Abujhmarh: Mysterious Hills of Bastar

About 4.00 PM on 10^th April, 1985 in Abujhmarh at an unnamed village, a forty-five-kilometre walk from the southern entry at Bedre; Collector, Bastar rose to address a modest gathering of about twenty Hill Marias, a primitive tribe. Then, the undivided Bastar district of yet-to-be-bifurcated Madhya Pradesh, with an area of more than 39000 sq. kms, was larger than Kerala. The erstwhile Bastar district now comprises the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh with seven districts.

Collector and a team of senior district officials had walked through the dense forest of Abujhmarh and stayed in tiny villages in ghotuls or thana gudis for four nights to meet the reclusive Hill Marias and apprise them of the several schemes the government operated for their welfare.

Abujhmarh now is believed to be a safe-haven for Naxalites, and a no-access-zone for government officials and outsiders; but back then, a few Collectors and their teams had trekked through the area and had halted in some of the villages. After the late 1980s, it was not safe for officials to venture into these remote areas.

Abujhmarh, literally ‘the unknown hills’, and the core area of the puranic Dandakaranya, is mysterious and enigmatic. This inaccessible area of 3905 sq. kms of hills with a dense, virgin forest of towering sal, teak and other trees, and no roads except the pedestrian jungle tracks, had not been surveyed since none of the 236 ‘villages’ were settled villages. The 15500 Hill Marias (1981 Census) practised slash and burn cultivation and moved to a new hill after three to four years at a location.

(Stock Image : Source - Wikicommons Media)

The field officials had summoned all the villagers to the meeting. The adivasis sat on their haunches on the ground and the district officials on a few cots with the Collector in the centre.

The school-teacher spoke in Gondi, briefly introducing the visiting officials from Jagdalpur who had walked long to meet them.

‘Now Bade Saheb will address you,’ he said.

‘I am happy to meet you today. Since it is difficult for you to come to Jagdalpur, I and senior officers of police, forest, revenue, health, and other departments have come to meet you in your own village,’ said the Collector.

‘Tell us about your problems,’ he continued, ‘and I and my colleagues would do our best to help you. Sarkar is committed to the welfare of adivasis and there are special schemes for the primitive tribes.’

None of the adivasis had ever visited Jagdalpur, the district headquarters or Narayanpur, the Sub-divisional town, though most of them went to the weekly haat at Jatlur - a walk of thirty kilo metres to and fro - to buy salt, tobacco, and a loin cloth or two once a year in barter exchange for the minor forest produce they handed over to the koochiya (petty trader) who invariably short-changed them.

The Hill Marias are one of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) notified by the government of India and eligible for special schemes and benefits for them. Previously, they were named Primitive Tribe Groups (PTG).

The school-teacher translated the Collector’s brief address to Gondi upon which a few nodded, but the others sat in silence. They had all returned from a day’s hard work foraging in the forest for fruits, mahua flowers, roots, tubers, honey, lac, etc.; had their drink of salphi or mahua, and some of them dozed during the meeting. They had never seen so many outsiders visiting their village or forest, and were unsure about their motive.

After his brief address, Collector urged the school-teacher to invite the villagers to speak, but no one spoke. The teacher requested again, yet no one spoke.

‘Sir, they are very shy people. They feel very awkward and embarrassed to stand up and address you and the audience,’ said the teacher.

‘It is okay for them to tell me whatever they have in mind without standing up,’ Collector told the teacher who dutifully translated it into Gondi and invited the adivasis to speak. No one spoke. The teacher pointed at a few persons and encouraged them to speak, but no sooner than he pointed at one, he would squirm and shrink and melt away, as it were, into the gathering and the lengthening shadows.

Apprehending that the stony silence of the villagers may annoy the Collector and reflect poorly on his own competence as interlocutor, the teacher went up to the most elderly adivasi, possibly the village chief, and whispered into his ear, which was most likely a command to speak a few words. The headman obliged and mumbled a few words in Gondi.

‘Sa’ab, we are all well here,’ translated the teacher.

Collector was far from satisfied with this very brief response. He had not walked nearly fifty kilometres in the wilderness and made night-halts in huts only to hear: All is well!

Since the tribals were not forthcoming, Collector decided to engage them in a relaxed conversation, essentially a Q & A with the help of the interpreter.

Coll: I find no handpump in your village for drinking water. Do you wish me to sanction one?

Teacher to Mukhia: Do you want a kal-tenda?

Mukhia: We have a stream down there. (It was at least one kilometre away!). It has enough water. No need for a kal-tenda.

Coll: Do your children go to school? Do you need a school here?

Mukhia: Only five or six children in our village. No one goes to school. There is a school at Jatlur (a 15 kms walk through the jungle!).

Coll: Do you visit the hospital when sick?

Mukhia: Sarkari doctor is at Orchha (There was a PHC there, forty-five kms away, but without a doctor, and the male nurse doubled up as ‘doctor’!). Gunia does jhad phunk and gives jadi buti when anyone is ill. No one goes to the hospital.

Coll: Do you people have any problems or difficulties? Sarkar will help you in any which way you wish.

Mukhia: No, Sa’ab. We have no problems.

Collector, exasperated, addressed the school-teacher: Is there anything at all that they want me to do for them?

The Mukhia and the villagers stayed silent and brooding. They were the forest people, and had the forest and land and water, all gifts of nature, which gave them all that they ever needed. They neither knew that sarkar had many welfare schemes for the adivasis, nor did they need any help from all these sahebs from Jagdalpur. They had never asked any outsider to do anything for them. They were genuinely surprised and a little amused, probably.

The teacher spoke once again to them in Gondi: Collector is Bade Sa’ab, bigger than the forest guard or the patwari or the police patel. He is the Mukhia of Bastar. He has come on foot and stayed in your jhopdi to help you. He can give you a kaltenda, a school, a doctor, even cows, goats, and poultry. He can get a road built so that jeeps can come right up to your village. You only need to ask, and you must. Don’t lose this opportunity. Such Bade Sa’abs do not come to your village often.

The exhortation seemed to work, since the Mukhia beckoned the teacher near him and whispered something in his ear; but hearing which the teacher frowned a little and kept mum.

Coll: What did the Mukhia say?

Teacher: Nothing really, Sir.

Coll: Don’t hesitate, tell us what he said.

Teacher translated most reluctantly, ‘Please tell the forest guard  not to come to this

village.’

Coll: Why? Does he challan them for illegal felling of trees?

Teacher: No, our murgas fear him, and wail loud and long.

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Note:

Mr. P.P. Mathur was Collector, Bastar, and in the team that visited Abujhmarh were - this blogger, then Addl Coll, Kanker; Pravesh Sharma, SDO, Narayanpur; and Vijay Patidar (Alas, he left us early. RIP, Vijay!); and other district officials.

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