We were curious to know how the ethnic communities of Chhattisgarh are preventing the spread of Covid so effectively, while the whole world was reeling from its deathly pangs!

Covid raged through India in the initial days, sweeping devastation across the length & breadth of the country. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh as well as most of the major metropolitan cities were badly hit. Unawareness, misconceptions about the virility & in many cases sheer ignorance of people caused death & devastation.

However, in the rural tribal communities, the virus was somewhat controlled. The government working with the local panchayats, ethnic community leaders & many social organizations, took to several unique ways to communicate the deadliness of the virus & educate the tribal people on the need to get vaccinated.

Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation, a non-profit organization led by an ethnic team from Balarampur, Chhattisgarh, went from one tribal village to another, accompanied by community members, nurse & mid-wives who were familiar with those communities, spreading the news of the vaccine, providing with masks & personal protection medicines and providing on-site assistance to those who wish to get vaccinated.

This video was taken in the community of the Khairwar Oraon ethnicity & the singers are singing the merits of a good & healthy life & how the vaccine could keep the villagers alive & healthy. The language is an archaic version of Sandri, a local language spoken in some very rural areas of Chhattisgarh.

The communities came together, not only having close to 100% vaccination rate but also implementing proper social distancing rules, personal hygiene etc. Looking back, the intent to save lives, these innovative approaches & the desire to persist with these programs till every community member is safe, led to saving all these heritage tribes.

The post Covid Vaccinations in Tribal Communities first appeared on Explore India TV.

Also spelled as Basraj Kuwar or Busraj Kunwar Dham, Baba Bachhraj Kunwar Temple lies within a riding distance of Balrampur, Chhattisgarh. The location of the temple is somewhat obscured by the forests surrounding it, the unmetalled road leading to it & the visible interruptions by water from flash floods that are quite common almost throughout the year.

A very close driving location is likely going to be, that sort of works with Google Maps is:

Address : Balrampur, Chhattisgarh 497220, India
Coordinate : 23.7239746, 83.4046593
Compound Code : PCF3+HV Manpur, Chhattisgarh, India

Though our team had not really planned to be there, it was a stroke of luck that the rain held up for a few hours in Balrampur, and we could get our 2 wheeler out even tough we risked the flood & the long stretch of road & no road that sinks bikes easily.

If not known for anything else to outsiders, the locals have deep faith in the power of the deity of the Bachraj Kuwar temple. And to bolster that faith to this day, the villagers have continued the ritualistic practice of sacrificing animal blood. Goats are regularly sacrificed and the oblations celebrated in traditional local culture.

Animal sacrifice to a higher power has been known to be practiced in almost all countries, especially those who have evolved from ancient civilizations.

Animal sacrifice can be productively theorized as a practice of kindred intimacy between human and nonhuman animal. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in India’s Central Himalayas, I trace how the ritual sacrifice of goats in the region’s mountain villages acquires power and meaning through its anchoring in a realm of interspecies kinship.

This kinship between humans and animals is created and sustained through everyday practices of intercorporeal engagement and care. I contend, in fact, that animal sacrifice is itself constitutive of interspecies kin relations. The spectacular act of violence at the heart of sacrifice—the beheading of the sacrificial animal—is crucial to the constitution of kin solidarity between human sacrificer and animal victim.

From this perspective, animal sacrifice creates a world rich with the possibility of mutual response and recognition between different beings entangled in intimate and complex ways.

– “The goat that died for family”: Animal sacrifice and interspecies kinship in India’s Central Himalayas by Radhika Govindrajan

Similar sacrifices were very common even as late 1900 in various parts of Eastern India & in West Bengal the ritualistic sacrifice of goats were common both among priests, householders as well as various sects of Shakti worshipers.

Suchitra Samanta details it in her 1994 book The “Self-Animal” and Divine Digestion: Goat Sacrifice to the Goddess Kālī in Bengal [citation: Samanta, S. (1994). The “Self-Animal” and Divine Digestion: Goat Sacrifice to the Goddess Kālī in Bengal. The Journal of Asian Studies,53(3), 779-803. doi:10.2307/2059730]

It was reported in a 2016 news article that the skulls of the sacrificed goats were auctioned for INR 1.8 million.

The goat sacrifices apart & the feast that follows the oblations, Bachraj Kuwar is also regarded very holy by the Hindus. It is supposed to be the resting place of Sati Mata (holy Mother) and there is a well that continues to pour out water continuously. Nonetheless, Busraj Kuwar remains a hidden gem for those who would love to rediscover tribal rituals & practices of Chhattisgarh.

The post Goat Sacrifice Ritual at Baba Bachraj Kunwar Temple of Chhattisgarh first appeared on Explore India TV.