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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018 ISSN 2229-5518 1018 Re-construction of a Community: A sustainable attempt at alternative opportunities 1. WARLI- THE INDIGENOUS The 'Tribal' who are also known as Adivasis are India's original indigenous people. The indigenous people have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions and manifestations of their sciences and technologies as well as the right to intellectual property over those assets. The Warlis are one of the oldest pre-historic tribes amongst this platoon. While their ancient history is largely a point of conjecture, scholars generally believe that when Indo Aryans invaded what is now India; at least 3,000 years ago, they pushed these aborigines into more remote parts of the country, where they have largely remained to this very day. These people lived in isolated forestlands, far from urban centres. They belonged to their territories, which was the essence of their existence; the abode of their spirit and dead and the source of their science, technology, way of living, their religion and culture. This ushered the communities to remain far outside from India's mainstream and become self-governing entities which involuntarily fell outside the rigid Hindu caste system. Warlis (Adivasis) are today classified as 'Scheduled Tribes' by the Indian Constitution. Due to separation from the Hindu caste system, they are very different from 'Schedules castes' which belong to the caste system of India. They are unlike The Dalits (Untouchables), who are largely trapped in bonded servitude. IJSER1.1 HISTORY Warlis were said to be hunters and gatherers who wandered in the forests like all the other primitive tribes. Warli paintings done today have a very close resemblance to the paintings done by primitive man during the Mesolithic Age. Warlis never lived in settled communities. It is believed that after Britishers came to India, they wanted to exploit the forests around Bombay and Thana for timber. They slaved these tribes to settle down along Figure 1: Old cave painting the fringes of the forest and designated a piece of land to them to during Mesolithic Age. start agriculture. This led to a sudden shift in living patterns of the Source: Google Images tribes who were quite unknown to the stencils of urban living. There is no written record stating how the word Warli came up. Varal means a compound. These people made thorny bamboo compounds along their premises. Varal could also be a piece of land for cultivation. 1 IJSER © 2018 http://www.ijser.org International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018 ISSN 2229-5518 1019 Re-construction of a Community: A sustainable attempt at alternative opportunities The term Warli or Varli has been derived from the word 'varal', according to Dr. Wilson in the Thane Gazetteer in 1876. It means a small piece of cultivated land. In 1922 when Einthoven worked with the Warlis, he reported that they have no recollection of their origins. They speak a dialect which is a mixture of Marathi and Gujarati. They do not have their own script and use the Devnagiri for written communication. From varal emerged 'Warli'. After settling with their lands, they became Agro-pasturers. This generated a culturally agro-pastoral community populating the western ghats of India which constitutes a chain of hill ranges in north-western Maharashtra and Southern Gujarat. The eco-sensitive tract has undergone a rapid economic development in the recent past. This has led to change in land and resource use within the structure of the local communities itself. Alterations are eventually observed in the traditional occupations; especially in certain regions, where a change to an urban or semi-urban environment has occurred. Traditionally, the landscape elements of these regions were paddy lands in the coastal lowlands and a rab based agricultural system linked to the forests in the lower hill slopes where the gradient in the Western and Eastern slopes are not too steep.1 1.2 CULTURE AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE Indigenous cultures have used visual depictions of nature through several generations. Warli traditions are ancient manifestations of these cultures which can be traced back to the cave drawingsIJSER in the central highlands of India 9000 years ago, which was the Mesolithic age. These manifestations form a part of the traditional knowledge and culture. Traditional knowledge includes information on the use of biological and other materials for medical treatment and agriculture, production processes, designs, literature, music, rituals, and other techniques and arts. Traditional knowledge comprises of knowledge which has been developed in the past and passed down from generation to generation. Visual depictions similar to that Era are seen even today among certain ethnic groups; especially in tribal cultures, which are similar to cave drawings such as Bhimbetka and Satpudas. However, during recent times cultural changes through development and other environmental influences have led to alterations in the conceptualization, design and implementation of this section of traditional knowledge systems. 1 (Prabhu, Lifestyle of Warlis, 2016) 2 IJSER © 2018 http://www.ijser.org International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018 ISSN 2229-5518 1020 Re-construction of a Community: A sustainable attempt at alternative opportunities A well-known example of this is among a section of the Warli tribal people where tribal women made stylized murals on the walls of their homes especially for festive occasions. During the 1970s this traditional artwork was popularized as paintings on canvas or paper through various external influences. The popularity of these drawings was enhanced through an increased access to the tribal belt in North Maharashtra and South Gujarat where rapid economic Figure 2: Mural drawn on exterior wall called the ' ‘Lagna Chauk’ (drawn during marriages in the house) development and external influences Source: Google Images began to rapidly increase in the area. A notable feature of this transition is the process by which changes in the spatial and temporal aspects of their art is linked with commercialization of consumptive products that they use, which were brought into productive use in the local market during more or less the same period. Products collected from nature which were once used primarily for consumptive purposes haveIJSER in more recent times become of productive value to local people. Examples of this are seen on the Western Express Highway where the women folk sit to sell Syzygium cumini (Jamun), Carissa spinarum (Karvanda), Gloriosa superba, etc. Even males now collect and sell these resources for generating income. This has increased the pressure on these resources and altered the way in which they are collected. In many situations it has led to improper or over use leading to deterioration and degradation of the resource. Just as resource use patterns changed from productive to consumptive use, the cultural aspect of Warli drawing during the same period changed from a consumptive background where women painted the walls of their own homes during marriages to saleable paintings. The drawings are now sold profitably and have constituted a new income generation avenue which has been taken over by males of the Warli society. This has resulted in the Warli women not continuing to engage in this art form for its personal (consumptive) value, which has 3 IJSER © 2018 http://www.ijser.org International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018 ISSN 2229-5518 1021 Re-construction of a Community: A sustainable attempt at alternative opportunities transmitted into a specialized occupation of male Warli artists who are called in during the wedding period to decorate the walls. However, their major source of income is the modification of ways the fresco style on paintings sold on paper Figure 3: Mural of Tarpa Dance during Diwali Festival for commercial and tourist related Source: Google Images sources of income. The trigger for these changes can be traced back to Padmashree Jivya Soma Mashe who first popularized this artform. It is also observed that a process of change has occurred in the traditional designs of the Warli drawings which have undergone a process of gradual transition in the last 30-40 years. In the current decade Warli motifs and artwork are also being used by painters and graphic designers of non-Warli origin. This can be considered as a loss of traditional intellectual property of the Warli people. It has also led to a serious erosion of the cultural milieu in which the drawings were made in the more accessible sections of the Warli community. This ‘modernization’ and homogenization into populist art has inevitablyIJSER included newer motifs into their designs and a loss of their original ritualistic and mystical meaning within the motifs of the frescos. Figure 4: Jivya Soma Mashe depicting harvest season and Figure 5: Jivya Soma Mashe depicting the threshing done the threshing of grains done after that after harvest Source: Google Images Source: Google Images 4 IJSER © 2018 http://www.ijser.org International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 5, May-2018 ISSN 2229-5518 1022 Re-construction of a Community: A sustainable attempt at alternative opportunities 2The traditional artwork done on frescos was specifically done by married women whose husbands were alive. During the last couple of decades of commercialization of their art, the drawings have been executed by men who have become specialized in this art form. Currently these artists are employed by local tribal families to create murals on their walls on festive occasions. This is similar to the way in which collection and consumptive use of a natural resource which is primarily a function of tribal women shifts to a male dominated and less sustainable collection by males when market forces begin to play a role in the productive use of certain resources.

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