Page 1 of 7 2013- Raghunathan Chakravarthy

Adivasi (Tribal) Food Festival, BismCuttack, Odisha 25 Feb 2014- A call to Protect Jangal, Zameen, Jol and Adivasi Jeevan
Ragunathan Chakravarthy
This is a report from the foothills of Niyamgiri, Rayagada District, Odisha, on the Tribal Food Festival held on 25 Feb 2014, celebrating Tribal Food, Ecology, Bio-diversity and self-sufficient communities. Outlines Two World, Two Views on Sustainable, Nutritious, Healthy Livelihood

HORIZON MEDIA
Kethan2212@gmail.com [Type the phone number] [Type the fax number]

About the Author: Ragunathan Chakravarthy is based in Bangalore, India, is an independent researcher, ecologist and documentary film maker on social issues.

7/3/2014

Page 2 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014

Adivasi Food Festival, Odisha Feb 2014

A Call to Protect Jangal (Forest), Zameen (Land), Jol (Water) And Adivasi Jeevan (Tribal way of Life)
Tribal Worldview on Sustainability
Raghunathan K Chakravarthy 7 March 2014 Abstract: Deliberations at the Adivasi Food Festival reveal the existence of Two Worlds- Two Views on Sustainability, Bio-Diversity, Food Sovereignty, and Nutritional Security. Unfortunately the worlds drift apart on the philosophy, practices, culture and discourses of development and self-sufficiency, Food and Nutritional security. Geography & Locale: The setting for this historic Tribal Food Festival has been the foothills of Niyamgiri (The Abode of Niyam Rajah, the Lord of Righteousness in tribal belief system). The Niyamgiri mountains and forests are home to countless tribals since the dawn of human evolution, such as the Kondh, Koya, Didai, Santhal, Juanga, Baiga, Bhil, Pahari Korva, Paudi Bhuiyan and Birhor. They all form part of the ethnic ProtoAustraloid family. The central forests and Eastern Ghats in India are home to more 150 million plus tribals, and it has been geologically agreed to be most ancient part of the Gondwana continent. These tribes have been acknowledged to be among the few ancient and primitive tribal communities on the planet. The Adivasi Food Festival was a dialogue and discourse on issues relating to Nutritional Security, BioDiversity, Ecological Preservation, and strategies to mitigate effects of climate change through preservation of traditional food systems, leveraging uncultivated food (comprises 40% of the tribal diet), protecting indigenous seed varieties of millets, rice, oil seeds, and forest produce. More than 600 participants (80% of them tribal mothers and women), from 300 tribal villages participated in the conference, and tribal groups from various states such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bengal, Odisha were well represented. Around 1500 varieties of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, plant, animal produce was displayed, of which more than 900 form the uncultivated natural forest produce. The Adivasis showcased around 400 recipes, presenting the richness of their season-based food habits, that has provided them long and healthy life for several thousand years. The festival started with the traditional Nature worship to the Mountain, Forest, and the eco-system initiated by the tribal priestess, actualizing the philosophy Forest, Land, Water, Tribals , Plants, animal species form an interconnected eco-system, inseparable from each other.

Page 3 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014

Message from the Adivasis : In his welcome speech Jagannath Majhi, Kondh tribal made it absolutely clear that this is not one of the commonly witnessed city-based exotic Tribal Food festival, where Adivasis and their produce are presented as museum artifacts (to foreigners as part of tourism promotion activity), but a real congregation of tribals to celebrate, nurture, protect bio-diversity, ecology, tribal communities, their culture, traditional food systems and livelihood. Tribal World view (Extract from the deliberations at the Food Festival) On Ecology: The Forest, Agriculture, Mountains, multitude of plant, animal species and the Tribal communities form an integrated eco-system and one cannot exist without the other. The dominant view that is being propagated is that the mountains, forests are inanimate entities to be exploited, but ancient tribal wisdom has asserted over thousands of years that nature is a living entity (the modern scientists only recently came up with the concept of Gaia- the living planet). All the tribals no matter from which region the belong to are all children of the forest, and just as mothers have given birth and nurtured us, the forest and the eco-system has nurtured, protected us for ages Increasingly many vested interests and groups have started to treat the sacred forests, mountains and natural resources as mere commodities to be traded in global stock exchanges, from the tribal point of view this is similar to children selling their mothers in marketssuch commoditization, and denigrating the inherited planet as a thing to be bought and sold, is unthinkable in the tribal consciousness and thought process More than 1200- 1500 varieties of cultivated, uncultivated food has been displayed in the festival, and it is impossible for any shopping mall, super market to even showcase such food diversity, season-based food recipes, and food habits aligned to the natural and ecological cycles. The global retain industry, with all its resources, bells, whistles, lights and shadow play cannot even conceive of this diversity and nutritional security system that has been protecting tribal communities since ancient times. Pahari Korba Tribe on Food, Health & Forest:

We Pahari Korba have always enjoyed a long and healthy life for generations, without any major ailments or diseases. For every minor disease, symptom or discomfort we depended on forest herbs, plants, vegetables, to get well, and we never visited a drug store, hospital, and had any injections.

Page 4 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014 Unfortunately, from the last two decades, all this is changing rapidlywith the proliferation of modern hybrid seeds, deforestation, mono-culture, enforced changes to cropping pattern, invasion of chemical, pesticide based agriculture, our food and food habits have been altered drastically. With the intrusion of mining companies, building of large dams submerging our forests, we are now offered a plethora of vaccinations, injections and medical aid, and we have started suffering from unheard of modern and complex diseases.the after effects of ecological damage is most visibly represented in our physical immunity, and disease patternswithout any understanding of the local diseases, traditional remedies, we have been indiscriminately bombarded with modern medicine through aid, and government health care centers.as a result of this ecological devastation, we find it hard to find the traditional herbs and plants in the forest..this is a matter of grave crisis, and we understand that as our forests are being plundered, food systems being destroyed, our mortality is increasing and our tribal population is decreasing at a fast pace, this is nothing short of silent decimation of our tribal communities With the loss of forest, our food is lost, with loss of traditional food practices, indigenous seeds and varieties are fast vanishing with the onslaught of hybrid and Gm seeds, the community systems are disintegrating, and slowly but surely our life and livelihood is lost forever.hence the need for us tribals is to protect our seeds, preserve our traditional agricultural practices, retain the bio-diversity of our forests, and this only this can ensure the life and livelihood of our current and future generations
Message from Tribal Women: For an outsider like me, the audience count was completely puzzling, among the 600 participants, tribal women and children comprised 80%, I could not fathom the reason for this gender imbalance. The answer came quite fast from a Kondh tribal woman. First the communities were separated from the forests, land leased to corporations for mining and industrial activities, then chemical farming was introduced, bringing division and individual land holding patterns among our communities, then came the roads, schools and hospitals along with electricity, and now we see our own kids getting culturally alienated from us, and they do not know anything about our rich heritage and traditional and season based food practices, given the fact that they are educated in a modern waythis is crisis of massive proportions, a crisis that is not our making. I fear that our whole life, livelihood, culture may be lost forever, if we do not start properly educating our children and future generations to conserve nature, live harmoniously with the seasons, and practice bio-diversity and ensure nutritional security so need of the hour is to start serious engagement from our children, and impregnate them with our age old and ancient wisdom of living in peace and prosperity

Page 5 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014

Key Note from the Tribal Food Festival: In his concluding speech, Jaganath Majhi, summarized: Today, this festival is not just another day, it is historical, I do not have words, thoughts, to express the importance of this tribal congregationlooking at the vast array of food, forest produce, recipe, I must say, that we are abundantly rich and prosperousI am proud to be an Adivasi, our families and communities are a treasure house of richness and knowledge.. Looking at this food festival and exhibition, I must say we have no need to stretch our arms in front of others for a livelihood; we have much to give by way of wisdom and knowledge to the whole world I feel, we Adivasis are living in our little paradise in peace, happiness and harmony But, many vested interests are making grand plans to convert this into a hell full of misery, diseases, and dependence..they want to break and dismantle our communities and life, hence we need to unite, act in unison try hard and strong to preserve our way of life, prevent those vested interests from snatching away our eco-friendly, happy and peaceful life, the need of the hour is to preserve our community values, culture, and traditional practices, revive and restore our self respect and dignity, resolutely oppose any attempt by others to convert us into beggars seeking alms and dole from governments and corporations.. Mr Devider Sharma, Food & Policy Analyst: Eminent food and policy analyst Mr Devinder Sharma, graced the occasion and had this to say: Looking at the food and bio-diversity here, I have personally learnt a lot, and the whole world needs to learn from you, from a simple plant species, you efficiently use the bark, the skin, the seeds and fibre for your various food and personal care needsthis is eco-conservation, ecological and harmonious living in practice the key challenge for people like us, is how do we take this wisdom and your ancient knowledge to the whole world and show case to them, and show them that you are indeed in the forefront of mitigating climate change, through your food systems, and practices I understand out of 1500 food plant and animal species on display, 900 of them are uncultivated forest produce, an average city dweller knows less than 25 types of food including fruits, nuts, and vegetables apart from major food grains such as rice and wheat.. I am overwhelmed and I am willing to be your ambassador and spread the message of your ecoharmonious life, and bio-diversity practices to the various corners of the world Two World- Two Views: It became increasingly evident over the course of the Tribal Food Festival; there is indeed two different worlds and two different views, incompatible and irreconcilable, on Ecology, bio-diversity, development, growth, food and nutritional security, economic growth among others.

Page 6 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014

The Establishment View: The governments, the economic and political advisors, multinational corporations, main stream media, along with their international and national think-tanks and agencies, have a completely different view on development, growth, food security, ecology. The key aspects of the dominant ideology and practices are summarized below: Stock markets, exchange of goods and services (even if it is wasteful and conspicuous consumption), GDP figures indicate growth The tribals are under-developed, development goals for tribal areas include setting up Road, Rail, School, Hospital, Industries and provide employment to tribals The food industry pundits set up calorie goals, and recommended food targets and dietary patterns and needs. The tribals need to imbibe this great knowledge and practice them as sacred science. These nutritional definitions and dietary recommendations ignore natural and seasonal cycles and ecological systems. They extraordinary science has resulted in the world depending on just 4-5 major food grains and crops controlled by less than 5 corporations, such is the nature of their nutritional science Abolish subsistence, and self-sufficient agrarian systems, and adopt corporate and massive industrial, chemical farming to augment global food grain production, with an altruistic label of fighting world hunger. The economic pundits largely ignore that hunger is the result of income inequity rather than food grain shortage Intensify agriculture and yields with mechanized farming. Small and self-sufficient agrarian practices and food systems, are a hurdle to Corporate industrial agriculture, hence need to be aggregated, consolidated on a industrial scale. Set up Public Distribution System, to provide low-cost (?) food grains to the famished and impoverished communities, and populations that are displaced and dismantled Replace the bio-diversity rich forests with monoculture and conduct afforestation with Eucalyptus, Acacia trees to the cater to the world timber and industrial lobbies Aggressively promote colonial, western education indiscriminately, to prepare future generations of consumers for the food, pharmaceutical industry Demobilize communities, provide skill training, and manage the surplus 400 million plus agrarian and tribal population in India, to become wage laborers in industries and infrastructure projects Growth is measured by the level of urbanization, infrastructure building, and electricity hence move and internally displace population and communities and migrate them to the unsustainable cities Increase dependence of local agriculture on the global petro-chemical-fertilizer-pesticide-seed monopolies The demographic dividend can be harvested by introduction of modern food, proliferation of modern diseases, and bail out the ailing population with the help of global drug and pharmaceutical companies. This is to be done, without even a cursory study of disease patterns, ailments, available traditional medical practices among the tribal communities Provide subsidies and dole, formulate National employment opportunities to tribals (The communities for ages never had a need to perform wage labor to cater to their livelihood needs) As far as possible and feasible, acquire knowledge about some of the medicinal and food products from the tribal communities, incubate them in invisible laboratories, patent them, and market drug products to the vast population in the under-developed world

Page 7 of 7

Adivasi Food Festival BismCuttack, Odisha, 25 Feb 2014

The Alternative Tribal View: Food security primarily revolves around food sovereignty and nutritional security Seasonal based food practices that follow natural ecological cycles are truly sustainable Millets, uncultivated forest food produce, provide a mitigation strategy in era of global warming and climate change Communities are integral part of the natural eco-habitat, hence the need to protect Jangal, Zammen, Jol, and Adivasi Jeevan (Forest, Land, Water and Tribal Way of Life) Improve bio-diversity, conserve and preserve traditional and indigenous seeds, this is the real answer to the vagaries of climate change Maintain ecological balance, and appropriate optimal yields from land, allowing sufficient time for rejuvenation Culture and community sensitive educational institutions Locale, geography and community specific health care centers, that completely integrate traditional medical knowledge and herbal systems There are definite limits to growth, and treat nature as sacred, and the life provider for all species including humans Practice locally sustainable crop diversity, crop rotation

Conclusion: It would be abundantly clear that The Two World views are incompatible with each other, and irreconcilable. Informed ecologists, policy makers, legislators, civic organizations, activists need to network, coordinate, unite and fight to build a sustainable world, largely leveraging the ancient wisdom and world view of the Adivasi communities and tribals. Mr Devinder Sharma, internationally renowned food and policy analyst stated in the Food Festival we have much to learn , and less to teach The great Tribal visionary, leader and freedom fighter, Birsa Munda (Birsa Bhagawan) (1875-1900), affectionately known among tribals as Dharthi Aba, summarized the position long ago: "Maharani raj tundu jana oro abua raj ete Jana"- BIRSA MUNDA "End the Rule of Kings & Queens, Re-establish your Own Tribal Kingdom" (Read corporations and food and industrial lobbies in place of kings and queens)

__________________________________________________________________________
About the Author: Ragunathan Chakravarthy is based in Bangalore, India, is an independent researcher, ecologist and documentary film maker on social issues.-He can be reached by email: kethan2212@gmail.com