A photographic journey from the past to the present, from the tribal regions deep in India to the beautiful destinations that shows the veracity of the largest democracy in the world today.

Incredible India in pictures depicting Indian diversity in cultures, heritage, history, archaeology, literature & religion, from tribal communities to popular settlements.

The word Adivasi is synonymous to aboriginal, native & original dwellers. They lived on the land & persisted with their way of living on & living with nature for hundred of centuries in India till the subcontinent became prone to invasions from the western looters & pillagers. While most of the European & Chinese invaders looted & killed, the British, Spanish & Portuguese colonists expanded their rules over these Adivasis. Over time, the decimation of their cultures & the ruthless killings of their people, brought the tribal communities to the brink of extinction.

Chhattisgarh still has remnants of tribal communities, struggling to co-exist with the intrusion we have come to call by various names – civilization, modernization, industrialization et all. All that such terms translated to were the eviction of these tribal communities, usurpation of their land & exploitation of their cultures & humanity for decades. Today, most of them live with perennial fear of being termed criminal, at the mercy of the so called rich & powerful landlords, politicians & industrial exploiters.

Over 5000 years of human civilization, prosperity in arts, science, philosophy and non-materialistic sciences have also harbored religions, rituals & various customs in India. Very often we follow these rituals mechanically these days without completely knowing the purpose or completely following the processes as prescribed in the Vedas.

More such incredible India in our Pictures gallery.

The post Incredible India – Tribal Mother & Child first appeared on Explore India TV.

A photographic journey from the past to the present, from the tribal regions deep in India to the beautiful destinations that shows the veracity of the largest democracy in the world today.

Incredible India in pictures depicting Indian diversity in cultures, heritage, history, archaeology, literature & religion, from tribal communities to popular settlements.

The Baiga tribe, one of the oldest known Indian tribal community, is spread mostly around the mid-central regions of the country, with the largest population found in Baiga-chuk in Madhya Pradesh. Traditionally the Baiga tribe has been associated with natural curing, herbal medicines and even, in some rare cases, sorcery.

The Baiga tribe practices shifting cultivation & holds Mother Nature is the one that provides, protects & shows them the way to live in harmony. The tribe, and their lifestyles, have been denominated as “Particularly Vulnerable” by the Indian government in the recent assessments, and one of the main reasons for such classification is their extreme low levels of literacy.

Over 5000 years of human civilization, prosperity in arts, science, philosophy and non-materialistic sciences have also harbored religions, rituals & various customs in India. Very often we follow these rituals mechanically these days without completely knowing the purpose or completely following the processes as prescribed in the Vedas.

More such incredible India in our Pictures gallery.

The post Incredible India – Baiga Tribal Women first appeared on Explore India TV.

A photographic journey from the past to the present, from the tribal regions deep in India to the beautiful destinations that shows the veracity of the largest democracy in the world today.

Incredible India in pictures depicting Indian diversity in cultures, heritage, history, archaeology, literature & religion, from tribal communities to popular settlements.

Abujhmarh, a combination of two words, “abujh” meaning unknown & “marh”, a Gond word meaning landscape or hills, is the ethnic land covering 3 districts of Chhattisgarh, Narayanpur, Bijapur & Danteshwar. As the name suggests, this area is home to numerous tribal communities of India, most popular being the Gond & the Maria.

The Maria tribal women dress fancy especially during the festive seasons, harvest season being the most festive of all.

Over 5000 years of human civilization, prosperity in arts, science, philosophy and non-materialistic sciences have also harbored religions, rituals & various customs in India. Very often we follow these rituals mechanically these days without completely knowing the purpose or completely following the processes as prescribed in the Vedas.

More such incredible India in our Pictures gallery.

The post Incredible India – Abujhmaria Women first appeared on Explore India TV.

As such, we depend mostly on what we hear & what we see on the ground. While the Government along with various trusted non-profit organizations have been able to curb the spread of the pandemic in many of these fragile communities, the future looks extremely bleak by any means.

Vaccination hesitancy, non-availability of basic supplies, unusual lifestyles & in many cases the remoteness of their communities have been the major challenges faced by the volunteers to get them the proper protection.

Although the tribal communities constitute less than 10% of the population, its critical for this generation to acknowledge their merits & the values of their cultures & heritages before we lose them completely. According to the Anthropological Survey of India, India is home to 461 communities, of which 174 are identified as sub-groups, in 212 tribes.

If its not the pandemic, it will be hunger!

It almost seems that the situation is going to get worse with the spread of Omicron. Numerous tribal families are abandoning their heritage & community, driven by hunger, while the fear of Covid is barely well understood by them. For the past 2 years they have been braving the pandemic with the optimism that the virus would be contained in some way, however, they are slowly becoming aware of the perilous days ahead – without food, without livelihood & without much hope.

The tribal children will be the most adversely affected. While we are foreseeing their parents having to travel long distances & possibly out of state, soliciting work, their earnings will never be enough to take care of their children’s health, education or nutrition.

Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation is doing its small part to assist, but with government funding almost reduced to none, with almost all avenues of sourcing either donations or manpower withering away fast, we might be reduced to running small free-kitchens in only a small handful of communities.

In our plans to start small community libraries for ethnic children, we are pondering the options of providing some sort of a nutritious meal to the kids & possibly to their families. There are a few local residents who are coming forward to volunteer with us, however, this plan has several roadblocks ahead, the biggest one being the community lock downs, where some of these delicate communities are often cut off from external contacts for weeks & months together, with very strict rules of contacting the tribals living there.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The Covid-19 Tribal Resource Center has extensive plans to assist the tribal communities in many ways. Some of them are likely to provide momentary relief. And like always, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Hundreds of successful professionals have jumped into social work at this hour of need from cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Nasik, Pune, Delhi, Chennai etc. Many are focused on education & literacy, looking at the months & years ahead, while many are hands & feet into solving the current pandemic situations.

There are tremendous exciting news of providing funds & working hand in hand with social workers at the grass roots to deliver vaccines and medical help to remote tribal communities come in almost every day.

Like in any generation, while many of us are still nonchalant of these miseries & hardships, many more have shown the good intent of helping in whatever way they can. We are proud to be associated with some such professionals.

You can help!

This might be a good time to join the fight against the pandemic and further education & literacy. You can help in numerous ways. If you would wish to join our team of volunteers or donors for one of our programs, send us an email [ at exploreindia.tv.team (at) gmail.com ] & we will get in touch with details.

The post The impending post pandemic threats to tribal communities first appeared on Explore India TV.

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.

Necessity of a Long Term National Educational Plan

India has struggled since our freedom to scale up education & corruption in various strata of our functioning have debilitated our chances of not only getting the right education but be in a position to bring about a change in both personal & community lives.

While the Indian government has the right intentions & forward policies to assist the tribal communities in many ways, implementations & implementer of such policies at the grass roots have been the main reasons to stall progress in most cases, & destroy people’s trust in the systems & in the democratic processes.

For the students, it has been frustrating for the most who depend on their personal effort & talent while the affluent ones get by with viable diplomas & college degrees from private institutes.

The situation is appalling overall! This 2019 Indian Express report calls out that 80% of the graduates from engineering colleges find themselves without a job!

Overcoming Regional Social & Economic Challenges

Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation, a women led tribal welfare non-profit organization is putting in their focus in enabling education within the tribal youth of Chhattisgarh. The effort is monumental but the determination is strong!

The challenges are numerous – from the lack of basic infrastructures to the social traditions that force youth who have come of age to drop out of school to earn for their families. Early marriage rituals within the tribal communities add to the list of problems that prevent even the talented youth to spare time & pursue their educational goals.

Exposure to the Art of Possibility

It is probably no longer fair to call something that is widely practices globally for a dozen years now as the “Art of Possibility”. However, at the grass roots level, the youth and the students’ communities often do not get exposed to “what is out there” & depend completely on local media or those who are the noisiest on social platforms.

Rarely any of these groups have the best interest of the students & mostly turn their activities to agitating masses with either half baked information or complete misinformation. The social platforms today have fueled the outburst of such disinformation campaigns but there does not seem to be any quick solution in sight either with millions of such posts & tweets being taken down every quarter.

Along with pushing ahead with the national curriculum, the youth and the talented students need access to books & modern learning tools & technologies.

Continuous guidance, mentoring & course-correction is needed to avoid distractions and the inherent tendencies of communities to fall back on practices that have proved fatal in the past.

Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation’s effort in setting up community owned libraries, a loosely coupled operational process that allows local community heads & students to decide on the types of books preferred & the types of support required & a central governance & supply chain process to spread the habit of reading, could go a long way in establishing the love of books & benefit for modern technologies when seeking information, guidance or counseling.

Women’s Education is Key to Global Prosperity

Women’s education has always been on the back burner. A society is doomed to crumble when the women of the societies are forced to remain in the dark & away from the mainstream education systems. Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation has taken a less trodden path – creating self sustaining community libraries along with a mentorship program to assist the really serious student with coaching & guidance along the way.

You can help!

If you are passionate about education & wish to expand your passion working with tribal youth of India, either in person or remotely, feel free to connect with us on Twitter or Facebook & send us a direct message. We would like to speak with you soon! Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel @ExploreIndiaTV.

The post Much to Do in Tribal Youth Education first appeared on Explore India TV.

Explore India TV is attempting in a small way to rediscover the tribal cultures in its originality. For long people have inadvertently misrepresented the simplicity & mindfulness of our tribal cultures, often not knowing the history and the evolution of many practices. A case in point is that of the Ghotul culture that more or less mimics the ancient Gurukul system of education.

• Modern day Muria Tribal Ghotul
• Customs of Muria Ghotuls
• Current Situation of Ghotuls in Chhattisgarh

While the rediscovery process is both authentic & research based, it is not fast enough. So we have also started to create small trivia videos on our YouTube Channel.

Support us in this effort by subscribing to our YouTube Channel & commenting on our videos. Your feedback will go a long way in helping us do better.

The post Rediscovering Indian Tribal Heritages & Cultures with Trivia Questions 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.

For years Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation of Chhattisgarh (JSWFCG) has been involved with the various tribal communities of Chhattisgarh, from Bastar in the south to Surguja in the north of the state.

The institute, led by women of the area including tribal women, is attempting to rediscover & preserve the cultural, literary, ritualistic heritage of the numerous tribes of Eastern India.

Another aim of the institute is to correctly represent the tribal cultures & ceremonies without prejudice and slowly eliminate numerous misconceptions that have settled in due to misinformation that spread inadvertently by journalists and writers who happen to portray their understanding of such cultures in ways that have benefited them commercially.

The social leaders at JSWFCG work with a talented group of young tribal ladies, who bring with them hundreds of years of cultural dances through heredity, in preparations for the famous annual Karma festival that remains one of the most popular yearly events for tribal dances, tribal music & tribal celebrations in Bastar.

Karma, or Karam, is the annual tribal celebrations for a good harvest & could last several days of tribal dances, tribal music and authentic indigenous food, in various communities. Bastar is widely known for celebrating Karma more pompously than any other regions of Chhattisgarh.

These tribal girls have trained & rehearsed with the performing arts teachers of the Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation in preparations for the Annual Karma festival.

The voice in the video is of another talented tribal youth Sunil Manikpuri. Though Bastar remains the most popular location for these celebrations, they are seen widely across the state, this one photographed in Balrampur.

The post Tribal Dances at Karma Annual Festival of Harvest first appeared on Explore India TV.

The relevance of such a research can be seen from a recent government decision to isolate some of the indigenous communities as Denotified Nomadic Tribe (per the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, 2016) making it very hard for them to sustain their heritage cultures and lifestyles. This seems even harsher given the fact that the British rulers had always wanted to suppress such indigenous communities (through the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act or CTA) especially because of the resistance these communities put up against the British rule.

This research presents its own unbiased observations of the Gond tribal people based in Bastar in Chattisgarh. Bastar has the largest population of the Gond tribes according to the 2011 Census of India, having close to 4.2 million people of the total of Gond population of about 13.3 million according to the same report. The Gond also forms the largest of the indigenous tribal people in India, accounting for about 25% of the 60 million known Indian tribal people.

The Gond tribal people & their role in the history of India

Prior to Indian independence from the British colonial rulers, the British had systematically tried to eliminate any resistance to their establishment & who they could not kill, they made laws to identify them as criminals. Freedom fighters of India formed the largest segment of such denomination. The JSWF research showed that the Gond tribes were more fighters who intended to protect their families from the atrocities of the British and in that process also save their livelihood, heritage, cultures, religion and their land.

Many of the known Gond tribal rebellions were based their intent on to protect their identity, their forests, heritage and land as well as their culture. True to their behavior, the tribal communities struggle to this day to protect their indigenous nature. It was recently evident during the formation of Chhattisgarh state, the various tribes of Bastar came out in large number protesting against the inclusion of Bastar (i.e. the three districts of Bastar, Dantewada and Kanker which were in Bastar district under 1998) under the statehood of Chhattisgarh. Thousand participated in demonstrations that took place in Konta, Bijapur, and other areas of south and west Bastar.

Socio-economic status of Gond tribe in Bastar

The Gond and their sub tribes i.e. Muriya, Abujhmariya & Madiya, are huter gatherer tribes & are nomadic people doing primitive type shifting cultivation. They spend all life in poverty and ignorance within their natural small ecosystem. Lack of education & awareness also has superstitious behavior cutting deep into their daily lives. Economically and socially they have remained backward but they are satisfied with their situation.

Due to unstable lifestyle they are suffering from low literacy rate. The literacy rate of Gond in Chhattisgarh is about 56.7 percent of which the literacy rate is about 67.5% in males while females are way behind with about 46.2% literacy. The literacy rate is far below in the Gond population in the Bastar district from the literacy rate of Gond people of the State.

Being of the hunter-gatherer mindset, the mainstream occupational status of the Gond tribal people in Bastar is also very poor. About 61.3% of the population are mainstream workers while about 38.7% are marginal workers according to the Statistical Profile of Schedule Tribe in India, 2013 report available on Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation. The poor occupational situation, low literacy and nomadic nature of this tribal community continues to plague their progress & deprives them from various modernization efforts led by the government.

Current marginalization of Gond tribe in Chattisgarh

The region around Bastar & in general across Chattisgarh is naturally gifted with minerals, coal & forests, making it attractive to commercial establishments to exploit these natural resources. Unfortunately, the Government has been mostly uncaring towards the needs of re-establishing the tribal communities or with any efforts to bring them into the mainstream.

Aggressive encroachments to exploit these natural resources by large corporations have led to severe encroachments into the habitats of the Gond tribal communities of the Bastar district. Being left with no land, no food, no means to survive and continuous malicious injuries caused by other communities taking advantage of the denotified status of the Gond, they were left with no option but to flee. Being nomadic in nature, the young generation of the tribe continues to be deprived of education keeping them in perpetual darkness, ignorance & ruled by superstitions. Financially they continue to lose their footing and are consistently dominated by poverty with almost no chances of a quick recovery.

Gond migrations from Chattisgarh to Andhra Pradesh

The Gond tribe has traditionally been hunter gatherers, migrating from one place to another frequently. That tradition remains to this day, making it difficult for these tribal people to integrate into the mainstream society coupled with other challenges arising due to the socio-political situations of the region.

Due to their wondering traditions, the Gond people are living a life of isolation from the rest of the society. Most of these tribes prefer to stay near jungles, away from the villages. Thousands of families belonging to these tribes wander from place to place and stay in temporary structures in Bastar. In this condition they are not in a position to integrate themselves in the society and avail of the benefits of government facilities and modern civil life.

According to recent surveys, over 30,000 Muriyas families have been migrated to Andhra Pradesh from the Bastar division alone comprising of Bastar, Kanker, Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts.

As the region adopts more modernization like establishments of industries, more prolific transportation systems, expansions of railways, efforts to increasing mining and other globalizations have increased deforestations & continues to drive more and more tribal people, who live a forest dependent life, further away and into other parts of the country that are either not as prone to rapid growth or are farther away from any settled communities.

The post Brief History & Current Situation of Gond Tribal People of Bastar first appeared on Explore India TV.