Like any other month, April too is marked with numerous Indian festivals, a feature that makes India almost incredible. While the political & social scenarios have changed drastically over the last several decades, almost alarmingly, the religion centricity of the Indians have not changed a bit.

The New Year also coincides with the fresh harvest of the season. Vaisakhi, Baishaki, Bihu, Vishu, no matter what name you use & in which Indian state you are in, a good harvest is celebrated with good food & lot of dances. In the past people would travel to their hometowns & native villages to celebrate with their communities. The pandemic may have caused some heartburn but I doubt if there would be any less celebrations this year!

Along with the harvest & New Year, we also celebrate Ram Navami & Buddha Purnima in April. This just re-emphasizes the immense diversity of the culture & the richness in her people & religion, though at times have been used by foreign nations to create divisions, have in fact brought the communities together.

In case you have not had a chance to look into our Community Library program, where we are setting up our first small library in Balrampur in Chhattisgarh. You could join the #Read2Grow program to further literacy by joining our book drive & donating Children’s books. We are on schedule to open up the facility to our local children later in summer this year.

We hope you are enjoying spring time & celebrate not only the New Year but also get to go out safely to get the warmth of the coming summer months.

Wishing you all peace, celebrations & happiness!

Sincerely Yours!

Explore India TV Team

The post Editorial April 2022 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.

The students of Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation celebrated the occasion in Balrampur, Chhattisgarh with the traditional hoisting of the national flag & the rhythm of the national anthem at the primary school grounds.

In spite of the rising Covid situations, the small community gathered in school grounds early morning with JSWF members.

While in a non-pandemic situation the celebrations would have included numerous cultural festivities, for now the community had to be satisfied with just a simple reminder of democracy & the freedom that every Indian enjoys.

The Republic Day celebration was attended by the officials of the Block Development Office & the Vice President & Directors of Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation. Mr Sanjeev Gupta, VP JSW Foundation served as the chief guest in the celebration.

JSWF is setting up small community libraries & a play school for these ethnic children in an honest effort to forward literacy. The pandemic would leave a lasting impression on the economy as well as the moral & mental healths of these ethnic people. The children would be the most badly affected in the post pandemic period according to studies released by the anthropological department of Delhi University.

Unless mindful and conscientious people step forward, it would be too late to assist an already struggling heritage of the country. If you would wish to help with any of the JSWF Educational Programs, please contact us with your thoughts.

The post JSWF Children Celebrates Indian Republic Day first appeared on Explore India TV.

Such documentary creators inspire us to learn, grow & create something that is meaningful. The key points in making this evaluation of top YouTube creators are predominantly authenticity, originality, depth of research, strength of story, consistency of research & finally videography. The list below is in no particular order since they always demonstrate expertise & humanity behind their creations.

Top 10 Authentic YouTube Channels on Indigenous Cultures

Slice – Ethnic Documentaries

Professionally produced and delivered, the Slice documentaries cover a broader range of topics including ethnic documentaries from tribal communities across the world. Extremely well researched, scripted and produced, their videos are both educational & entertaining to watch.

BBC Earth

Hosted by the famous naturalist David Attenborough, BBC has been producing most authentic nature & cultural documentaries for ever! Nothing could be more well researched, well documented, well presented than theirs (well,maybe National Geographic & Nature as well).

Plant Doc – Authentic Tribal Documentaries

This is a complete documentary channel who have consistently produced well researched videos on tribal & ethnic lifestyles of some most remote tribes & some unique history of the old civilizations.

New Atlantic – Full Documentaries

They live up to their promise of producing documentaries that are shocking and always present original stories & amazing testimonies from various ethic cultural communities across the world.

Tracks – Authentic Cultural Videos

We love Tracks! They are unique, authentic & diverse in their selection producing well researched videos that are helpful for travelers as well as educational & entertaining.

National Geographic

We don’t need to talk much about the National Geographic team! Though not dedicated to ethnic cultures, they have several mini series focused on various native communities & tribal people across the world.

Free Documentaries & Free Documentary Nature

Although their popularity is predominantly for documenting Dangerous Roads across the world, if you pay close attention to their videos, you can learn a lot about the remote cultures & communities across the world. This team fascinates us with the high quality & consistency of their work.

Timeline – History Documentaries

We have seen their videos on BBC, Channel 4, Discovery and PBS. They are very thorough in their research, very detailed in their analysis & very meticulous in their video production. Although their research spreads over a wide range of subjects, their documentaries on world’s ethic communities & heritages are worth looking at.

Danger TV – Authentic Tribal Cultures

Although marked as an entertainment channel promising “deadly animals, and breathtaking stories of survival” they produce videos that are both real as well as entertaining. Their videos on indigenous tribal communities are also quite educational for us.

India In Motion – Authentic Indian Ethnic Cultures

One of the most authentic YouTube video channel focused predominantly on the ethnic cultures, lifestyles & heritages of various tribal communities of Ladakh. This is one of the few channels that really inspires us to do better.

That is a short list of our 10 favorite YouTube Channels that have continued to inspire us & educate us. If you are a video creator and interested in making ethnic, cultural and heritage videos, let us know.

Your support is our biggest encouragement. So while you are here, check out & Subscribe to Explore India TV YouTube Channel as well!

The post 10 Top YouTube Authentic Creators on Indigenous People Cultures & Heritages first appeared on Explore India TV.

October 11 is marked as the day when we celebrate the cultures, heritages and the history of the diverse indigenous communities of the world.

Although, the Indigenous People’s Day is actually a celebration of the Native American history in North America, the tribal communities worldwide joins the celebration in remembrance of their wisdom, rituals & celebrations as well.

This holiday was formalized by US President Joe Biden on October 8th, 2021 although it was marked on the calendar from 1992 as a protest against celebrating the landing of Christopher Columbus on US soils, who perpetrated slavery & violence & marked the beginning of the torture & killing of native Americans.

This video is a slideshow of the diverse tribal population that exists today & contributed by numerous photographers.

The post Celebrating Indigenous People’s Day 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.