Bastar Dispatches
Author : Narendra
Publisher : HarperCollins India, Rs 499
Modernity has found one excuse or the other to not reach Bastar. But that delay has helped the tribes retain their way of life, says JIGYASA HASIJA
Sometimes the best way to understand ourselves is to look into a mirror. Such is the insight in sociologist Narendra’s new book. In search of himself, and seemingly disappointed and unsatisfied with life, as a young man he reaches out to a tribe in the deep forests of Bastar in Chhattisgarh, the hunter-gatherer ethnic group of the Abhujmadias. He goes one step further than his predecessors Wilfred Grigson (The Maria Gonds of Bastar, 1938) and Verrier Elwin (The Muria and their Ghotul, 1947). Instead of objective and ostensibly detached interviews, he meets them on their own turf. Terming it as a homecoming of sorts, the author’s sentiment for this fascinating ethnic way of life becomes amplified with each page, each experience. Imagine Jake Sully from David Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar in an Indian setting.
Narendra gives the reader a head-start with the first line of the book — “Abhujmad is not a mythical construct,” because what he is about to narrate might seem concocted, fabricated, or worse, fictitious. As the reader delves deep into the forests of underdeveloped and mineral-rich Bastar, every aspect starts brimming with life. The author has divided his work into four aspects, each unusual for the contemporary reader — language, living conditions, exchange with the outside world, and connections with the environment. Every feature is given a liberal amount of space, and the author’s conversations with the people are liberally interspersed with background information. He reaches out to the tribal men and women featured in the book to get a fuller picture of the Abhujmadia way of life. What is it like, he constantly questions, to live in such a world, where there is an incredibly different concept of time and spaceij Together, these aspects take the reader on an engaging tour into the clan’s beliefs and ways, explaining in detail how this tribe has managed to stay away from modernity.
It all began in 1980 when Narendra became associated with a field research programme under the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), to investigate the Adivasi way of life. Till about 1985, the writer chose to stay in Abhujmad. His work, thus, desists from discussing left Wing Extremism (lWE) or the interference of the then Government in the day-to-day life of the tribals in detail. Though the author sympathises with the inhabitants’ problems with the Government, modernisation and social democratisation, he does not give any details as to what methods the State uses vis-a-vis the people of Bastar. Some personal narratives of affected people have been included. However, no mention has been made of the daily perils of the Adivasis. The history of the inhabitants has also been done away with. The author tends to focus more on the mystical side of the clan, talking about how actions are really sensed rather than seen. For instance, in a chapter titled ‘Random Field Notes,’ the writer reminisces about the impenetrable, dense vegetation of the forest, especially at night, and that, “There is no knowing or not-knowing”. In another chapter about place and time, his focus digresses into death as a subject and how dates or attempting to record a period is unnecessary in the larger scheme of things. One episode in particular stands out — about a forest beat guard defying death by a whisker, with help from a native Adivasi woman who initially contested with a wild bear, and ultimately tricked it into running away.
It is interesting to note that Narendra was the first outsider to live with the Abhujmadias. Basing his writing on 30 years of his association with contiguous areas in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh, the author brings out the wild forest, humans and animals, and distances, collectively-styled societies and intimacies. At present, the population of the 237 villages in Abhujmad is 35,000 people; in 1985 it was approximately 13,000. In 2007, the Ministry of Environment labelled the Marxist hotbed Bastar as an ecological reserve, and it was only recently in 2009 that outsiders were allowed to enter the area by the Government. So impenetrable and cut-off from the outside world is this hilly forest zone, that some villages had not even known the impact of the wheel, or the taste of salt. Narendra’s preface goes thus:
“The small Abhujmadia community lived on food gathering and hunting, with shifting cultivation as a supplement. Shifting cultivation was not practised every year or by each family. Still, in a somewhat primeval stage, the region has neither trade, nor industry, commerce, occupation, or other modern apparatus. But neither was there hunger, starvation, beggary or lingering disease. Whereas an average village consisted of three-four scattered huts, an average family had four-five members. Amidst the primeval silence of dense wilds, the Abhujmadias continued to live in their tiny bamboo-and-thatch huts…”.
Not needing more than 500 words to converse, and counting only up to five because “it is not required,” the author paints a Utopian picture of a very different sensibility. In between, the reader would be forced to ponder upon and acknowledge the damage which has been inflicted in the name of civilisation. Much of what the writer has vividly described comes across as bewildering and at times, stunning. Bastar Dispatches is also associated with the ‘Dark Mountain’ project, which includes scholars such as Douglas Hine, Cody Meyocks, Steve Wheeler, John Zerzan, Dr David Fleming, Margaret Elphinstone, James Cowan, Andreas Kornevall, John Rember, Joanna Varawa, and Mike Edwards.
literary images confront directly; they confound, stifle and paralyse poetically, politically and psychosomatically. The Abhujmadias see themselves as a part of Mother Nature, which remains sublime under their guard till this day. They understand that it is too vast in its power. This book comes as a breath of fresh air in the wake of reports about diminishing glaciers, oil spills and deforestation. It is almost like a fairytale, a haze which refuses to lift even a while after you are through with the written word.
Peppered with words and anecdotes of wise men and women, what also helps the authentic stamp is the author’s preference for narration in the form of letters and diary entries which makes it an honest and readable book. Even the pictures provided are rare gems, as photography is strictly prohibited in Abhujmad; the ones clicked are in fact from areas immediately adjacent and culturally contiguous to Abhujmad. The book shows that for Bastar, even the deferred dream of modernity has helped save an even more beautiful dream — their unique culture and ideas.
