Bhill House and Habitat in Satpura Ranges (Video)

House of Tetya Nusa Koli and Its Environ 

Aborigine-Adivasi Culture is so rich that it should be understood as World Heritage and should be preserved. For more than 10K years, or perhaps from unknown time, they have been living in Harmony with Nature. But now in the hurricane of development on western model it is doubtful how long will they last!

Here is a glimpses of one of the tribe in their house and habitat: 

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Aborigine House and Habitat

• House is living area. Habitat is open work area, mainly forest, wetlands and farming.

•  In contrast the urbanite have mostly enclosed spaces /places for work, education, leisure... etc. in divisions.

• The fundamental cultural difference between Adivasi Community and Civilized Society is paramount. This is neither recognized nor understood by the State.

• The peasants in villages, too, have their homestead as workplace - farm, wetlands, pastures, forest... like Adivasis. They, however, belong to civilized society, divided by class and caste.

• It is vital for the State to understand this unique trait of Adivasi (aborigine) culture in its total governance and administration while dealing with Adivasi Habitat.

• Adivasi's Ancestral Right to their Habitat must be recognized as their Fundamental Right. This indeed must not be superseded by the civilized society.

• Bhills are one of the largest tribes in India.

• Tribal communities are small republics.

• Community is Cohesive Collective, where family is primary unit; hence, it is an Extended Family, where none suffers Identity Crisis.

• Among adivasi communities there is no Division of Labour, as in Civilized Societies.

• Every individual is representative of the Adivasi - aborigine - community.

• They acquire life-supporting skills by experiential learning, and receive their time-tested ancient wisdom from their families and the elders of the community, at early age.

• Community Participation works in every aspect of individual, family and community living such as, housing, farming, leisure, learning... etc.

• Adivasis make their own flute, bow and arrows, bead ornaments, and tools for household, fishing and farm utilities...

• There is no gender discrimination, no prostitution among Adivasis.

• Sustainable living means to take minimum necessary resources from Nature. It is living sanely in communion with Srishti - Mother Nature.

• Finally, adivasi could give authentic anthropological account of their tribe and community. The rest is civilized interpretation, or rather imagination!

• Land and Waters give sustenance to all the living beings and culture to humans. Hence Biodiversity brings Diversity of Cultures. There is no superior culture.

• Remarkable Communication System: within a couple of days a few thousand (Narmada Dam affected) tribal would gather, at Medha Patkar's call for public meeting on the day.

• Societies, Unions, Associations, Corporations... or civil societies are not Communities, or those floated on Internet in the wilderness of World-Wide-Web.

• Everyone in Adivasi - Aborigine - communities dance and sing at will. Why should they watch cinema-video at cost, price, value or worth of elusive time or money?

• Adivasis - aborigines - don't believe in 'Ownership of Land (Water)'. They build live fences to protect crops from animals.

• Concept of Ownership of Land by a person / group / State has no ethical or moral ground in the realms of Srishti - Mother Nature. Revenue Survey Nos. brought by the British Rule is an immoral act.

• Tribal house, when obsolete, goes back to earth, recycled, and some of its parts are reused. Nothing is wasted. This is Natural Way. Modern science and technology do not reach anywhere near.

Read MORE >> Bhill's Holi Festival in Satpura Ranges, India

India, largely a country of immigrants says Supreme Court of India
TRIBAL HOUSING: BUDDHA AND THE ART AND SCIENCE OF KARVI HUT

NOTE: 
1.These photos may seem familiar on this blog. However, they have many dimensions. More you look into the Way of Living of Adivasis more is revealed.

2. When my classmates, college mates, colleagues were going abroad to US, EU, OZ, Middle East… I was going into interiors in search of ROOTS, to aborigine hamlets in forests, to see the beginnings. I went with humility of a child; I was/am not a scholar but scholastic. It brought me transformation. They changed my life, way of living-working-thinking, initiated me to their faith, or whatever you may call, without any rites and rituals...

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Booming Bamboo Feeding the West

Booming Bamboo Feeding the West

Key Words: West, here, refers to regions where bamboo doesn't grow or isn't cultivated. Bamboo, a wild grass, cannot be subjected to mass farming like wheat / rice. Feeding, in Indic cultures, is a verb for 'serving food' means, 'increase', which is by giving food it increases; it does not reduce. After eating, the guest says, 'God bless you', not 'thank you' as in English custom. Even the converted Konkani Catholics say, 'God bless you' keeping with the cultural tradition.

When I saw BBC news, ''Booming bamboo: The next super-material?', I was delighted.  I thought 'where does the sun rise today'! But after reading I wouldn't know to cry or laugh. Only my remaining disillusion vanished.

Bamboo artisans in Mumbai: Living with Dignity

Today, may it be democracy or dictatorship; both are under obligation of the visible-invisible capitalist powers. Unless these powers get a jolt like 'Arabian Spring', they may not learn the lesson.

Till now bamboo has been called, "Poor man’s persons' timber". The capitalist, they having enjoyed the taste for power and profit, overnight christened bamboo as, "timber of the 21st Century".

Under this sugar-coated name, the neo-colonialism is revealed in every word of this article. Is 21st century a magic wand?

See through the language of this story! It measures the bamboo production in 'dollar', and not 'tonne', not 'land', not 'life' of 'peasant-the-producer'! You never know when 'dollar' will slide down, and the bamboo producing peasants may face starvation! Such hypocrisy!

In the ad-world a lie repeated umpteen times may be sold as a truth by Goebbels’ propaganda, but it may not work forever is also true. The down-trodden notice it at once.
You never know when 'dollar' will slide down, and the bamboo producing peasants face starvation! Such hypocrisy!

Let us take example of our democratic nation.
From Nehru-era until now, who – any person/s, expert/s or pundit/s – spared a thought to the peasants in the country's six lakhs villages, then about 40 crores, now 100 crores, when and how, would they be able to build, manage and maintain the roads, bridges, schools, colleges, banks, industries etc. facilities in their villages by themselves?

Corporate Aesthetics of Hedonism

Or do they, submit to fate and continue live, ages after ages, as subjects or second class or the ‘Underclass’ of respective contemporary governments, forever?

Association of bamboo and villagers & aborigines is ancient. In the BBC story if there is anything new, it is the introduction to capitalize bamboo for mass production by the Industrial Society, where bamboo does not grow. That's all!
Mass production means 'centralization of power', whether by the state or the corporate. The corporate are known for their skill to capitalize anything — air, water, plants, animals, birds; blood... even poverty of the 'Other' — for profit and power.
Colonization obviously is followed by monopoly, market manipulation, intellectual property rights, scarcity... What happens to low-cost Housing, after Food scarcity, in the Third World, the Fourth World (of aborigines) and the Fifth World (of the displaced and marginalized due to development projects) worldwide?

The west is famous for making tool of economy to create great wealth and great waste.
There may be a number of products of lifespan, which is not even that of a rice plant. In no time there come new models in market. Old products go in scrap.

A paddy plant gives back fifty grains, but not even its speck goes waste, it turns into organic manure. And after daily meals, the crumbs or leftover is sent to birds, animals, ants-insects. These are our rural unwritten 'Standards'. Our government, however, always goes after Global Standards.

THE ATTRIBUTE TO DESIGN IN NATURE

“In whole organisms, randomness structure is uncommon. Everything seems finely tuned by brutal rigours of natural selection. There are no spare limbs to be found and hardly any dispensable organs. This forced economy of organism design has always limited the use of bodily form as evolutionary timepiece" (Martin Jones, The Molecular Hunt, Penguin 2002).

There is a saying, 'money goes to money'. How does it happen?
Capitalism has singular objective, money: Money is the 'means' and the 'goal'. When means and goal are one, a project is fulfilled.

Bamboo artisans belong to low-caste in India: Living with Dignity

For any democratic government, if its 'means' and 'goals' are 'People' for any project or objective, then only true progress is possible. Science, technology, currency... are merely tools without tangible value.

Bamboo or its grove is most virtuous icon of healthy community among plant world. It is friendly to all the living beings. Its equanimity is impeccable. Humans domesticated many grasses, such rice, wheat etc. in the ancient times, but bamboo did not need it. Bamboo – the eternal plant – belongs to sainthood.

For the advanced arrogant human societies, and their puppets (among many countries), there is never enough to learn from – Srishti – Mother Nature.
A note accompanies the BBC article:

‘There are as yet no international laws governing sustainability of bamboo plantations.’
The First World loves Laws, as if unaware of Natural Justice. Do the First World societies recognize that ‘Justice is above the Law’?

Bamboo: Image by BBC New

BBC story calls bamboo a 'green gold'. Siddhartha Jataka compare bamboo or bamboo-forest as "Cat's eye". Jataka stories, which date back to 300 B.C., are 550 in numbers and has mentioned bamboo and bamboo-forest more than hundred times. 

Read›› Booming bamboo: The next super-material?

Comment: They will buy carbon credits by planting bamboo by proxy in the Third World Countries at cheaper rates.
 — Remigius de Souza


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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Indian Bazaar VS Global Market: A view by an ordinary Indian

INDIAN BAZAAR, at primary level, brings a producer and consumer in direct contact; no third party is involved. With urbanization, broker comes in the picture, the price and distance between the two increases. Hence, the State department's work and rewards (!) increase, with more powers.

City is a symbol of centralized power. Larger a city larger an area its footprint covers, even across continents and oceans, and larger its powers to manipulate and control regions via Market: City is actually a proxy to the power monger/s. In earlier times it was a king, now a corporate body.

Bazaar is an ecological element in the agrarian society, then and now. Because of India's so-called 'mix economy, free market, open market, globalization..., the peasant now belongs to a new category of “Class”, or rather “Underclass”. They are the first and the worst casualty of 'Development and Progress', besides already existing oppressions of caste discrimination; gender oppressions apart.

Web of Caste and Class 

They are now caught in the “web” of "Vertical divisions of Caste and Horizontal divisions of Class". Which one of them is worst? They grew up for many thousand years with degenerated caste system. But, now they are imposed upon by the divisions of class that is already (globally) degenerated. 

The overview of the whole situation looks intriguing in the post-freedom era. The elite fascinated by industrialization, took over the reigns to run the affairs of the country. How did the peasant respond to the change, after centuries of feudal domination? What did freedom, democracy and leaders mean to them? 

"Now it is our Raj, and our leaders will take care of our wellbeing!" Hero-worship continued. What about the five years' rule of limited liability by elections? How does it change perceptions of leaders and peasants about self-rule?  

There are two distinct courses that India followed for decades: (1) the enthusiastic implementation of ‘pro-elite’ projects, and (2) failure to implement or materialize the ‘pro-poor’ Slogans / Promises / Programmes / Provisions. The fall-out of these two conditions now shows glaring or grim results.

Past sixty three years have witnessed rising numbers of riots, extremist and terror attacks; the deaths by hunger – malnutrition – starvation, and suicide by farmers; atrocities on women-children-minorities; atrocities by the security forces, to cite a few. Besides there are number of persons Bellow Poverty Line and the illiterate that don't reduce. 


Countless atrocities take place that are caused to the under privileged people by State Agencies in the name of law and order. There are scams, kickbacks, corruption, parallel economy, encounters, and shootings etc. which may be notable among many.

We take social – economic growth by the Development Projects too much for granted. Recent visit by the US President Obama to India means Market, even if by ancient system of 'barter', of trade, tech for jobs! Did India count how would the upcoming US Market and Nuke Deal affect The Third World India and The Fourth World India (of Adivasis)? Is this aspect social and economic fall-out counted in the Nuclear Safety Precautions? 

Mother Earth - Land - now a market commodity 
 
Yet there is another silent but sinister trend going on since 1950s and 1960s. Highly placed urbanites, executives, celebrities, real estate developers… have been buying large tracts of land – hills, plains, marshes – in rural areas at strategic places, by their money-power. What could poor farmers do? Yesterday they were masters; now landless labourers.

Large tracts of land are being converted to raise monoculture for industrial use, or in the name of afforestation, at the cost of biodiversity. There are many and many kinds of atrocities taking place on land and waters.

Would there be accelerated Migration from countryside, or Annihilation of the peasants – by Invisible Forces? As we Re-Search even a single aspect, Bazaar, it opens the hidden agenda of Indian Elite: how sly, hypocrite and ruthless they are! It is not merely Indian BAZAAR VS Global MARKET.

It is more sinister action by the insensitive leaders and experts, detrimental to a large and majority rural and forest dwellers. Government of India certainly strives to improve infrastructure, but only for the elite segment. It has failed to create appropriate infrastructure for 900 million peasants in 600,000 villages, some of them are rotting in the cities.

The basic and most urgent infrastructure for the rural people is RELEVANT EDUCATION: Literacy in vernacular, appropriate Education, Alternative Farming Technologies, Water Resources and Conservation, Legal Counselling for All Ages and Genders. These are not separate departments but must be treated and implemented as One Holistic Package.

The hold of the peasant and the consumer on the market, until then, remains a distant dream.

The displaced with their skills in the city 

The displaced and marginalized migrate to cities 

in search of work to sustain with dignity.

(Images by Remigius de Souza)

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 We have heard, the kibbutz have turned desert in Israel into land 

where honey and milk flows, by community participation.
 

Panoramic photo (composite) of Sunflower fields at Kibbutz Barkai, Israel; 

Author: Rickjpelleg | Source: Wikipedia 

Related Posts
1. Hawkers' Fundamental Rights and Contemporary City Planning
2. Flower Bazaar at Mumbai during Ganesh Festival
3. How bamboo is neglected in India

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Terra Incognita Indica: Building with Earth (Book Review)

Terra Incognita Indica: Building with Earth: a notable Textbook: "Building with Earth: a notable Textbook (Book Review) by Remigius de Souza ------------------------------------------------------------- ..."

© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

How bamboo is neglected in India

How bamboo is neglected in India
by Remigius de Souza

Urban elite Indian is familiar with bamboo: a decorative garden plant. The slum dwellers use bamboo household implements brought from their native villages. The children, perhaps, due to the sticks fixed on the kites.

It is said that there are 1000 uses of bamboo. But, knowingly or unknowingly, we, the educated, come in contact with bamboo through its product – paper.

In this conference (see the note bellow) the major emphasis is on economics, commerce and trade of bamboo, and botany for its mass plantation. We, however, have not paid much attention to the uses of bamboo. We take them for granted.

A house – shelter – though a basic need, where bamboo has contributed to a great extend, throughout ages, we take for granted its use in housing. The statistics, whether real or on paper, of housing shortage in India, and the housing action to remove the shortage have never matched until now. This, however, being a departmental issue, may not be ‘our’ concern!

Few institutions have started to make bamboo articles for useful or decorative purposes mainly to appeal the urban elite, for example, a bamboo briefcase. We don’t see them in use except sometimes in the handicrafts emporiums.

For centuries the majority – more than 80 percent – in India use it for houses and equipments for the household, farming and family vocations. The number of uses if counted will go in several thousands in all the regions in India.

Why then bamboo remains neglected in India? Why it has now attracted their attention? These are two sides of the same coin: the one is ‘they’, and the other is ‘we’. They use it for the ‘shelter’; we use it for the paper. These interests are at the cross-purposes.

The ‘heads’ for the ruling class, the ‘tails’ for the skeletons of the Western Ghats or Sahyadri, Satpura, Vindhya, Nilgiris, Himalayas and the lakhs of square kilometres of the countryside, which is devalued in the inflationary market.

If ‘they’ have to be motivated to plant bamboo, then ‘we’ must have to study with ‘Riyaz’ – rigorous practice – to learn what bamboo is, and its many thousand uses in the interest of people and the country’s economy.

The coconut is ‘Kalpavriksha’ – wish tree – for us, and has its place in our culture; it’s more than just a commodity!

The bamboo is the God-blessed plant, ‘Jeevan Sangeet’ – music of life – symbolized by Krishna’s primeval flute, a part of our culture; though it may not so for the western culture. In China, Japan… the whole of Southeast Asia bamboo has reached higher levels in arts and handicrafts.

We in general, and the architects and engineers in particular, are not sufficiently familiar with bamboo, perhaps except as scaffolding material that is now being replaced by steel.

Though bamboo (and soil too), are universal building materials in India, the professionals call them ‘non-conventional’. Why? Because it doesn’t grow in Britain / Europe. The cement, steel, aluminium… are ‘conventional’ for us ever since they were imported, along with their education system, by the British.

Ironically, for the last two centuries, and even after the Independence, the majority of the Indian people have been following sustainable living; thankfully they have been kept away, or deprived of, and exploited by this imported education. The time only can tell us if it is for the better or worst ends!

Bamboo remains neglected because it is ‘their’ material. Because it is neither the part of our education curriculum nor their. Europeans, however, recognise humble ‘thatch’ as a building material in their education and practice, and is use by the very rich as well as the poor. If anything, we should blame our slave mentality or snobbery for the neglect of bamboo.

Now that the western people are doing research, and even tried bamboo plantation in the gardens (under artificial conditions), we too must recognise bamboo, otherwise we shall be called backward.

Certainly there is research going on, for example, in Deharadoon, besides elsewhere, but unfortunately it doesn’t reach the masses. Bollywood gossip about its stars, and their styles, even information about their under-garments, reach the masses more efficiently!

It is indeed nice of Maharashtra Education Department now to include bamboo in the primary and secondary school textbooks. But the lessons also must be taught and learnt in the out-side-class-rooms on the ground.

It is still more important to include bamboo and soil in the curriculum of architecture and engineering. On one side we talk-talk-talk of housing shortage, on the other side the education of the professionals is not people-oriented. The rational behind the talk, policy and practice is lame, is in partisan interest that amounts to hypocrisy.

I, therefore, suggest two resolutions before the conference:

1. Bamboo and soil must be included in the education curriculum of higher / technical education in architecture and engineering.

2. Bamboo must be brought under regulation and rationing as an essential commodity for distribution for various uses – industry, handicrafts and housing. It should be made available to the forest dwellers, villagers, and the slum dwellers in cities and towns for self-help housing, and the artisans (who generally belong to the SCs – the schedule castes) at fair price.

(Note: This is a translation of the talk given by the author in Marathi on 23 April 1995 at the First Bamboo Conference (in Marathi) held at Narayangaon, District Pune, on April 22-23, 1995. The elite and the rich farmers attended the conference. Predictably the suggestions were not adopted in the resolution.)

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Remigius de Souza
08-04-2007
69, 243, S B Marg, Mumbai 400028 India