Portuguese. Some, as per local lore, also managed to escape the clutches of their cruel masters. But even when released, such was the fear of the barbarity they had been subjected to that they feared recapture. Hence, they fled into the forested tracts of the present-day Indian state of Karnataka, bordering Goa. Other African slaves settled down in the forested tracts of Gir, near Junagadh in Gujarat, after the Portuguese had sold them to nawabs in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

The Portuguese were not the first to introduce African slaves into India. The first African slaves were brought from Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) by the Turco-Afghan Muslim invaders in the 11^th century when they conquered India. Hence, African slaves came to be called Habshi (from the Urdu term Habsh—meaning Abyssinia). Known to be excellent soldiers, some rose to become generals and petty officers—this gave rise to the term Siddi (African governor). Nevertheless, the majority of these slaves remained poor and exploited, looking forward to freedom.

Distinctly different in their looks, the Siddis of Karnataka continued to live in fear for centuries, despite escaping enslavement from their erstwhile Portuguese masters. Hence, they confined themselves to dwellings in the dense forests, living as hunter-gatherers. This was where they were ‘discovered’ by Gowdas (and revenue officials of the local rulers). Impressed by their physical strength, local officials employed Siddis as farm labor. The skills Siddis acquired in agriculture made them give up hunting and start farming small patches in the forest. But limited familiarity with the outside world and lack of literacy often saw them cheated of their wages or wrested off their farms by upper-caste landowners.

Siddi-run homestay at Lingadbael using mud-brick architecture. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Although Indian independence brought government schools to nearly every village, Siddi children would often be forced out of schools due to racist slurs and ridicule. Socially, they were placed below the lowest untouchables in India’s caste hierarchy, resulting in the community shying from interaction. Things started looking up for the Siddis only after 2003, when they were given the status of a scheduled tribe, entitling them to several benefits, including quotas in education and employment. India’s 2006 Forest Rights Act, too, empowered them as a forest-dwelling tribe to gather and sell non-timber forest produce, such as honey, wax, and cane. During the monsoon months, when farm employment is lacking, the Department of Social Welfare gives every Siddi family dry food hampers.

Siddi Culture, Religious Beliefs and Skills

The Siddis have no memories of their original African homeland. However, they are talented musicians and dancers and have a great sense of rhythm. Gagged and bound and dumped into sailing vessels, the only object from their homeland that the Siddis carried along was the Dammami, which they continue to play to this day. The Dammami is a drum made out of a log of wood, covered with animal skin. Originally fashioned out of wood and the skin of wild animals, the Dammami is now made out of wood from the Nandi (Spathodea or African tulip tree) or Rumda (cluster fig tree), with one end covered with a patch of sheep skin and the other with goat skin. The Dammami is a necessary accompaniment to the songs sung at every Siddi feast.

Whichever part of India the Siddis settled in, they assimilated and adopted local customs and religious beliefs. Gujarat Siddis have adopted clothing styles prevalent in Gujarat, while the Siddis of Karnataka are dressed like the people of Karnataka. The Siddis of Junagadh in Gujarat, who used to serve Muslim rulers, are Muslim, while those in Karnataka are generally Hindus, with a few Christians and a smaller number of Muslims. However, all Siddis, irrespective of religion, revere Siddi Baba. The shrine of Siddi Baba, in Ankola, attracts Siddis from all parts of Karnataka during an annual feast dedicated to the deity. Worship of the deity is conducted by a mirashi, or priest, who follows rituals modeled on Hindu practices and is a local patriarch. Sanu Siddi, who works as a forest guard in Lindabael, for instance, is a mirashi, who is an expert in Siddi oral history, despite being unlettered.

Siddis in Karnataka use Siddi bhasha (Siddi language—a mix of the local Goan Konkani, Marathi, and Urdu, with a few Kannada words). The influence of Goan food and language is strongly evident in their cuisine, with a typical Siddi meal comprising rice, amti (a sweet-sour syrup using a local fruit), cocum and coconut-flavored curries, meat, bananas, and mango. Drinks like kashayam (a warm milk-based drink) and cocum sherbet, common to coastal Maharashtra and Goa, are part of Siddi cuisine and are indicative of Siddi history. Remnants of their erstwhile hunter-gatherer skills define the Siddis; they are skilled at gathering honey and wax and are good at beekeeping. Several species of plants and their leaves are used to make fritters, cooling drinks, and heal afflictions.

Siddi community that runs the Damami homestay. Credit: Damami.in

In the ‘80s, a nationwide talent hunt by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in remote regions of the country picked up and nurtured some talents from the community and got them trained to represent India in athletics, given their naturally athletic strength and build.

Notwithstanding the community continuing to depend on farm labor, literacy levels have risen with government schools being set up all over Idagundi gram panchayat and Yellapur taluka—this has enabled some Siddis to progress into more remunerative professions, such as acting in movies, teaching, and business, notwithstanding the discrimination they face.

Homestay Venture: A New Beginning

Of late, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) has set up homestays in Lingadbael village, owned and managed by Siddi women through their Nisarga Sparsha Self-Help Group (SHG). The venture was long in the making, though, as NRLM District Officer Nagraj Kalmane revealed to me.

“We were working among the Siddis, organizing them into self-help groups, and preparing them for livelihoods over the last decade.” To start this venture, NRLM joined hands with Suyatri, a Bangalore-based social enterprise, and Nirmiti Kendra, a government organization, to build the homestay cottages.

The venture was named Damami, after the unique drum whose notes spell the last vestige and only link of the Siddis to their lost African homeland. Even so, persuading the Siddis to take the idea up was not easy.

“The Siddis feared that running this homestay would undermine their culture,” Uttara Kanara Zilla Parishad’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ishwar Prasad Kandoo tells IPS.

This meant interacting with the Siddi community using the offices of the Gram Panchayat (Village Self-Governing Body) and the local Siddi Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), meeting and reaching out to Siddis in the Gram Sabha (Village Council) for months, before the community saw the advantages of the project.

“Since they work at the grassroots level, Suyatri was particularly useful as a bridge between the administration and the community,” Kandoo tells me. But once they were convinced, things were easy. Manjunath Siddi, who now works as a local guide to visitors at the homestay, came forth to part with some family land for the cottages to be built on and was instrumental in getting other members of his community to collaborate in the venture.

To start with, the Siddis were trained in basic housekeeping, carpentry, and electrical work to maintain the homestays by Suyatri. “We took them to Wynad in Kerala, where we run a homestay with women from the local community. They were taught the basics of hygiene and how to serve food to visitors,” Sumesh Mangalassery of Suyatri tells IPS. Of course, some were more receptive than others. For instance, Hema Hari Siddi, who served in Bengaluru and Mumbai in restaurants, took to the training effortlessly, unlike many of her counterparts.

The homestays, which opened to the public in May 2024, use traditional mud-brick architecture that the Siddis specialize in and comprise spacious rooms with tiled roofs and modern amenities. The cottages were hand-illustrated with Siddi folklore by Siddi women using limestone chalk.

Jevan Mane (dining hall in Siddi Bhasha) has its doorway decorated with an illustration of crawling ants, which are ground to make the traditional “saavli” chutney, a sauce made of crushed ants, ginger, onions, and garlic.

“It protects us from colds and builds our immunity,” say Hema Hari Siddi and compatriot Savita Ravi Siddi. The women are happy earning Rs 600 (USD 6.89) per day at the homestay, which is around twice the amount they made as farm labor.

Being a forest village in the interior and off the highway, Lingadbael is an attractive retreat away from the bustle of city life. NRLM’s collaborative tie-up with the Forest Department to conduct hikes along forest trails and marketing through Suyatri has already ensured a warm response from research scholars and students keen to study the Siddi community.

But being tucked away from urban centers has its disadvantages too. For one, electricity is erratic, and there is no mobile network. Every time the electricity goes off, the Wi-Fi connection is gone too. Neither is there any reliable transport to Lingadbael. Hence, visitors must rely on private transport to and from Hubli or Yellapur towns.

“We are planning to explore using solar power for uninterrupted electricity,” Rajmane tells me. There are also plans to build a modest platform to serve as a stage for the Siddi music and dance performances visitors enjoy here.

The Zilla Parishad (District Administration) is already in talks with Karnataka Tourism to include Lingadbael homestay as part of a tourist circuit. Talks are also on with private players to obtain tourist vehicles under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

“We are in talks with forest officials and the Eco-tourism Development Board to promote Lingadbael as an ideal site for birdwatching and star-gazing, given its greenery, clear skies, and tranquil environs,” says Kandoo. Once the homestay catches on, the Zilla Parishad plans to open a Sanjeevani Mart counter wherein woodcraft, pickles, and handicrafts can be sold to visitors to help the Siddi community earn some additional income.

For a community that has remained in the margins for so long, the homestay venture in picturesque Lingadbael, with its gushing waterfalls and gurgling streams, holds the promise of opening up a window to the wider world.

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Siddipet cotton fabric being woven. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
SIDDIPET, POCHAMPALLY & KOYALAGUDDEM, India, Jan 8 2025 (IPS)

The southern Indian state of Telangana has always been home to exquisite cotton and silk weaves. But in recent years, lack of market access, expensive inputs, and government apathy have taken their toll on the weaving community. As a result, the younger generation is refraining from pursuing this traditional occupation and opting for more lucrative pursuits.

This is evident when one visits the weaving towns of the state. Take Siddipet, which is about 100 km from the metropolitan city of Hyderabad. Siddipet has always been known for its exquisite cotton saris and stoles. But today, only about a hundred wizened individuals, spread over seven handloom cooperatives, still weave.

Srivikailasam is a renowned middle-aged weaver who was honoured by the Chief Minister with the Konda Laxman Bapuji Award. His saris, dupattas and stoles are prized items in the export market. Yet none of his children—a son and two daughters—want to inherit his craft.

Another weaver, known as Ilaiyah, has been weaving for the past 60 years, since he turned 15. Yet his children have turned their backs to weaving.

Yadagiri has also been weaving for the past 60 years, like his fellow weavers. But neither his son nor daughter are interested in learning to weave.

Master weaver Mallikarjun Siddi, who also owns a marketing outlet in Siddipet, followed his father, renowned weaver Buchaiah Siddi, into the profession. But his children have opted out of this traditional occupation.

However, Siddi defends the youngsters.

“Why would youngsters want to adopt a profession that pays so little? A weaver earns Rs 1000 (USD 11.82) a day here, and it takes three full days to weave a sari. A job in the IT hub of HiTech City in Hyderabad fetches a lot more.”

Worse, the Telangana government does not subsidize electricity; this has resulted in the Siddipet weavers continuing to use handlooms instead of switching to powerlooms, making their work even more tedious and hard. Electricity is Rs 10 (USD 0.12) a unit. If subsidized, the cost comes down to Rs 1 (US$ 0.012) per unit. Power loom machinery is expensive, ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to 6 lakh (USD 1773.5 to USD 7101). With electricity subsidy, a weaver can bear the burden. Otherwise, it is not possible. Hence, even today, you see only handlooms here,” explains Siddi.

Master weaver Laxman Tadaka prepares his materials. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Marketing the product is also tough. The government buys the product at higher rates but does so lackadaisically. “Their representatives come only once a year, and although the payment is higher, it is not immediate. Private parties come regularly, and often, pay immediately,” say weavers.

The story is hardly any different in Pochampally, world-renowned for its ikat silk weaves. Ikat here can be either single ikat or double ikat, with the second being even more expensive. The yarn has to be initially soaked and then dyed before weaving. Since ikat weaves require every thread of the yarn to be dyed separately, a power loom can never be used. Thus, ikat weaves, whether cotton or silk, must be woven on a handloom, as master weaver Laxman Tadaka points out. The silk yarn comes from Bengaluru and is priced at Rs 4500 (USD 53.20) per kilogram. A weaver needs an average of 6 kg of yarn to weave seven saris a month. To bear the cost of inputs and the effort, a weaver must make enough sales. “The 15 percent subsidy extended by the government can hardly suffice,” Tadaka points out.

Rudra Anjanelu, manager of the Pochampally Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society, says they are dependent on subsidies.

“Our silk saris are expensive. But we cannot afford to give discounts unless the government supports us. A major problem is the 5 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) that has now been imposed by the central government. It makes saris and other silk products even more expensive.”

In the past, the state government used to render marketing support through its outlets, offering the products to customers at discounted prices, especially during the festive season, while subsidizing weavers. This is not forthcoming anymore, making it tough for weavers.

Most weavers have to rely on the Telangana State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Limited (TSCO), their apex cooperative, to sell their product.

“We had suggested a method to jack up our sales. The Telangana government has a Kalyanalakshmi scheme, wherein parents of girls are given Rs 1 lakh (USD 1182.32) for their daughter’s wedding. Along with the money, the government could easily provide a sari worth Rs 10,000 (USD 118.23) for the bride. This will help us weavers too, while helping the parents with the bridal trousseau,” Anjanelu says.

Besides, most weavers are not happy with the quality of the subsidized yarn provided by the government through the National Handloom Development Corporation.

Muralikrishnan, a weaver from Koyalaguddem, a village renowned for its cotton ikat, laments, “The yarn provided by the government is of inferior quality and this, in turn, can affect the quality of our end product. It is unlike what we get from private traders.”

Moreover, as Anjanelu points out, “Yarn has to be paid for. When sales are down, how can weavers buy any yarn?”

A big challenge for handloom weavers remains the flooding of markets by printed duplicates, which sell at a fraction of the price of handloom fabric.

On hindsight, though, it is not as if nothing was done for weavers by the Telangana government. However, if weavers have not experienced long-term benefits, could this be attributed to the outcome of the ballot?

The previous Chandrashekhar Reddy (state) government, for instance, introduced a 36-month savings-cum-insurance scheme for weavers termed the Thrift Scheme, wherein the government contributed an amount matching the investment made by an individual.

In Pochampally, land was also sanctioned for a handloom institute, and a handloom park was set up on the outskirts of the town. However, with a new Chief Minister getting elected, the plans came to naught. The Handloom Park too suffered from bad planning. Weavers who had set up shop at the park now have to market their products from their homes.

It is ironical that the weavers of Pochampally, Koyalaguddem and Siddipet find it tough to sell their exquisite weaves, despite being located in the vicinity of metropolitan Hyderabad, which boasts of an upwardly mobile population with high disposable income.

Notwithstanding the problems faced, there are a few who have found a solution. Dudyala Shankar and Muralikrishnan of Koyalaguddem have diversified their range of products to include ikat fabric and bedsheets, alongside traditional saris, dupattas, and stoles. Muralikrishnan has been accessing markets all over India through the internet, from his dusty little village.

“It is the only way out,” he tells me.

Indeed, the World Wide Web can certainly fill in where humans cannot. Product diversification and market access translating into sales may ultimately wean back the younger generation to keep the weaving tradition alive in Telangana and prevent it from dying out.

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The Vijayanagar rulers constructed an earth-fill dam in 1530 AD to create Dhamapur Lake. There is now a campaign to save it. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Oct 2 2024 (IPS)

Dhamapur is a small village in Malvan taluka of west Sindhudurg district, housing the famous Dhamapur Lake. The Vijayanagar kings constructed an earthfill dam in 1530 A.D., creating a man-made lake surrounded by hills on three sides. Canals connect it to the Karli river, irrigating lush paddies and farms that grow the red Sorti and Walay rice varieties typical to the region.

A Bhagwati temple constructed in the typical Konkan style stands on its banks. Small shrines to anthills flank this temple, which is devoted to Goddess Bhagwati. This is because all over the Konkan region, anthills are considered manifestations of the Earth Goddess and worshipped as Goddess Sateri. These are monuments to biodiversity and well-being; white ants or termites that build anthills are known to aerate the soil, help seed dispersal, and improve soil fertility. The worship of anthills is an old Vedic practice that continues to survive in and around the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa, and its neighborhood to this day.

The construction of the earthfill dam on Dhamapur Lake too spells of local ingenuity. Made up of porous laterite stone that is locally found here, every layer of stone is alternated with a layer of biomass made of twigs and branches.

This freshwater reservoir, used for irrigation and drinking water purposes, is one of Maharashtra’s oldest engineering marvels. Its waters and the Kalse-Dhamapur forests that flank it nurture a wide variety of unique floral and faunal species, making it a popular tourist destination.

But beauty apart, this man-made lake, which is geographically on higher ground as compared to the surrounding countryside, plays an important role in recharging the groundwater, acting as a sponge during the monsoons.  Apart from serving as an important source of drinking water and irrigation, Dhamapur Lake nurtures an entire ecosystem. Its waters and surrounding forests harbour a wide variety of flora and fauna, some of which are endangered species. Its significance can be gauged from the fact that it was given the Word Heritage Irrigation Structure (WHIS) Award by the International Commission of Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) in 2020.

But in recent times, several encroachments have affected this extensive waterbody. Guest houses, wells, and walkways built in its floodplains to boost tourism have been eating into its extensive area, in scant regard to the flora and fauna that thrive in its pristine waters.

Fighting for Dhamapur Lake

In recent years, though, Dhamapur Lake has found a savior in Sachin Desai and his organisation, Syamantak Trust. Incidentally, Sachin Desai and his wife, Meenal, have an interesting background that illustrates their love for the natural world and India’s time-honored traditions.

Believers in home schooling, the Desais fought out with the authorities to home-school their daughter. Abandoning high-paying corporate jobs, these two professionals set up the University of Life on their ancestral property to familiarize youngsters with traditional bricklaying, carpentry and farming skills in 2007. To stem the migration from the region, they sought to inculcate love and respect for traditional practices, foods, and cuisine among youngsters. This was how the Syamantak Trust came into being.

In the years that followed, learners and youngsters who spent time at the University of Life went to use the knowledge they acquired to specialize in respective fields or venture into entrepreneurship, selling local products to tourists frequenting Dhamapur. Rohit Ajgaonkar, once a student at the University of Life, has become an active volunteer with Syamantak and runs a small eco-café in Dhamapur.  Remarkable in its use of local materials, the eco-café has an array of local delicacies such as kashayam and jackfruit, wood apple, and mango ice creams.

Rohit and his mother, Rupali Ajgaonkar, also run a shop adjoining their eco-café, wherein they sell hand-pounded local masalas, mango and jackfruit toffee, local pickles, cashew butter, kokum syrups and kokum butter.  Prathamesh Kalsekar, another student of the University of Life who is the son of a local farmer, is now doing his B.Sc. (Agriculture) at the Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth. He has raised a private forest on his family land in Dhamapur, and now grows many local fruit and vegetable trees, bushes, and plants, particularly focusing on nutrient-rich wild varieties. He has also set up a nursery of saplings for distribution among local farmers.

The Bhagwati temple is on the banks of Dhamapur Lake. The temple is built in the typical Konkan style, wherein the deity is placed at one end in the sanctum sanctorum. The main section of the temple is reserved for the assembly of elders who meet and discuss matters related to the village. The temple is reminiscent of a bygone era when a place of worship also served as a place for the community to assemble and parley. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

The Ongoing Battle to Save Dhamapur

These skills and respect for nature came in handy when Syamantak embarked on its mission to save Dhamapur and other waterbodies in Sindhudurg district through a community-led movement, following the construction of a skywalk undertaken by the authorities in 2014, and the running of diesel-run boats for tourists by the panchayat (village self-governing body). But this was easier said than done, notwithstanding the public zeal.

Desai and his volunteers realized that “Sindhudurg district has several wetlands and waterbodies. However, the authorities haven’t notified or demarcated any of them. This permits encroachments, a lot of them by government bodies.” In the case of Dhamapur Lake, the high flood line was ignored, and private parties encroached upon the peripheral areas of the lake. Even the state government’s Department of Agriculture had built a nursery and sunk a well on the floodplains of the lake.

Making use of the National Wetland Atlas prepared by the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre in 2010, during the tenure of Minister of Environment & Forests Jairam Ramesh, Syamantak Trust approached the Western Zonal bench of the National Green Tribunal. Some residents of Sindhudurg district also filed an Environment Interest Litigation (EIL) to save the lake. At that time, the phytoplankton population had already decreased due to the construction of 35 pillars and the 500-meter-long cement concrete skywalk.

An Interim Order in 2018 by the Tribunal not only halted all further construction but saw every bit of concrete broken down and removed from the precincts of the lake. It also stopped the use of diesel boats on the lake . Furthermore, the state Public Works Department (PWD) was ordered to shell out Rs 1.5 crore for mitigation measures to be undertaken to reverse the damages caused by the construction of the 2.5 km skywalk and the use of diesel boats.

Meanwhile, following the formation of a 32-member Wetland Brief Documentation Committee as per an Order by the District Collector, the Syamantak Trust organized the local citizenry to document the flora and fauna of Dhamapur lake. They were soon joined by students from the local college of architecture, academicians, botanists, zoologists, and geographers from Mumbai and other parts of India, besides Dr Balkrishna Gavade and Dr Yogesh Koli, who lent their expertise for the study.  Mapping Dhamapur helped the volunteers learn about the kind of biodiversity hotspot the Western Ghats region is, especially in the forested tracts around Dhamapur Lake.

Five months spent documenting the various wetland flora and fauna showed 35 species of birds belonging to 18 families to frequent the lake, such as the Eurasian Marsh Harrier, Indian Pond Heron, Lapwing, Kingfisher,  and Small Bee-Eater. The lake was found to be particularly lush with phytoplankton and zooplankton species, which are the building blocks of a wetland ecosystem. The volunteers would also learn about how the Wax Dart butterfly was reported for the first time in Maharashtra, on the banks of Dhamapur lake.

Once Dhamapur was mapped, the volunteers went on to document a total of 57 wetlands and waterbodies in Sindhudurg district, including those as yet unlisted by the authorities. These included Vimleshwar in Devgad, Pat Lake in Kudal, and Jedgyachikond in Chaukul, among others.

The Uphill Struggle to Save Dhamapur Lake

The mapping and summary of violations were to come in handy when fighting to conserve Dhamapur Lake at the NGT.  However, the community’s fight to have Dhamapur Lake recognized as a wetland has not borne fruit so far. “Our case was dismissed by the NGT in 2023 on the grounds that the lake does not qualify to be a wetland in keeping with the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules 2017, since it was constructed for drinking water and agricultural purposes,” Desai tells IPS.

However, the Trust and its community volunteers have not given up yet. They have now approached the Supreme Court to demand

1) Demarcation of the Lake’s buffer zone and high flood line; and

2) Notification of the Lake by the state government in its gazette.

Once notified, the Lake, they feel, would be protected against further encroachment from public and private bodies alike.

Meanwhile, Syamantak Trust, along with members of the local community, continue to familiarize visiting students and persons from other parts of India with this unique water-body and its flora and fauna through eco-trails. As of this year, Syamantak Trust has begun hosting classical music concerts with the theme “Connect to Nature,” allowing music lovers to explore the vast repertoire of Hindustani classical music and its connection to the seasons and nature’s clock.

Currently, the Desais and their volunteers in the local community sincerely hope that once people in Dhamapur and beyond learn to appreciate and love nature, it will help them connect better with the lake and its entire ecosystem. This can be the best and only bulwark against the destructive march of climate change.

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BRAC International recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bihar Government’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society to launch Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari, the first government-led urban Graduation programme in Asia. Credit: BRAC

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, INDIA, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

In a bid to tackle the complexities of urban poverty, the Government of Bihar’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) has launched Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari (SJY Urban). The program will include a time-bound series of multifaceted interventions addressing food security, social inclusion, and sustainable economic livelihoods to enable participating households to achieve a better standard of living.

As part of this program, BRLPS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BRAC International, which will serve as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar for the project development and also is building a consortium of partners to support the government in its implementation. Project Concern International (PCI), for example, is taking on management responsibilities and will also host thematic workshops across departments and with civil society experts to support inclusive learning and dialogue.

Mobile Creches will create a community cadre of childcare providers who will support maternal and child health. They have a 50-year-old history of providing childcare support, maternal and nutritional health, and WASH training to urban women in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Quicksand will support the learning process to consolidate the design through ethnographic methods, prototyping, and other design elements. These learnings will help inform the project about the fabric of each respective urban community and provide a feedback loop once the rollout starts.

SJY Urban was inspired by the existing rural programme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), locally known as JEEVIKA, the largest government-led Graduation programme in the world, which has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding. SJY Urban is modelled on the rural programme’s six basic modules: 1) Building up the aspirations and confidence of households; 2) Financial Inclusion; 3) Improvement of Health, Nutrition, and Sanitation; 4) Social Development; 5) Livelihood generation; and 6) Government Convergence.

While taking inspiration from JEEVIKA, the Urban Programme will be adapted to respond to the unique challenges people in poverty face within the urban context.

“Urban poverty is complex and inadequately addressed,” said Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead – India, BRAC International. “SJY Shahari is a unique project in the many challenges it has accepted, including supporting project participants during extreme heat waves. BRAC is excited and committed to serving as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar as we take the time to test, learn, relearn, and deploy the project design.”

Applying Learnings from the Rural Programme to the Urban

The 36-month SJY Urban Programme will be launched in five wards in Patna and five wards in Gaya for now and will be scaled up in a year’s time. Given the unique challenges in urban settings, where research and solutions are more limited in comparison to rural settings, the programme will incorporate learnings from the SJY programme.

“In keeping with the requirements in an urban setting, we intend to provide improved skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, welding, and the like that can help workers access better employment opportunities both within and outside Bihar. For instance, there are around 50,000 to 100,000 Bihar workers in the Tiruppur hosiery industry. We intend to provide them with the necessary skill certification through the National Skill Development Council,” Jeevika CEO Rahul Kumar told IPS.

Designed with a focus on women’s empowerment, SJY has made a pronounced difference for people living in extreme poverty in Bihar, particularly through inclusive livelihood development and access to financial security through self-help groups (SHGs). The urban programme will also utilise SHGs to improve financial opportunities along with sustainable livelihood options.

While the livelihood options are different, there is still a great opportunity for skill development for people living in urban poverty. JEEVIKA plans to pursue livelihoods for participants through conventional entrepreneurship, building up specific skills for trades, and partnerships with public utilities. The existing bank sakhi programme, a program that has trained rural women to assist customers in opening accounts and other administrative bank-related services, as part of JEEVIKA, saw 2,500 bank sakhis leverage Rs 10,000 crore in business for various banks.

According to Rahul Kumar, the bank sakhi programme could be introduced in across Bihar and offer additional financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.

There are also climate-responsive livelihoods that have been utilised in the rural programme that can work for an urban setting as well, such as waste management, recycling of waste, and the use of e-rickshaws. With climate change contributing to rapid urbanisation across Asia and driving millions more into poverty, affecting those furthest behind first, sustainable, resilient livelihood development will be a critical component of SJY Urban. The programme will work to further enhance resilience among participants by providing them with resources and training to develop food security and social inclusion.

Creating a Stronger Ecosystem Through Convergence

Similar to the rural programme, SJY Urban will bring together different existing government schemes and agencies to best serve those living in extreme poverty. The programme will also leverage the existing enterprises within the rural programme and promote them in the urban programme as well, such as market poultry and dairy products.

There are existing livelihood initiatives that rural participants are driving forward, such as running nurseries across the state, which have provided saplings to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department for planting. These saplings can be used by urban plantations and gardens that are also under the department. Similarly, there are kiosk carts that sell Neera or palm nectar that are processed and made by JEEVIKA participants. There is an opportunity to expand this enterprise to the urban setting as well.

JEEVIKA will also engage other government agencies to support the design and implementation of the urban programme. Most recently, JEEVIKA and BRAC convened an inaugural workshop in preparation for launching the Urban Poor Graduation Project, in collaboration with the Departments of Urban Development and Housing, Labour Resources, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Corporation. The workshop brought together government representatives and experts with diverse sectoral expertise to reflect on existing solutions for urban poverty and share key insights that could help inform the design and delivery of the Urban Poor Graduation Project. The workshop also brought together practitioners and leveraged knowledge from Graduation-based programmes outside Bihar and India.

The shared expertise and convergence in existing government schemes and partnerships will allow the programme to address unique challenges facing the urban environment and enhance coordination, which will ultimately improve overall impact.

Challenges and Learning Opportunities in an Urban Environment

This will be one of the first urban Graduation programmes at scale that combine skills development and livelihood support to alleviate urban poverty.

The unique constraints presented by the urban environment in Bihar, such as limited land availability, the migratory nature of the population in urban poor neighbourhoods, and heatwaves impacting the ability to work, present an opportunity to learn and adapt programming further to test what works.

“The kind of social cohesion prevalent in rural areas is lacking in urban centres. This makes social mobilisation, on which the programme rests, a difficult task,” Kumar said.

The first phase in designing the programme, along with the learnings from the first cohort of participants, will offer valuable insights on how to combat the challenges of those living in urban poverty face. Such learnings can then be shared across the Global South to support broader efforts to respond to rapid urbanisation and an increase in urban poverty.

SJY Urban is poised to move head-on, with its consultants scheduled to hammer out a clear strategy in the coming months. In a year’s time, Kumar says the programme aims to cover all 240 urban local bodies in the state.
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Jaggery making on a sugarcane farm in Mandla. Small-scale farmers in India are benefitting from a scheme where they are able to diversify their farms and get support through Farmer Producer Organisations. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
MANDLA, JHARGRAM & AHMEDNAGAR, INDIA, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Until a decade ago, marginal farmers Gangotri Chandrol and Sunitabai lacked livelihood options in the post-monsoon season.

With farm holdings of just 2-6 acres in Katangatola village in the tribal-majority Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, they could only grow wheat, paddy, and sugarcane in the wet season for a living.

“Our earnings depended on price fluctuations in the market and the little paddy and wheat procured by the government.”

But now, they can sell their produce at higher than the prevailing market price to their farmers’ collective set up by Ekgaon Technologies, using existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs).

Furthermore, value-added products like flavoured jaggery obtained from sugarcane ensure a good income.  Farmers like Gangotri and Sunitabai, who were organised into clusters, and trained to form collective bargaining as buyers of agricultural inputs and suppliers of produce, are better off as a result.

While agriculture is India’s primary employment source, agricultural productivity has remained low. This is because the average size of an agricultural plot is less than 2 hectares (4.942 acres) (as per 2001 figures), with a quarter of rural holdings as low as 0.4 hectares (0.988 acres).

Furthermore, poverty and illiteracy make it difficult for most farmers to apply modern scientific inputs to enhance yield. Climate change has further added to the problem, with erratic weather, unseasonal rains, and frequent storms taking their toll on standing crops.

Realising this, India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) developed its Producer Organisation Promoting Institution (POPI) scheme in 2015. This saw several Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) flourish around 2015, and farmers were inducted into registered companies, holding a certain number of shares, each priced at a nominal sum.

Women farmers in West Bengal buying inputs for their Farmer Producer Organisation. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Ekgaon and its mission in Mandla

Once a single crop with migration-prone villages, Mandla district has seen a facelift ever since Ekgaon Technologies brought together its rural women and organised them into a Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO). Encouraged to buy seeds and fertilizer to distribute within their organisation, the women emerged as small-time entrepreneurs.

Traditionally, paddy cultivators, the farmers here, were trained to move to multi-cropping using natural organic farming methods. Local farmers now grow a mix of paddy, wheat, lentils (Masur), pigeon pea (arhar/tur), green gram (mung), and sugarcane on their marginal farms, using improved techniques and inexpensive homemade organic fertilizers.

Vidhi Patel, a widow and marginal farmer with a one-acre farm, tells IPS, “We were using 40 kg of seeds on our one-acre farm to grow paddy, besides spending on urea, which cost us upwards of Rs 1000. Under the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, we now use only 25 kg of seeds, which has halved costs.”

Gangotri Chandrol, Sunitabai Chandrol, and Devki Uikey have not just learned to make optimum use of their marginal 2-6 acre farms to grow a variety of traditional crops such as wheat, paddy, sugarcane pigeon pea, masur (lentils), mung (green legumes), and millets, but have now ventured into cash crops like arrowroot, flaxseed, nigerseed, and marigold, which fetch them good returns.

Similarly, Laxmibai and Devki Uikey of the neighbouring Khari village grow sugarcane on one acre of their 3-acre farm and paddy, wheat, marigold and beetroot on the rest.  Besides operating as a small-time entrepreneur, selling agricultural inputs to other members of her FPO, Devki Uikey made organic yellow and maroon colours for the Holi (spring) festival out of beetroot and marigold with some other members of her collective.

“We procured 25 kg of marigold at Rs 40 per 250 g and 10 kg of beetroot at Rs 160 per kg. After making and selling the colours, we earned Rs 2300-Rs 2500 per member,” Devki Uikey told IPS

Besides selling premium varieties of rice such as Chindi Kapur and Jeera Shankar that are native to Mandla but not available elsewhere, Ekgaon has developed value-added products such as millet-ginger-raisin nutribars, millet noodles, amla ( gooseberry) candy, which it markets alongside ( collected) forest products like medicinal herbs, beeswax, and honey, on its e-commerce platform.

Since sugarcane is a major crop in the district and jaggery-making is an important enterprise, Ekgaon has developed ginger and tulsi (basil) flavoured jaggery cubes to brew flavoured tea.  Being part of the FPO has other benefits too. Farmers can access government funds for rainwater harvesters and borewells easily.

A tie-up with Rajdhani Besan, which markets gram flour, helped farmers who cultivate gram, while a tie-up with Lays saw the entire produce of white peas bought over in bulk for (Lays) chips and wafers. The FPO is also grading and procuring wheat for the government, earning the women farmers a small sum.

Consequently, marginal farmers who earned around Rs 50,000 (USD 608) per acre in the past are easily making Rs 3,00,000  (USD 3647) per acre now. Migration has stopped in most villages, and the literacy level has improved.

PRADAN’s initiatives in Jhargram and Bankura

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) has also converted existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs) into FPOs in the resource-poor, tribal-majority Bankura and Jhargram districts of West Bengal.

Despite good monsoon rains, water scarcity is the norm in these paddy-growing districts, owing to rocky terrain. Of late, erratic rains have made matters worse, spurring out migration. To withstand the vagaries of the weather, the women farmer-shareholders of the Amon Mahila Chashi Producers Company Limited (Amon Women Farmers Producers Company Limited) and other FPOs now grow hardy, traditional paddy varieties using homemade organic fertilizers.

Sumita Mahato, whose family lives off a one-bigha (0.625 acres) farm, and  Swarnaprabha Mahato, whose three-bigha (1.875 acres) farm must provide for an eight-member family, told IPS: “Chemical fertilizers cost Rs 5000 per 0.625 acres, while homemade organic fertilizer costs us only Rs 80-90 for the same per bigha.”

It has helped them get organic certification for their produce, comprising traditional rice varieties like Malliphul, Satthiya  (red rice), and Kalabhat (black rice), earning them Rs 35 per kg (as against  Rs 12 per kg that rice grown with chemical inputs).  Rainwater harvesters accessed as members of the FPO, under the state government’s scheme for the region, have helped, too, increasing productivity from 25-30 quintals per acre to 40-45 quintals per acre.

As multi-cropping is impossible here owing to limited moisture in the rocky soil, the farmers grow turmeric as a cash crop on the village commons. In Jhargram, Sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) and Cashew are grown for timber and nuts, while in Bankura, farms along the Kankabati River grow watermelons for collective profit.

Traditionally, women in these regions made plates from sal (Shorea robusta) leaves collected from the jungles. They now process and mould plates for urban markets using moulding machines, selling them with their other products online on IndiaMart, earning ample profits to lead well-settled lives.

Watermelon crop in Bankura. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

WOTR’s Efforts in Maharashtra

In Parner taluka (sub-division) of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, the community-led Ankur Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO), facilitated by the Watershed Trust (WOTR), comprises 762 farmer-shareholders from the villages of Hiwrekorda, Bhangadevadi, and Dawalpuri, with farm holdings of 3-15 acres range, who supplement their incomes through dairy farming.

Being a rain-shadow, the drought-prone region with limited water resources, farming was always rainfed here, with large tracts of land lying barren.

Once Ankur was formed, the farmers could avail of Rs 80 lakh from the State Government (of Maharashtra) contributing the rest to lay a 7.5 km pipeline to bring water from the Kalu river and fill up a lined farm pond, and set up a pump-house for collective benefit.

This enabled them to bring 100 acres of farmland under cultivation to grow onions, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and other crops for the market. Their rainfed single-crop lands also grow two crops with the additional moisture available.

The farmers have opted for organic inputs like vermicompost, which they prepare and sell, both within and outside their FPO, although, as farmers Somnath Palwe and Chandrakant Gawde say, “Our members use both organic and improved seeds, as per preference.”

From growing a single crop of bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), and pulses, the farmers now grow maize, green gram, marigold, chrysanthemum, and onions, besides cauliflower and tomato. Incomes have grown from as low as Rs 50,000 ( USD 61) for an acre of cultivable land to as high as Rs 5 00,000 (USD 731).

Ankur sells its products online to Ninjacart and offline-in wholesale markets. In both cases, the sale is direct and without middlemen. Farmer Ashok Phalke, tells me. “Onions used to fetch us Rs 10 per kg, while the market price was Rs 12 per kg. We would lose Rs 2 per kg. Now that we sell directly in markets as a group, we earn more. The same goes for tomatoes and flowers.”

Besides promoting organic farming, the FPOs stress natural multi-cropping methods to control pests, such as growing horse gram in combination with maize or sorghum. This attracts birds, which, in turn, help control harmful pests naturally. Kitchen gardens are encouraged as they counter nutritional deficiencies in farming families.

Government Encouragement of FPOs

The Indian government intends to set up 10,000 FPOs all over India for Rs 6865 crore. Under this scheme, FPOs are to receive financial assistance of up to Rs 18 lakh for three years, with each farmer-member being eligible for an equity grant and credit guarantee facility. However, not all existing FPOs have been co-opted into the government scheme.

Since millets are hardy and impervious to erratic weather patterns, the government has been pushing for their cultivation in regions where they were traditionally grown. But the government’s dictum of “one District, one Product” has invited criticism, especially from grassroots organisations, who see multi-cropping as the only guarantor against natural disasters such as hailstorms and cyclones.

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Young people from small towns are now able to work close to home thanks to co-working spaces that opened up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, INDIA, Feb 8 2023 (IPS)

While a 2017 study by the Confederation of Indian Industry Jones Lang LaSalle India and WeWork noted the potential in India’s co-working segment, it took COVID-19 for people to transition to co-working spaces close to home.

The study, Future of Work – The Co-working Revolution, which saw the potential market size of the co-working segment standing at 12-16 million, anticipated 400 million USD in investments by 2018, triggering a 40-50 percent growth in 2017 itself.

This was to be driven by India’s emerging start-ups (given that India is currently the world’s largest start-up hub) and India’s freelance workforce (with India having the 2nd largest freelancer workforce in the world, more than 15 million professionals).

In 2020, India was hit by the pandemic. Owing to a forced lockdown in operations, many companies faced heavy losses. On resumption, they had to operate at 50 percent capacity (as per government directives), which meant curtailment in operations. Layoffs and salary cuts were invoked to survive. Barring manufacturing operations, the attendance of many employees was deemed unnecessary in the office. This ushered in the work-from-home culture.

Salary cuts, and work-from-home options, saw many employees move out of expensive metropolitan centres and return home to smaller towns and cities. Some who faced layoffs and salary cuts opted to launch start-ups. This gave further impetus to the demand for commercial spaces in small towns and Tier-2 or Tier-3 cities for co-working spaces.

Over the last few decades, small-town India has seen professional education pick up in a big way, with several reputed engineering and management institutions nurturing brilliant students. However, conservative values continue to rule here, unlike cosmopolitan metropolitan centres. Since many youngsters are first-generation professionals and belong to rural families of modest means, moving to a metropolitan city can be a big financial strain for a fresher. Internships, too, are difficult to come by for a student straight out of college.

As a result, many remain confined to low-paid jobs in their towns and end up frustrated in the long run.

This is where the pandemic has helped.

Take the case of the pilgrim city of Tirunelveli in the state of Tamil Nadu at the southern tip of the Indian peninsula. Adjoining the port town of Tuticorin, it has many engineering, management and science colleges. Tirunelveli is close to Nagercoil town in Kanyakumari district, which is the southernmost district of the Indian mainland and boasts a high rate of literacy. Yet, students from these parts have always had to move to either Chennai or Bangalore for a suitable job or internship.

Ronaldsen Solomon of Virudhunagar, though, has been lucky. A final-year student of Engineering studying at Francis Xavier College in Tirunelveli, he has landed an internship with an IT infrastructure company with local offices in a co-working space.

“I am acquiring hands-on experience, even as I attend college lectures for my degree,” he tells me of his job at 3i Infotech.

For Jenima Hyrun of Chermahadevi town in Tirunelveli district, landing a job was an uphill task, despite her Computer Science degree, owing to opposition from her conservative Muslim family.

“I had a job offer from Chennai. But although my father has always encouraged me, my aunts and others would not allow it. Being part of a joint family, living alone in a metropolitan city was unthinkable for me.”

When 3i Infotech acquired dedicated premises under Mikro Grafeio, Hyrun’s prayers for a suitable opening were answered. She easily traverses the short distance to work from her home using public transport.

When Vijay Roshan acquired his Bachelor of Computer Applications degree from MDT Hindu College in Tirunelveli, his faltering English made him unsure of himself. As a farmer’s son, he felt uncertain about moving to a metropolitan city either. However, when the same IT infrastructure company launched its office through a dedicated space, Roshan was immediately recruited as a promising fresher.

For those who would rather not travel a long distance to work, low-cost rentals are not too difficult to come by in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

Take the case of college-mates Vignesh M and Ashwin S.C from Thiruvananthapuram in the adjoining state of Kerala, who completed their degrees at the Nurul Islam Institute of Higher Education. Taking up lodgings in Tirunelveli is far cheaper than if they had moved to metropolitan centres like Bangalore or Chennai.

“We pay Rs 1500 per head, sharing a room among three colleagues in a nearby home. The place is only a 15-minute walk from our workplace, saving commuting time and money,” Ashwin says.

The same is true of Shiny Evangeline and Abarnadevi from the neighbouring district of Nagercoil (in Tamil Nadu), Tamilselvi of Thenkasi, and Sahanya Wilson of Kanyakumari. This ensures a better take-home salary for these freshers, who would have needed to spend upwards of Rs 10,000 for a co-living space in a metropolitan city. Shared rentals also nurture better camaraderie among colleagues, which is essential for better project teamwork.

When blue chip companies move into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, it can mean a lot for specially-abled persons like V Saumya, who has battled many odds to emerge as a Human Resources Head today. Victim of an accident as an infant, Saumya had to fall back on help from her parents all through her school and college years, fighting despite her physical disability to complete her Master’s in Business Administration. Proximity to her workplace in Tirunelveli has helped her secure a job, and she too works for 3i Infotech and is appreciative of the facilities at Mikro Grafeio.

“For the first time, I was greeted by a disabled-friendly toilet that I could use.”

The world has opened up for Saumya, who now looks forward to travelling far and wide, even as she travels up and down to work on her motorised wheelchair.

Although Mikro Grafeio intends to develop co-working spaces for individual use in small towns eventually, it currently confines itself to operating dedicated areas for companies. Chief Growth Officer Sundar Rajan tells IPS, “We are still exploring the market; in small towns, the concept is yet to catch up. However, Mikro Grafeio operates co-working spaces within cafes and breweries in cities like Coimbatore, Pondicherry and Bangalore and has Memoranda of Understanding in place with Café Coffee Day in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.”

It has several clients, 3i Infotech, CIT Services, Sotheby’s International Realty, and others that are slated to follow suit.

Indiqube has followed a similar pattern by handing over dedicated spaces and co-working offices. According to Indiqube Co-Founder Rishi Das, 85 percent of their clientele have dedicated spaces, while 15 per cent belong to the co-working segment.

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Anti-trafficking street play being stages in a tea house. Trafficking survivors often find it difficult to access compensation in India, and traffickers often escape justice. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
Pune, Oct 19 2022 (IPS)

Fourteen-year-old Priti Pyne was returning from school in Basra village in South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, when she and a friend came across a cold-drink seller selling an attractive-looking drink. The moment the girls sipped it, however, they felt dizzy. When they woke up, it was on a Delhi-bound train at Sealdah station in Kolkata. With the help of other passengers, the girls managed to get off the train.

“We had been briefed in school about how people traffic youngsters, and so we got in touch with the stationmaster and rang up the non-governmental organisation (NGO) – Goran Bose Gram Vikas Kendra – working in our village. The NGO office-bearers immediately came over and arranged for our return home.” However, her father, who works as a labourer in a bag factory, and her homemaker mother did not want to lodge an FIR (case), and she has not been able to access the compensation as a survivor of trafficking.

“I was a minor then; my parents took all decisions on my behalf. Now that I am an adult, it is too late to pursue it,” she laments.

Shelly Shome and Molina Guin from Bagda, both from North 24 Parganas, got entrapped by love affairs and ended up trafficked. Shelly’s trafficker took her to Malda and locked her up in an “intermediate” lodging for a week on the way to a brothel, where police rescued her.

Molina escaped on her own from a brothel in Nagpur (Maharashtra), where she had been sold, but she had spent six months there.

“Since I did not know any Hindi, it was difficult. Ultimately, some Bengali boys who lived nearby helped me return home.” Although FIRs were lodged in both cases, neither Shelly nor Molina could access the compensation due to them. Worse, the traffickers are yet to be caught.

Sunil Lahiri’s family were unable to repay a loan. So, his parents, uncle and siblings, who originally lived in Champa, had to seek employment in a brick kiln at Rohtak in Haryana. They were roped in by a labour contractor with big promises of good accommodation, pay and food. But once there, the family realised they had been trafficked, along with 20 other desperate neighbours in a similar situation. An adolescent then, Sunil had to work 12-14 hours a day and survive on meagre rations. No accommodation was provided, and they lived in a thatched hovel for shelter. Any attempt to escape was met with relentless torture and assault. After a couple of months, Sunil and his uncle made good their escape under cover of darkness to the nearest police station, from where they made their way home. However, in the absence of an appropriate FIR, he has not been able to claim the victim’s compensation.

Lalita lives in Erode in Tamil Nadu and found herself trafficked for labour to a garment factory in Coimbatore, in the same state, when she was around 15. But once there, she found herself trapped in a hostile environment with many others and had to labour for 14-16 hours a day without a break. Housed in dirty dormitories, the girls were administered tablets to stop their periods lest they demand time off, resulting in many medical problems. She ultimately excused herself one day and sneaked home by claiming the death of a relative. Since she lodged no FIR, Janaki has been deprived of compensation too.

Human Trafficking

Trafficking in India is generally for sexual exploitation and cheap labour.

The common thread that connects all victims of trafficking is poverty and lack of awareness. Poverty and unemployment drive people to migrate in search of work. Traffickers’ agents cash in on the plight of these individuals and whisk them away to be exploited for sex or cheap labour. This is often done across inter-state borders so escaping back home is difficult.

Victims of both kinds of trafficking are entitled to compensation, but different laws deal with individual crimes. While victims trafficked for sexual exploitation are primarily dealt with under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act of 1956, different laws deal with those trafficked for labour since they may be subject to bonded labour. In India, bonded labour had long been prohibited by the Constitution, but laws specific to it, such as the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, the Contract Labour ( Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and the Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 are comparatively recent.

Victim Compensation Laws

In India, compensation was initially meant only for victims of motor accidents. It was only in 2008 that the Supreme Court modified Section 357 A of the Criminal Procedure Code ( CrPC) to compensate victims of criminal offences.

While Sec 357A (1) provides for compensation to be given to either the victim or their legal heirs, Sec 357A (2) and 357 A (3) deal with the granting of compensation and its quantum by the District legal services authority (DLSA), and the District or Trial courts’ and Sec 357A (4) deals with the right to compensation for damages suffered by the victim before identification of the culprit and the starting of court proceedings.

Following these directions of the Supreme Court, all Indian states came up with schemes to compensate victims of crimes such as acid attacks, rape, and the like.

In 2010, as per the recommendations of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the government provided for the setting up of Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in all states of the country to investigate and address trafficking. In 2013, in a related development, Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code ( IPC) was amended by widening its scope to include all sexual and physical exploitation forms.

Why Victims Are Denied Compensation

Despite all these measures, victims seldom get access to compensation. This is because claiming compensation depends on filing FIRs, as advocate Kaushik Gupta points out. Lack of sensitisation and training often prevents the police from filing FIRs that clearly state whether a victim is trafficked or not. This limits avenues for compensation.

Another reason is that victims are ignorant of the law or fear stigma, preventing them from pursuing compensation. Worse, the paperwork involved may be overwhelming, getting victims and their guardians to step away.

Although a victim or their legal guardian, as per law, can file an FIR anywhere, that is, either where they are rescued or once the victim reaches home, filing the FIR later can pose a problem. Activist Baitali Ganguly, who heads the NGO Jabala Action Research Organisation, points out, “If the FIR is filed on reaching home, it is difficult to prove that a person is a victim/survivor of trafficking. Proof of having been trafficked is an important factor when claiming victim compensation.”

When a trafficked person is not rescued but escapes surreptitiously, filing the FIR may be scary since an organised mafia is involved. Moreover, with the rate of conviction being as low as 16 percent in 2021 (as per statistics furnished by the National Crime Records Bureau), victims remain in mortal fear for their lives and fear registering FIRs.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) have failed to deliver in most cases. A study conducted by the NGO, Sanjog as part of its Tafteesh Project found that Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) were non-operational in many districts in India. In several states, the composition of AHTUs did not follow the mandatory mix of legal professionals, doctors, and police officials. Even when functional, cases of trafficking were not handed over to them for investigation.

The problem, activists opine, “is that victim compensation is lowest in terms of priority for the authorities. Moreover, with no dedicated fund to compensate victims of trafficking, money often falls short.” At times “the money is sanctioned but does not reach the victim’s bank account for months on end,” Suresh Kumar, who heads the NGO Centre Direct, points out.

The Long Road to Rehabilitation

Getting compensated, though, is not enough. Baitali Ganguly tells me, “We helped some survivors claim compensation. But they were in no mental state to embark on entrepreneurial ventures. Psycho-social help is what they largely need to begin life anew. Hence, we have been imparting their skills and helping them get employed as security guards, housekeepers and the like.”

Psychologist and researcher Pompi Banerjee also stresses the need for counselling and medical assistance for survivors for thorough rehabilitation.

Taking all these aspects into account, the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) drew a draft bill for a comprehensive law to check human trafficking. With necessary amendments as of today, the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, is the first attempt at victim-oriented legislation, and makes provision for forfeiture, confiscation, and attachment of property of traffickers, witness protection and guaranteed compensation for victims out of the property of traffickers.

It also provides interim relief to survivors, for stringent punishment to traffickers extending up to life imprisonment, and in the case of repeat offences, even death. The Bill also provides a dedicated rehabilitation fund for survivors of trafficking.

However, survivors of trafficking who have grouped themselves under the Indian Leadership Forum Against Trafficking (ILFAT) are unhappy about rehabilitating victims through “protection homes”, which they see as nothing better than prisons.

Instead, they feel “community-based rehabilitation wherein job-oriented skills are imparted” is needed. Survivor Sunil Lahiri, who is now studying, and conducting awareness sessions in schools for Tafteesh/Sanjog, stresses the need to register and regulate placement agencies. “People in our villages have to migrate without employment opportunities. The authorities must ensure that they do not get exploited.”

Survivors also feel the need for fast-track courts to handle cases of trafficking so that justice is swift.

Although passed by the Lower House of India’s Parliament, the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Care & Rehabilitation) Bill 2021 awaits the nod of the Upper House to become an Act. One hopes that further improvements will be incorporated before the Bill is passed into law. A well-drafted law can well prove the first step in wiping out human trafficking altogether in India.

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Devka and Krishna Desai on their multilayer farm. They are happy because this method has brought them great success. Here they are with their harvest of bananas and papaya. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

Even as erratic weather and extremely high temperatures increase pest infestation and affect harvests, a combination of traditional methods, integrated pest management through intercropping and multilayering is helping farmers in Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra, India.

Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts in the western Indian state of Maharashtra are semi-arid regions in the hinterland. Ahmednagar is drought-prone with erratic rains. Aurangabad district lies in the water-starved Marathwada region of Maharashtra. The mean maximum temperature is high, and the area experienced severe droughts in 2012 and 2014. Barring the Godavari, there are no perennial rivers in the region. Farmers have a trying time during the summer months, trying to prevent the soil from cracking due to intense heat. The rains are erratic, with untimely rains further exacerbating the onset of pests.

Yet, both districts lead in the production of pulses, maize, and grams. Since these crops are susceptible to aphids and pod-borers, high temperatures and erratic rains due to climate change have seen farmers resort to increased chemicals to check pest infestation.

This is where multilayer farming using natural organic methods, integrated pest management, and intercropping has proved beneficial to farmers in Gangapur, Shrigonda and Karjat.  Gradually reducing the chemical content in their farms over three full years, farmers are now opting for natural organic farming, with the help of technical expertise from the non-profit Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) and scientists from WOTR-Centre for Climate Resilience (W-CRES).

The design incorporates a variety of vegetable and fruit varieties planted in limited space. This means using trees and plants of varying heights and maturing time next to one another so that each is dependent on the other. Smaller plants grow under the canopy of tall trees and yield well, even as tall fruit trees shoot up to the sun. It also ensures adequate shade in the summer months to keep the farms cool and congenial for growth. Water consumption is kept at a minimum using a rain-pipe sprinkler that runs around the patch. The method also uses integrated pest management to control pests by choosing the right plants in a cluster, and natural pesticides, without using any chemicals.

W-CRES Senior Researcher Dr Nitin Kumbhar and Junior Researcher Satish Adhe explains: “Integrated pest management works at several levels. It works through the choice of natural and organic methods, natural pheromone traps, intercropping (as per a formula we have developed), and the use of organic fungicides/pesticides that can be easily made by farming households.”

A simple square design is used, wherein bananas are intercropped with marigold, mango, maize, and black gram (urad), and papayas are intercropped with chilli black gram, drumstick, and guava. Onions are intercropped with ginger; tomatoes are intercropped with spinach and pumpkin. Radish is planted in a single row, while ridge gourd, lemongrass, and coriander are grown on the outside flanks of the farm.

Soft-stemmed coriander attracts pests. When attacked, the affected stalks of coriander are easily discarded. Marigold destroys nematodes in the soil through its alkaloid roots and protects crops. It also attracts female moths who lay eggs on the plant (leaving other crops untouched). Maize attracts beneficial insects such as the ladybird beetle, which feeds on the aphids that destroy crops.

Integrated pest management also involves pheromone traps to attract and kill destructive pests. These traps can be used against leaf-eating insects, pod borers, mealy bugs, aphids, sucking pests or fruit flies.

For all crops grown on patches, it is imperative that planting is done in a north-south direction. “This allows the crops to access sunshine throughout the day,” explains Kumbhar.

Once the farmers did away with hybrid varieties and opted for traditional ones, there was less vegetative growth and fewer insect attacks.

“Part of the problem with hybrid varieties is more vegetative growth and softer stems. This makes it attractive for pests to attack. Traditional varieties are hardier and can withstand extreme temperatures that are now common due to climate change. Farmers do not lose their crops easily due to pest attacks,” Kumbhar tells IPS.

Dipali Bankar, whose family owns a 3-acre farm in Ambelohol village in Gangapur (taluka) of Aurangabad district. A Savita Bachat Gat (Savita microfinance group) member, Dipali used her savings to widen the varieties cultivated on her family’s farm, using the multilayer model on a patch.

“Earlier, we would grow cotton from June to October, Jowar in summer, soybeans and pigeon pea in the monsoons, chickpeas, and onion in winter. Limited availability of water-limited our options. In February 2020, I took the advice of experts from WOTR and went in for multilayer farming on four gunthas (400 square metres of our land. We planted papaya, moringa (drumsticks), bananas, mangoes, guava, lemon, figs, tomatoes, brinjal, chilli (curry leaves), and marigold. Despite the Covid 19 -induced lockdown, the family earned a sizeable sum from the fruit and vegetables cultivated. The Bankars had their first crop of chillies in April 2020 and have sold a sizeable amount every 15 days, helping the family earn Rs 15000 so far. Papaya matures in nine months, while bananas bear fruit in eight months, and moringa yields drumsticks in seven months. This helped the Bankars earn Rs 70,000 from papayas, Rs 28000 and Rs 56 000 from two banana harvests, respectively and Rs 40,000 from selling drumsticks. Although markets were shut during the lockdown, the family managed to sell through local grocery shops and used the rest for their consumption. Dipali’s husband, Devidas Bankar, managed to sell part of his produce in Surat and Mumbai, where he travelled once the lockdown eased.

Sindhubai Ramnath Desai of Ambelohol village in Gangapur taluka of Aurangabad was sceptical. She initially opted to experiment on just 100 square metres, planting moringa, bananas, papaya, lemon, mango, figs, tomato, chilli, brinjal, lemongrass, spinach, coriander, curry leaves and garden sorrel. But the earnings were so substantial that she soon revised her opinion on multilayer farming.

“We earned Rs 7000 from bananas, Rs 5000 from papaya, Rs 2000 from drumsticks, Rs 1500 from chillies, and Rs 2000 selling spinach following the first harvest, besides saving Rs 2000 every month using vegetables and fruit for our consumption.”

The Desais used to hire bullocks for their farm – with the extra money earned they bought cattle which they fed with home-grown fodder.

“We have a cow and two bullocks of our own, now. The special fodder bag we now make, using jaggery, salt and (maize) fodder grass, is very nutritious and has helped them yield good milk. The cattle relish it too, as you can see,” she points to her cow, hungrily devouring the contents of the fodder bag from a feeding bucket. The family has now decided to double the land under multilayer farming to 200 square metres (two gunthas).

Sangita Krishna Ballal and her family had been growing cotton as a monoculture crop on their farmland until the recent past. Their fortunes changed once they opted for multilayer farming on a single guntha (approximately 100 square metres). With drumsticks, papaya, mango, guava, figs, lemongrass, coriander, chilli, lemongrass, brinjal, tomato, curry leaves, marigold, spinach and dill to supplement their income, the family fortunes started looking up. Lemongrass proved an excellent cash crop, with factories regularly collecting it to manufacture flavouring essence.

Dipak Dattatraya Mandle and his wife Mangal Mandle of Mahandulwadi in Shrigonda taluka of Ahmednagar district found that apart from other achievements, marigolds were successful.  With marigolds priced at Rs 200 per kg, sales during the festive season in September-October clocked around Rs 7000/ per month.

Kavita and Aruna Bhujbal used the extra money earned to buy cattle.

“We now have 20 goats, in addition to our two buffaloes, and seven cows (four Guernsey and three local breeds). We have been selling the milk to the local dairy. Goat milk is in big demand,” Aruna said. Others are diverting their additional income to diversify into other livelihood options. For instance, Kausar Sheikh has used the money to expand her bangle business, while Mira Mahandule and Sangita Popat Birekar have started rearing goats.

In this, the FarmPrecise app developed by WOTR has been of immense help. A multilingual app, FarmPrecise helps the individual farmer with advice related to the amount of water, fertilizer, fungicide, or pesticide to be used for every crop and at what intervals. The farmers are also instructed on the organic concoctions for stimulating growth and keeping their crops pest-free.

For instance, the farmers use Bengal gram flour, jaggery, cow dung and cow urine to make Jeevamrut fertilizer, while Neemastra is made out of neem leaves, cow dung and cow urine to serve as a pesticide. The Amrutpani spray (pesticide), is made of a mixture of neem leaves, Bengal gram flour, jaggery and cow dung. The Dashaparni spray – a composition using ten different types of leaves along with garlic, chillies, cow dung and cow urine is another useful biopesticide that serves as a pesticide and growth stimulant.

This combination of traditional, time-tested methods and a modern app is helping farmers combat and overcome climate change, the newest scourge on the block.

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Entire communities are being gradually empowered to resist traffickers and are being taught the necessary legal knowledge to eradicate slave and bonded labour from their midsts in the near future. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Oct 5 2020 (IPS)

One day, while the rest of his family were out at work, Kamlesh Pravasi from Jigarsandih village in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh was “abducted when I returned home one day from school, by a contractor’s goons,” he told IPS. The then 12-year-old Pravasi, who was in the sixth grade, was forced to work in bonded labour in a brick kiln because his father could not repay a Rs 5,000 ($68) loan he had taken out from the contractor in order to pay for medical treatment for Pravasi’s sick brother.

Pravasi, along with his two younger brothers, was made to work from the early hours in the morning (from around 2 or 4 am) until 7 pm in the evening, for little or no payment. The family, comprising his parents and six siblings, could do little to alleviate their plight.

“Being illiterate, my parents were unsure of how much they owed to the contractor,” Pravasi admitted to IPS. The boys slaved in the kiln for five years — from 2012 to 2017 — until they were  eventually rescued by activists affiliated to the Human Liberty Network (HLN). HLN is a network of grassroots NGOs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh working to end slavery and bonded labour.

Pravasi is now employed in construction work, and will soon sit for his intermediate grade /higher secondary examinations.

The story of Pravasi and his brothers is not an unusual one.

For Rajkumar Ram from Katahan village in West Champaran district of Bihar, a loan of Rs 30,000 ($410) taken 20 years ago meant that he and his entire family — including his wife, his three sons and young daughters — had to work in a brick kiln from 5 am in the morning to late evening for free.

The Ram family, like Pravasi and his brothers, where also rescued — but in their case help came from within the family.

Veena Devi (left) with her in-laws and husband. She was able to save her husband’s family from years of bonded labour. Courtesy: Rina Mukherji

Veena Devi, came to the rescue of the Ram family, after marrying into the family in 2015.

“It was when I enrolled for vocational training and non-formal education under a non-governmental   organisation-NIRDESH, that I realised what inter-generational bonded labour meant,” Devi told IPS.

She also learnt that the entire village of Katahan, comprising 37 families, had been condemned to such inter-generational bonded labour.

With a matriculation certificate, Devi took up a teacher’s job at a non-formal education centre, became a member of a local self-help group, and with the help of activists, raised the funds to secure their release.

Her husband, Bansi Ram, now works in a dress-making factory, while her father-in-law has opened a grocery shop. Her brothers-in-law work as plumbers, while her mother-in-law rears goats.

Parents may be lured with a lump sum ofRs 5,000 ($68) to Rs. 10,000 ($136) paid in advance, as Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan ( MSEMVS) executive director Dr. Bhanuja Sharan Lal told IPS. MSEMVS is an NGO that focuses on the eradication of child labour.

“We recently rescued nine children from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh who were trafficked to a panipuri (a type of snack) factory in Telangana after their parents were paid an advance of Rs 10,000 ($136) each. They were working free from 2 am to 4 pm in return for meals. Eight rescued children from Azamgarh (in Uttar Pradesh) were similarly employed in a textile factory in Gujarat as slave labour.”

Government initiatives & impediments in overcoming the problem

Of those most vulnerable are the Mahadalits and Dalits who have been confined to illiteracy and grinding poverty because of a casteist social structure.

Discrimination based on caste is illegal according to the country’s constitution and for more than 70 years the government has placed quotas on government jobs and education positions in order to ensure opportunities to all.

Affirmative action by the government has also contributed to Mahadalit children being sent to school, but most are first generation learners. This can limit the access families have to government schemes.

The Skill India initiative by the central government, which was launched in July 2015 and aims to train 400 million individuals in various skills by 2022, has evaded Mahadalit youngsters.

“To qualify for Skill India, you need to have a matriculation certificate. Poverty and family pressures cause most Mahadalit children to drop out after the sixth grade,” explains human rights activist and Adithi director Parinita Kumari of the reasons behind the exclusion of these groups.

Government efforts to rehabilitate migrant returnees through jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) too generally failed, since many were found to have no job cards and hence did not qualify.

• The Act guarantees 100 days of wage employment to a rural household where the adults are willing to undertake unskilled labour.

“While those who returned through quarantine centres arranged by the government, were registered, the ones who returned on their own, were not; this made it difficult for them to avail of government schemes,” Kumari said.

Initiatives that work

The Bihar government, under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came up with a Mahadalit Vikas Yojana (Plan for the Development of Mahadalits), which was implemented in 2010. The Plan for the Development of Mahadalits saw the setting up of the Bihar Mahadalit Mission, wherein Mahadalits are being granted small pockets of land (122 square metres).

They are also supported with access to various financial, educational and other schemes, including the setting up of residential schools, community radio stations, assistance for buying school uniforms, skill development and women’s self-help groups.

Eradication of bonded labour is not an easy goal to achieve, given the circumstances that the practice draws sustenance from.

NGOs affiliated to HLN have been actively organising the most vulnerable communities in source, transit and destination villages into Community Business Committees, which use survivors/victims of trafficking as peer educators to impart the necessary knowledge to communities through awareness programmes. 

Since these individuals have first-hand knowledge of the modus operandi of traffickers, and are people drawn from within the community, the peer educators immediately strike a chord  among those they seek to educate.

“We have been conducting classes to impart knowledge on government helplines, and giving financial training through lead banks to survivors/victims of trafficking and rural communities in general so that they can access government schemes and apply for livelihood grants,” activist and Rural Organisation for Social Advancement chief functionary, Mushtaque Ahmed told IPS. 

Adithi has also been helping individuals take advantage of the Plan for the Development of Mahadalits, and access landholdings. 

Communities are also informed about government helplines to report trafficking, and given financial training through lead banks to access government schemes and livelihood grants.    

Consequently, entire communities are being gradually empowered to resist traffickers and are being taught the necessary, legal knowledge to eradicate slave and bonded labour from their midsts in the near future.

By empowering the poor to demand and access their rights, and imparting the necessary functional and financial literacy, one can be certain that “they don’t return to bonded labour,” Lal told IPS.

• This is the second in a two-part series on bonded labour in India. Find Part 1 here.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

Trafficking survivor Devendra Kumar Mulayam, who hails from Shahapur in the Chandouli district of Uttar Pradesh, had to begin working at age 12 to help pay off the two loans his father had taken out. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Sep 22 2020 (IPS)

One of the worst fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the closure of industries in India, which caused thousands of migrant labourers to return home to villages in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal. In a region where the poorest have always been subjected to bonded labour, child labour and slave trafficking, it has meant revisiting the past.

“Uttar Pradesh has seen 35 lakh [3.5 million] workers return home. Azamgarh district alone has seen 1.65 lakh [165,000] returnees. Of these, only 10,000 people could be given employment under MNREGA [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act],” activist and Rural Organisation for Social Advancement chief functionary, Mushtaque Ahmed, told IPS

• MNREGA guarantees 100 days of wage employment to a rural household where the adults are willing to undertake unskilled labour.

Of late, as the country has progressed into a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, and some workers — who comprised the bulk of the skilled labour in industrial belts — have returned to work.

Bonded labour – formally illegal but still continues

Bonded labour formally ended in India with the passing of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.

• The  Act seeks to end forced labour in all its forms, and is supported by other legislation, namely the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Contract Labour ( Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970, and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen ( Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service ) Act, 1979.

But in the underdeveloped districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where feudal lords exploited the lower castes and had them work for free on their lands in the past, it continues to exist in invisible forms, drawing sustenance from within the casteist social structure that has confined Dalits and Mahadalits to illiteracy and grinding poverty. 

The Mahadalits, are especially vulnerable, with their abjectly low literacy of 9 percent, as compared to the Dalit literacy level of 28 percent. First-generation learners for the most part, the Dalits and Mahadalits are generally unable to access government schemes that guarantee a better future. Often, the inability to pay back a small loan of Rs 5,000 ($68) or Rs 2,000 ($27) sees entire families being bound into slave or bonded labour in brick kilns, or farms owned by the person they are indebted to for generations.

Children also at risk

At times, families are forced to pledge a minor child to work for an unscrupulous trafficker, according to the Freedom Fund. 

The health infrastructure in eastern Uttar Pradesh and in Bihar districts along the Nepal border has always been wanting.

While the COVID-19 pandemic may have worsened the situation but matters become compounded as many villages in Bihar faced the fury of unprecedented floods last month, which saw almost 8.4 million people affected.  Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centres in Bihar have collapsed, with the unprecedented floods straining them to the hilt.

• The ICDS  is a nationwide government programme under which children under six and their mothers are cared for through nutrition, education, immunisation, health checkup and referral services. The programme has managed to stem anaemia and other health problems mothers face in underprivileged, rural communities all over India.

Children are more at risk because of the current circumstances than previously.

Human trafficking for slave or bonded labour may either see a child being sent to a place thousands of kilometres away from home, or across the border into Nepal. Within India, the modus operandi involves sending children from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Bengal to a southern state where unfamiliarity with the local language prevents the child labourer from escaping or negotiating a way out and returning home.

With so few options, parents are sometimes lured with a lump sum of Rs 5,000 ($68) to Rs. 10,000 ($136) paid in advance, as Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan ( MSEMVS) executive director Dr. Bhanuja Sharan Lal told IPS. MSEMVS is an NGO that focuses on the eradication of child labour.

No option but to make children work

But the stories many of the survivors have to relate are harsh.

Wage labourer Umesh Mari from Mayurba village in Sitamarhi district in Bihar, had to take a loan of Rs 300,000 ($4,080) for his wife’s medical treatment.

Since Sitamarhi lacks healthcare facilities needed for serious medical problems, the family had to admit her to a hospital in the adjoining district of Muzaffarpur.

Unable to repay the loan, the family, comprising of four children and son-in-law, had no option but to look for additional, better-paying jobs.

It is how 13-year-old Ramavatar and his brother-in-law Kesari were recruited for a tile fitting job across the border, in Malangwa in neighbouring Nepal. The job promised a wage of Rs 300 ($4) per day. Once there, they found that the conditions entailed working from 9 am until 7 pm with just a half-hour break. It was bonded labour.

There was little food, and erratic or no payment for months. The recent COVID-19 lockdown helped Ramavtar escape and return to his village, as IPS found. However, the family remains worried on account of their unpaid loan. Chances are, Ramavatar may find it hard to resist the trafficking mafiosi, and may have to return to an enslaved existence in bonded labour in another factory once again.

Take the case of Devendra Kumar Mulayam, who hails from Shahapur in the Chandouli district of Uttar Pradesh. The second among five siblings of a landless Dalit family, Mulayam  told IPS how the family became desperate for a source of income following two loans that his father had to take — one was for the marriage of his elder sister marriage and second following an accident that resulted in this elder sister sustaining a sever head injury, which occurred after her wedding.

As the eldest son in the family, 12-year-old Mulayam had to drop out of school and start looking for a job, while his younger siblings had to forgo their education.

Courtesy of a recruiter, Mulayam soon found his way to a textile factory in Coimbatore, where he was hired as a loader, at Rs 150 ($2) per day in 2010.

He was made to work for 12-15 hours each day, and the payments were erratic. Worse still, he had to pay for his own treatment wherever he was injured during work. 

Mulayam and his fellow-workers remained closely guarded and were never allowed to move away from either their workplace or living quarters.

Any breach of “discipline” or error at work invited severe beatings. In 2011, when things became unbearable, Mulayam and 18 other fellow workers decided to protest. Theirs was one of the worst forms of bonded labour.

Recounting the horror, Mulayam told IPS, “We were heavily assaulted, and thrown out. Scared of being rounded up by the police and sent back to the clutches of our tormentors, we kept hiding in the forested tracts adjoining the town, for five days. Thankfully, I could manage to tell my family members back home of my plight. They sought the help of a local NGO, which managed to secure my release and arrange for my  return.”

Despite the pandemic, children are still being bonded.

“We recently rescued nine children from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh who were trafficked to a panipuri [an Indian snack]   factory in Telangana after their parents were paid an advance of Rs 10,000 each.  Once there, they were made to work from 2 am every morning to 4 pm in the evening. They were only given their meals, and had to work for free. Similar circumstances had driven eight children from Azamgarh (in Uttar Pradesh) to a textile factory in Gujarat where they were used as slave labour,” Lal told IPS.

• This is the first in a two-part series on bonded labour in India. Next week IPS will look at the government initiatives and impediments  in overcoming the problem.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.