Getting Rozgar in the villages

Vayam has successfully prevented distress migration from 150 villages in 2021 and it was only 80% of the target we have set for ourselves till May 2022. NREGA[1] being an excellent people-driven law, we could develop an SOP to ensure each willing labourer gets wage-work in his/her village. We titled this project E3 (Educate, Empower, Employ). We have been doing this for many years, and apart from getting employment for thousands of tribal families, we also added a great empowerment value. The best place to educate a labourer about his rights, rate of wages, rules etc is his/her work site. Vayam team conducted 300 on-site meetings of labourers. As a result, each villager got an average of six weeks of work (as compared to a staggered period of 1-2 weeks). Labourers are members of village Gramsabhas and Gramsabhas have the right to propose works in NREGA – so as to improve land, water, forest. The idea of assembling in a Gramsabha and preparing a list of works is catching up in many villages. Vayam team will achieve the target of 18,000 employments by the end of this summer.

[1] National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (provides unskilled labour work on demand)

Right to survive: Getting land rights in FRA

It was three years ago that villagers from the neighbouring Trimbak Taluk of Nashik district approached Vayam for help on settling forest rights claims. Vayam team visited the villages, assessed the conditions, and developed a methodology. We identified educated youth from the villages and trained them in writing proper claims with legal evidence.

Training on FRA in a village in Trimbak

The first set of 148 claims was accepted by the Sub-Divisional Committee (SDLC) at Igatpuri-Trimbak sub-division and the claimants got receipts for their claims. This was first time in 12 years that they got an acknowledgement from the government. Till then they were always driven by some political party that forced them to pay for membership, walk in a Morcha, and never handed them over any acknowledgement of the claim. The district level committee (DLC) at the Collector’s office cooperated with Vayam movement and shared a google sheet giving real-time status of the claims filed. Earlier the claimants used to visit the government offices and plead to leaders again and again simply to ask what happened to their claims. Now this open sheet could be accessed by educated youth on their phones and read out to any fellow villager that his claim was passed by the SDLC and was now with the DLC. Where the claims were rejected by the SDLC, our team helped people file appeals with DLC. We found that many claimants had very little documentary evidence. Being illiterate it was hard for them to preserve a piece of paper for generations. There were fraudulent claimants and malpractices that had percolated over a decade of politicisation of this claim process.

The only way to ascertain whether the oral evidences given by people were true was to tally it with satellite images of claimed land before 2005. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs had given directions long back in 2015 that any open source satellite images could be used for this purpose. Vayam tried to convince the DLC about this and requested that the claimants who could only give oral evidence and circumstantial evidence should not be rejected forthwith. They must get the benefit of satellite imagery and that DLC may utilise services of volunteers, college students in this work. The DLC agreed in principle but not in practice. It sought guidance and funds from the state, but neither came. After a few months, the DLC rejected all such claims for lack of documentary evidence. Vayam helped the claimants file an appeal against this order to the Divisional Committee. These appeals came up for a hearing in November. Not surprisingly, the claimant got a notice to attend the hearing only two days before the hearing. Vayam youth teams sprang into action. Five young villagers trained in using GPS logger started measuring each claimant’s land and mailing the KML polygon file to Vayam office email. Our office team superimposed these KML files in google earth and took out history images of 2004. Our office printed 2004 and 2018 images of the same land on a paper. It took dawn-to-dusk non-stop work for the field team to measure each and every land of the 100+ claims. It took a full night and half for the office team to prepare the papers. Another team rushed on a scooter with these papers to the hearing in Trimbak just in time. The Divisional Committee officers accepted this evidence and asked its office staff to ascertain through the KML files we shared that the images were genuine. This was the last opportunity for the farmers to hold on to their ancestral land. We are proud we did not miss it.

Meeting before the hearing

These claims will help the tribal farmers have their basic survival right; i.e. tenurial security over the land they have been tilling for generations and has been termed ‘forest’ by colonial forestry.

Redressing injustice

Vayam has helped over last many years about 3000 tribal farmers get land rights in Jawhar and Vikramgad talukas of Palghar district. When farming rights are recognised, it is necessary to support the newly recognised farmer improve his land and livelihood. The government (tribal department and others) extended schemes to build houses and dig wells for such farmers. When such works were sanctioned and were half-way through, the forest bureaucracy suddenly blocked the same. The agriculture department had taken up terracing (for better farming on slopes) in such lands under NREGA. The forest department filed an offence against the agriculture officer for this work. While digging wells in the land with recognized rights, excavators were booked by forest department. The government on one hand had sanctioned funds for this well and was blocking it on the other. The Panchayat officers and many others from local administration approached Vayam for solace. There were tribal farmers whose huts were being destroyed by the forest department saying right to farm does not include a hut. This was ridiculous and was like asking the tribals to live on trees or sleep on rocks when guarding their farms and when eating their meals. More than 200 such offences were filed against the farmers. It was a blatant mockery of laws passed by the parliament by department driven by colonial madness of British laws. Vayam took these complaints initially with the district collector and then with the Hon’ble Governor. Despite Governor’s orders the forest officers continued their menace and atrocities on tribal farmers.

Forest officers kicked this hut to demolish it. (Farmer: Rama Bartan, Chinchwadi)

The monsoon of 2020 was approaching and farmers were being told to demolish their huts or face consequences. Vayam hurriedly filed the matter with NCST (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes) in New Delhi. Exactly after a year NCST took up the case for hearing. The aggrieved tribal farmers were represented by Vayam’s trustee Milind Thatte. Forest Department was represented by APCCF Naresh Jhurmure and DCF Amit Kumar Mishra. The NCST chairman Harsh Chouhan after hearing both sides gave directions that the government must identify and proceed against the officers responsible for such atrocities and that the farmers’ houses must be compensated for.

Jaywanti; her house was demolished by Forest Dept 3 years ago. Now she has a title to the land.

Forests for future

Tribal communities have traditionally survived on land and forests. Their farms are only a part of their livelihood, while forests make it full. Food, Fuelwood, Fodder and Medicine are some of the important needs that forest fulfils for the people. It therefore matters that we help people secure their rights and responsibilities over Community Forest Resources. Such rights are provided for in the FRA.

Village	Area of conservation
Bejpada	267 hectares
Doyapada	553.88 hectares
Pendharshet	119.13 hectares
Khairmal	162 hectares
Lohambarpada	150 hectares
Devicha pada	205 hectares
Total	1457 hectares

The rights include management, conservation, protection, and regeneration of forest resources. This requires elaborate planning and action by the village community. Vayam has taken up ‘Jungle Jeevika Samvardhan’ project in villages of Trimbak and Jawhar blocks.

The Gramsabhas of eight villages in Jawhar-Vikramgad and five in Trimbak have consented to participate in this project. The Gramsabhas nominated one young volunteer as ‘Nisarg-Sathi’ for the research and documentation part of this project. Vayam experts developed easy formats for documentation of community forest resources and the knowledge about bio-diversity. This participatory study of forest is going through all seasons of the year. The first batch of villages has documented wild edibles and large trees. They have also made GIS based maps tagging important vegetation in the forest.

This project is expected to help Gramsabhas prepare their conservation plans for the next few years.

Forest food festival: the tasty conservation

Ranbhaji Mahotsav has a unique place in Vayam philosophy. We are completely against the marketing of Ranbhaji (i.e. wild edibles), because we believe these are in few numbers and their first benefit must go to those who have lived with the forests. Forest food is an important source of nutrition although it has degraded immensely both in quantity and prestige over generations. The loss of these vegetables has aggravated the malnutrition problem in tribal area. The rare pictures of local tribes from books published a century ago look far healthier than the current generation. Vayam promotes Ranbhaji Mahotsav as a festival to be celebrated by the village; to transfer knowledge between generations and to become alert about conserving and consuming this purest food.

The Mahotsav is arranged fully by the village community with Vayam bringing guests from government and from city friends. We have facilitated the Mahotsav in over 54 villages in last few years taking new villages every year. This year villages Jadhavpada, Dhoompada, Thakrepada, Bejpada, Rautpada, Vadpada, Ghorpadtep – conducted Ranbhaji Mahotsav (Forest food festival). They welcomed the guests with traditional music in the festival. Cooked wild delicacies were presented in decorated platters and banana leaves. All villagers including children along with the guests relished the food. Then the youth drew a map of forest food on blackboard and our team facilitated a discussion on how we can protect this food wealth.

The superstar this year was Children’s Forest Food Festival arranged by the amazing children of village Ramkhind. They collected the edibles from forest, cooked them, and presented well. They also put an exhibition of their knowledge about the vegetables.

BDO of Jawhar Panchayat Samiti enjoying forest food with children

Enjoying learning with children

We often come across teachers and people related to schools lamenting about how tribal children are weak in writing and in written expression. Vayam’s education team has always disagreed and put forth our philosophy of ‘start from where you are and begin with what you have’. The children have such amazing connection with the forest and their natural surroundings that their learning of the unknown must begin there. So, we began with what the children already have. We conducted a workshop (in batches) of 400 children asking them to write stories of their experience with birds, forests, festivals, and fish! And they wrote so much often asking for extra paper. We later turned this treasured pile of their stories into Vayam calendar. A thousand copies of these calendars were sold out within no time. Needless to say all revenue went back to children’s activities.

The calendar as well as the Children’s forest food festival were both activities in our UKAL (Untying Kids’ Abilities to Learn) project. Children listed birds by using the field guide published. When doing so they identified that certain facts about birds were missing in the guide. Our team used this point to motivate the children write their own field guide of birds. And the children indeed took up this activity. Needless to say, their writing skills, presentation skills, and classification skills – everything got finer in this exercise.

We are running UKAL activities in five village schools.

Understanding how human ear works

Dhadpad Prayogshala

Our experiment of experimental education has continued in its third year with 24 ZP High schools. Our facilitators visit the schools every other week and make toys with children. These toys are in reality lab apparatus made from trash. The digestive system, the respiratory system and all the concepts in the science curriculum of 6th to 8th standards is covered in this manner.

Children working in their own vegetable form

Connecting children’s existing knowledge to new-age skills has been our focus. We used two Tabs given by our friends to get children their hands on smart devices. Children did two main things; they prepared a GIS map of where and which wild vegetables are available in their forests and they shot a video documentary explaining the importance of the forest food.

Item	#
Number of science activity sessions	108
Number of Bhaji Wadi sessions (children are growing a mini vegetable farm in the school campus)	20
Number of schools covered	24
Number of children reached during sessions	780
Vigyan Shibir (one day Science workshops conducted for children)	2
Number of schools participated	6
Number of children participated in science workshops	55

Gramsabha: democracy at roots

Gramsabha in a hamlet: without fear or favour

Gramsabha or village assembly is a traditional institution with constitutional recognition. Common voters are lifelong members of Gramsabha with enormous decision-making powers under PESA and 73rd amendment. Vayam is at the forefront of a movement strengthening the Gramsabha in tribal hamlets. 26 villages have joined our Padopadi Swaraj mission. They conduct Gramsabha almost every month. Vayam has helped them evolve a method of conducting the Sabha, make decisions by consensus, rotate chairmanship, and keep complete transparency. The fear of paper (read bureaucracy) is gone as people can write proceedings and income-expenses. The TSP 5% fund that the government had transferred to Gramsabhas was fully utilised by many villages. Some displayed their spendings in public space and some read it aloud in Gramsabha meetings. This gave them the moral courage to ask the Gram Panchayat do the same. The law requires Panchayat to present its balance sheet before Gramsabha at least twice a year. This had never happened in four decades. The empowered Gramsabhas began a struggle to make this happen and the struggle has continued in its third year. Two persons from each Gramsabha making it 50 persons took a motorcycle morcha to ZP led by Vayam team and got the ZP give orders to Panchayats for a printed public display of income-expenses.

Gramsabha: passing a resolution and resolve

Training the other side

Gramsevak or Gram Panchayat secretary – an employee of the Panchayat department is the key functionary in running the Panchayat. Vayam as a people’s movement on one hand often put pressure on these functionaries to follow the law, on the other hand we realised they too needed education. Vayam’s offer to train the Gramsevaks without taking any fee from the government was accepted by the CEO of Zilla Parishad Palghar. ZP and Vayam jointly organised training of Gramsevaks in Talasari, Jawhar, Mokhada, Palghar, and Vikramgad talukas. We also conducted training of village PESA mobilisers from all these talukas. The trainees often came in with reservations in mind and could graduate with lot of clarity. They appreciated Vayam’s interactive methods of training, the down-to-earth practical approach, and the neat grip on law.

Water for people, people for water

When village communities are mobilised in an institution like Gramsabha, Vayam believes the logical next step is them governing the natural resources. This year we could add five villages to a previous list of 12, who prepared their water plans.

Vayam supported these water plans by building water bodies; viz. drinking water wells in three villages, and 7 spring cordons in two villages this year. This is the third year of our Swasth Vikas Shashwat Jal project. New villages following the same norms: entire construction management by people and voluntary labour once every week.

Vayam Water Works this year	#
Jalkund (mini farm ponds)	237
Spring cordons	7
Wells	3
Number of children reached during sessions	780
Temporary check dams (gunny bags)	8

Suposhan – nutrition after monsoon

Forest food diminishes after monsoon and same is the case of home-grown vegetables for want of water. Vayam has helped people with small ponds layered with geo-membrane to store rainwater and use the same for micro-irrigation. This pond or Jalkund was taken up by 237 farmer families from 18 villages this year. Vayam added ‘Bhaji-wadi’ – a 20 sq.m. vegetable mini farm to this supporting the farmers with seeds/saplings and a drip irrigation kit. All the participant farmers gave cash and labour contribution in this project. 110 farmer families from 8 villages are enjoying home-grown fresh vegetables now.

Dhawji Wangad, a farmer with his Bhaji-wadi

Learning with community: journey continues

The secret of success is in dialogue – in listening to people’s voices and in learning together. Vayam holds multiple types of regular dialogues. The foremost being our monthly Abhyas Varg.

Vayam, Lokshahi Jagar Kendra, At Jambulvihir Po. Tq. Jawhar Dist. Palghar 401603