Faisal People and nature

Adivasi lives matter , started from 2016.

Adivasi Awaaz

Content creating skills for journalism for adivisais to help them voice their own stories and earn for
their content.

Ashih Birulee and hamari

On archieving,

Adivisas don’t have historic documentation, but they retain historic symbols- buried members in
courtyards. Archiving their own histories. (similar to othet adi communi- santhals , gondh etc)

There is a lack of documentaions, but oral histories- of old oral traditions/stories.

Giving ancestral names to children to add keep the historal traaditions alive.
lack of digital archiving. Idea behind the starting of Adivasi lives matter, to give them technical
knowledge and not the actual tradition of story telling.

Ashih Birulee is collecting stories and traning adivasis to teach archving and the necessaisty of
collecting. The importance of story telling and oral retention. To make it accessible to non adivasis.

To counter the mis representation and invisibilty of Adivasi history and identity.

Shaya Namsu and Minket Lepcha

Transmission gap between youth and

Living water muesuem

Lepcha- film to story telling.

Voices of testha.

What river do you come from?

On river testa- kanchunjunga

Folklore.

Rohendondron, tress

Genderless god ibeduburum

Konchunjunga- small entity

The area is full of gratitude- ecosystem

A couple- had to follow laws of nature- couple were schemed against

Himalyan bird and snake- as river and meet near dense jungle- panzung

Now tea gardens

West and north Sikkim

Boy shouted at girl- teestha(the name of the girl)

Boy covered the whole mountain tendong. Flooding by river rangeen. Help came from hill patridge-
advised to offer millet to river rangeen. White spot on hill patridge by millet that fell on him. The
flood receeded and met again ronguin(teestha). Both became river- to pacify boys ego- boys river is
dirty and murky- at lovers point.

The shape of river rangeein and rungneiun because of following bird and snake(curve and straight)

Connection with millet- ceremonial and nature.

Offering of seeds- ceremonies

Archiving as a lifestyle.

Urban indigenous population- identity crises.

Practicising archive- archieved.

Chhaya Namchu

Story telling- fact/fiction

Romantised and one dimensional.

Empherical knowledge in these stories.

Living waters history

Starting discourses at elementary level of their cultural heritage

Northeast- sacredness of stories.

Empowering women to reclaim these stories.

Meeting Roots

How to b better ally to these organisations?

volunteership
To whom does the archive speak?

Anglo-Indian archive

Sheikh, Adihra, dileep

 Visual data by anglo Indian community. Late 19 through 20 th

 Community erasure from prevailing narratives
 Chennai.guwhati- 2018 (data collection)

Queerabad

Anahita/sumitra

 Started as response to silence in Guj

 Vetted info/resources from queer person.
 Living histories dying to be told
 Re writing the realities and dialogues coming out of people living as queer.
 Where do you start archiving? In what languages? Who can archive abd how to make
accessible
 Find experience that illustrates lives.
 Intersectionality- lives-how to archive- western articulation.
 Fresh ink- history making-re making- not to let it bleed of the page

Green hub, Sumit (north east india)

Community stories; indigenous communities, video trainings
Process- rooted to change in grassroots

Wildlife, conservation n social change

Wild meat trail 2007 movies

Blue pita bird
Documentation of wildlife became an important question

Keywords:
Meta data tagging- history. Add many keywords in tandem with interviews of the
community.
Creation of hierarchies in meta data-
On intersectionality
@queerlytherealanahita on IG or anahitas.526@gmail.com- Anahita

Access

Khabar lehriya
Female journalists- men creating problems for everyone
As she was growing up, sending girls to school was not something that was popular.
But she got some education, Started an organisation called Mahila dakiya. And then
later decided to start khabarlahariya because people did not have access to
information. She also felt that journalism was male and upper caste dominate. With
virtually no women.
She decided to go with muslim and dalit women. Got women who had some
education and started training them. They would inquire from women about the
local issues. The women were able to express the issues facing the village so well.
And these are things that don’t make their way to mainstream media
And this way started Khabarlahariya. They trained the women in production. The
women who cool not write would narrate the stories. But since writing was
important, they started training women to write

The newspaper was in local dialect and the text was in big font so that older people
could read easily. The language was also easy to make sure people could read it.
People were overjoyed to see these newspapers. People would collect together and
praise the journalists when they would visit local villages

People began to share their stories openly. Issues that were never covered by
mainstream media. Many of their news acquired greater coverage and led to
government taking action to help people
Slowly their newspaper began to acquire greater circulation, district by district. From
Bundelkhand they spread to Bihar. They were monthly, then fortnightly and then
weekly. From four pages they went to several pages

The reporters were also delivering the newspapers to different districts. Women
journalists would take them back with them and sell tham. In 2015 they went digital.
They give digital training

The reporters are also being trained in tandem with time. Digital recordings are a
major tool to report incidents and reports.
The line dividing women and keeping them away from journalism was broken.
Gendered nature of public works was broken

The line dividing women and keeping them away from journalism was broken.
Gendered nature of public works was broken
They print various issues related to the villages. But have now started covering the
lives of the adivasis, especially during the lockdown. Women have very tough lives in
adhivasi areas. Women there use the local trains to earn their livelihoods. With the
stoppage of trains because of the lockdown their liviehoods suffered
Khabarlahriya then started conversation about these ‘historical’ issues that will
impact people for a long time. Journalists don’t report actually issues - caste
discrimination over drinking water. The exploitation of Valmiks by the Brhamin
community - this rarely gets attention in mainstream media
This is being done under the leadership of women. Our newspaper represents
women from different communities. This is the way big news portals should employ
people in order to ensure that real issues get reported

Many stories are also for entertainment, cultural, women’s achievements as well
They have also created a business model. In the realm of business there are
generally very few women. We would to expand our network in other areas. We
plan to start an online journalism program. We are already getting together with
NGOs for research work.
Maya: Who is your audience. Kavitaji: it is all women enterprise and a little limited.
But once we went digital, its circulation went up several folds. The videos are also
liked a lot because people can continue speaking in their own dialect
Maya: What to you have to say about the Digital divide? Kavitaji: Everyone has
phone. People use it to see news. But what is the kind of news. There is a lot of fake
news especially during the pandemic. People were not ready to get the vaccine. But
people are not able to use the coin app and register themselves. Digital is used a lot
but mostly for entertainment but when it comes to actual use then it is limited
From Kumar: Earlier, the whole process of getting the newspaper together involved
door to door process to reach a wider audience. With digital, KL has now expanded
their ways and audience reach by including languages and different dialects as
compared to previiously publishing most of the material in Bundeli.

Rannjani: where is the history written for rural people kept? Most histories are
preserved in foreign museums and universities. The local people don’t even know
what is being written about them

Tamil is the local language but function as a government language. But we try to use
the local dialect for new circulation

The question of Intersectionality must cover disparity between types of archiving,

where on one hand the focus towards institutional archives (like state and traditional
archival infrastructures) require to be accountable and on transparency, sharebility
and equitable access, but on the other hand BDA and marginalised community
archives require strengthening in terms of security and privacy. What are your
thoughts on this?
From Aparna Vaidik (Milli Collective) to Everyone: 06:21 PM
Kavitaji: On the language question. It is not just about translation of material in
another language. English is a language that creates distance. I have experienced this
when I go to events where English is being spoke. Language is important because
one has to reach and understand the people about whom one is writing. If you don’t
know the language then how do you reach them
From Shweta Sachdeva Jha to Everyone: 06:22 PM
Such powerful points being raised by Kavita ji
Discourse on archive has to be across languages
From Navneet Kaur Ahuja to Everyone: 06:22 PM
@Kavita ji: commendable बहुत उम्दा, कितनी सहजता से इतने सटीक मु द्दे कहे आपने
From Aparna Vaidik (Milli Collective) to Everyone: 06:22 PM
People would like that we should be more inclusive when it comes to language. But
local languages are important for the lives of the people who are being written
about. The policies are being made for people whom policy-makers don’t
understand. Even dissemination of policies needs to be done in local lanaguegs

Unnayan: What kavitaji is doing is a response to that challenge of language. It is important to

do the work in the language that can be understood by the people on whom the work is
being done