“Mottathikkootta” – a Gathering of Paniya Tribal Girls in the Wayanad District of Kerala, India

“Mottathikkootta” – A Gathering of Paniya Tribal Girls in the Wayanad District of Kerala, India

Background

I have been a resource person giving my time and energy (and gaining a lot of joy and sorrow, experience and challenges) to a unique process going on in the ecologically rich but economically and socially challenged “backward” tribal (Adivasi) and forest areas of Kerala for the past fifteen years. It is a unique national government program called the Mahila Samakhya (Women’s Equity/Justice) for the empowerment of girl children and women through education and socio-economic enrichment. In Kerala, the program is mainly focussed among Adivasis, coastal fisher-folk communities and socially and economically challenged (minority) communities. The Mahila Samakhya program is unique in its philosophy, concept and method of functioning. There is no money or incentives involved (like in other government programs). Girls and women are encouraged to come together, share their life stories, raise questions regarding the problems they face in day to day life, initiate discussions and find solutions collectively. The whole idea is to assist women to become self-confident, self-reliant, strong, and dignified human beings with a clear insight about how the world and their lives should be. This is achieved individually and collectively as a community effort. Such local women’s groups then are supported to hold regular meetings on the major issues that affect their life, whether lack of drinking water, fuel wood, cultivable land, housing, illiteracy, school dropout, domestic violence, sex abuse and so on. The women’s groups then can form collectives or even registered Federations to take up any issue and seek justice from the police, judiciary, official women’s commissions and non-governmental organisations that support women.

My association with this program has been mainly to include ecological considerations also to its planning and functioning especially among forest-dependent Adivasi communities living close to or inside forests.

Unfortunately the central government has decided to wind up the program and withdraw the meagre monetary support it has been receiving. I have done two evaluation/impact studies on this program – one an evaluation of the Adult Learning Centres (ALCs) in the Malappuram district, exclusively in the most “backward” tribal communities and two “primitive and vulnerable” rainforest communities; the second study on the impact of the 15 years of the whole program in two districts (Idukki and Thiruvananthapuram). I am a State Resource Group member as well as a District Resource Group member in two districts. This is the background of my association with the program.

“Mottathikkootta”

The Social Welfare Department of the Government of Kerala has sanctioned a project to initiate collectives of Paniya Adivasi girls to empower, educate and support them to find sustainable livelihoods, develop individuality (identity), self respect and “social capital”. This program has been uniquely named as “Mottathikkootta” (which in their language means gathering of girls) by the tribal girls themselves. Paniya Adivasi people are the most numerous (with a population of around 70,000) and also the most oppressed tribal community in Kerala. They who “once belonged to the land” instead of staking ownership titles or land rights, were made slaves in their own lands/forests since the 19th century. They were officially released from slavery only in the 1970s and settled in “colonies” by the government. They are landless, socially, culturally and economically challenged, and oppressed in all imaginable ways, yet they are the last refugia of lifeskills, herbal medicinal and agricultural knowledge systems. In spite of all the exploitation, displacement, loss and suffering they faced for centuries, they are still the happiest free spirits one can imagine. They still have the largest number of folk songs and stories in their racial memory and the spirit to dance and sing, work and retain hope through all the crises in life. They have the skill and ethnic knowledge needed for the sophisticated wetland and dryland paddy cultivation in Wayanad. Wayanad is an east sloping gently undulating plateau with a lot of ecologically unique wetlands, marshes, and natural “paddy lands” (“wayals”, hence the name Wayanad, which means the land of paddies). Paniya people are perhaps the only “agricultural labourers” who still have all the skills and knowledge for making agricultural implements, prepare the paddy lands for farming, select and preserve seeds, conserve the seed varieties (there used to be hundreds of local cultivars of paddy in Wayanad), enrich and protect the paddies from soil erosion, soil impoverisation, pests and diseases in organic and traditional ways, dehusk and prepare rice, in boiled as well as raw forms and so on.

I have been assisting the Mahila Samakhya program in Wayanad for the last few years by assisting in holding nature camps and environment education programs for the Paniya girls and women. These programs have been held for a week or so every month for the last two years. The organisation of the programs is by the Mahila Samakhya and I involve myself Nature orientation camp for school dropout Paniya children in voluntarily. Now that the Thirunelly, a tribal village near forest. “Mottathikkootta” program is coming

2 through, I hope to involve myself more regularly, and enrich the whole process by including ecological/ethical knowledge and sensibilities, environmental sensitivity and ecologically sustainable livelihoods and survival means.

The Adivasi girls are being encouraged to begin/restart their studies either by preparing for the equivalency exams of the State Literacy Mission or by joining regular schools. They are keen to study, read and acquire knowledge. Some of them want to become part of the mainstream, get jobs and lead “better” lives, but the majority want to better their present life close to nature and bring peace and harmony in their communities. The former have to be assisted to study, appear for general exams and tests for jobs which they will easily get as they are intelligent and learn fast and also because they have reservation/quota for seats in colleges and for government jobs. They also have to be encouraged to retain their memories, roots, culture and peace of mind, and perhaps even to financially help their families or friends, reclaim or buy back lost lands, start collective farming with uneducated friends or family members, encourage children to study, support elders to retain invaluable knowledge and lifeskills. Those who wish to retain their traditional ways of life should be supported to find joy and peace along with sustainable survival and subsistence by living close to land and natural ecosystems. They should be assisted to find sustainable livelihoods and long-term food security and ecological viability by ecologically restoring, afforesting and greening the land. The local self government, the Forest Department, the Tribal Department, Education Department and the Social Welfare Department can easily make use of their knowledge and services in many government programs by providing them employment and financial support.

This is a dream scenario, but definitely practical, objective and ecologically sustainable survival option for the most vulnerable, dispossessed and marginalised tribal community in Kerala.

What I have been doing and What I propose to do

 Visiting Paniya hamlets along with the field functionaries of the Mahila Samakhya to encourage women and adolescent girls to come together to form collectives. Imparting my understanding of and respect for the tribal ethos and life vision to the very same people to empower them to get over the years of suppression, discrimination and oppression. I have been sharing my practical experience from other tribal/forest areas in Kerala to convince them that it is possible for them to start envisioning a better future.

Women’s Gathering in a Paniya Hamlet

 I have been assisting and propose to encourage girl children to become literate and get educated either formally or non-formally so that they can prevent the sort of exploitation and abuse they face now. It is not just a question of competing with the mainstream, but also the will to correct the mainstream if they feel it is a toxic stream.

Paniya Girls in the residential school of the Samakhya (left) & in a hamlet (right)

 Holding regular classes and nature camps in wilderness areas, both for girls and boys on basic values, ecological ethics, rediscovering the wild spirit in us and our connections with the land and farming and “rewilding” and human lives and souls and also ecologically restoring the land.

Trekking and river walk with Paniya girls

 We have been involved in the initiatives of a group of friends who are associated with a library and also are part of a nature conservation and organic farming movement in Wayanad. They hold regular monthly meetings, classes, nature camps, tree planting, assisting the forest department in their participatory forest protection work, organic farming, saving indigenous seeds etc. The tribal girls have started attending these camps and also use the library. Some of them have joined the residential school run by the Samakhya where they get an opportunity to study, learn dancing and music, painting, drawing, stitching, cycling, martial arts for self-protection, farming and so on.

Class and Discussion on Biodiversity in the library and a dance/martial art session in the school

 Formal groups of Paniya girls (Mottathikkootta) are being formed in select hamlets from the 800 odd Paniya “colonies”, where there are maximum school dropouts and also in the most impoverished and marginalised tribal hamlets.

In the coming three years I hope to get involved in this program mainly to

 Bring in ecological principles and philosophy to the whole program. Develop an environmental education module for the Adivasi adolescent and youth groups. Only a system of non-formal education which includes both ecological as well as Adivasi social and cultural restoration and enrichment can heal the wounds of the minds and the Earth.

 Establish nature study and action/protection groups in all the hamlets and involve these groups in the participatory forest protection activities of the Forest Department. Wherever there are Vana Samrakshana Samithies (VSS - Forest Protection Committees) in the area, link the activities of the nature study youth groups to those of the VSS.

The Mananthavady River (left) and organic ginger cultivation (right)

 Assist the youth groups to take up organic food farming by taking land on lease or by pooling their own lands if available. The organic farming, organic produce marketing and indigenous paddy seed savers’ groups will be only too willing to associate with such a program.  Link the old and new generations in agriculture, riverside protection, in imparting ecological wisdom. This will reinforce the faith and self-confidence of the elders and make them feel respected and needed in addition to helping the youngsters realize the value of their cultural identity and indigenous knowledge systems. The youth is being encouraged to interact with the elders to collect, learn, document and conserve Adivasi songs, stories, folklore, myths, dance forms, knowledge systems, all of which are fast disappearing along with the natural ecosystems and old ways of living.

 To connect the hamlet based women’s groups with the youth, I want to act as a catalyst. The generation gap among the Adivasi communities is in many ways wider than that in the mainstream society. Educated youngsters with a deep inferiority complex and also material aspirations of the settler people are not able to accept the prudence or wisdom of their elders. The elders feel lost in an unacceptable and hostile world and often tell us that they need our help to communicate with their children and make them respect the old ways.

 Regularly visit the Government Tribal Residential Schools to assist the students in studies as well as personal issues. To get involved in the Nirbhaya (Brave Girls’) Shelter Homes (which give refuge to sexually abused and trafficked girls) along with the field functionaries of the Samakhya in Wayanad to handhold the youngsters to tide over their severe mental, psychological and physical trauma. The girls should be assisted to overcome their victim mindset and become survivors capable of leading meaningful lives with dignity and self-confidence. Even here, I believe Nature is the best healer and liberator. They have to be helped to find hope and faith in life by relating to a wild, free and beautiful world which alone can give them the inner grit and spirit to “forgive but not forget” (as Maya Angelou says) the criminals, whoever they are.

Some of the educated tribal girls can become teachers and counsellors in the above mentioned schools. Girls need assistance regarding hygiene, reproductive biology of their own bodies, contraception, self-protection, developing self-esteem and confidence, along with studies and livelihood trainings. My role is in finding ecologically oriented young minds who can find meaning and also livelihood in forest protection, non-timber forest produce collection, indigenous medicinal and healing practices, organic farming and ecorestoration activities. They can involve themselves and use their artistic talents and imagination in campaigns against pesticides, substance (drug) abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, child labour, child sex abuse, dowry, discrimination of women and girl children and so on.

I shall conclude this rather lengthy background note with two last paragraphs from the report of my Impact Study of the fifteen year functioning of Mahila Samakhya in two districts in Kerala brought out in 2014.

“What the women want is clear – dignity, equality, peace, love...and also sustainable livelihoods and social and economic security. Added to this is the ecological viability of the land and the often neglected generational justice, which can only be addressed by a feminine movement like the Mahila Samakhya. However ultimately the answer lies not with the government or the funding agencies but with the women and future generations.

This is a singular moment, a time of transition for the world. The old orders are dissolving. The world is hungry for a vision, a new Planetary Mythology. It is definitely emerging from women carrying the energy of the dynamic transformative Feminine all over the world. When we restore and reclaim the sacred feminine, and honour women, we heal the fragmented and unbalanced world. When we heal the wounds we humans have inflicted on Earth, we are healing human psyche also. The world needs the passion, wisdom and sparks of insights that I found in the women of KMSS which I believe will transform our future for the better.”