The Bhils and the Rajputs

Vinita Tatke writes:

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet up with the Bhils and Rajputs in remote villages of Badgaon block in Udaipur district, Rajasthan. That is the place where Maharana Pratap fought the famous battle of Haldi Ghati. He is said to have defended Mewar against the occupation of the Moghuls. The battle field, which was famous for its yellow soil and hence called Haldi Ghati, now has red soil, reddened by the blood of the defenders.

The Rajputs are the royality here, while the Bhils the nomad tribe. Both are fighter tribes, however, the Bhils ruled in the forests while the Rajputs owned kingdoms and extracted taxes.

Here is an account of the relationship between the Rajputs and the Bhils, and the Bhil version of the battle.

Ambalal Gameti is a Bhil from the Kak Mandara village, also a member of the Village Development Committee. Seva Mandir, an NGO from Udaipur, has been working in this village for last several years. They have undertaken work on soil and water conservation activities and attempted to restore the common grazing lands to the collective ownership of the people.

Ambalal Gameti (Bhil) on the relationship between Bhils and Rajputs

The rest of this post is essentially a paraphrase of the words of Ambalal Gameti

I have seen the differential treatment given by the Rajputs to the Bhils during my childhood. The Rajputs were particular about not sitting close to a Bhil. Slowly, this behaviour changed. Today, the Bhils and Rajputs are together in many functions. The Rajputs treat the Bhils with greater respect. Though each community is engaged in their daily routine, they do come together on occassions especially to discuss issues of the village or work that is to be done in the village. However, the two communities do not enter each other’s homes, nor do they eat or drink water at each other’s place.

Sardar – Rajputs are the money lendors. 2% interest rate. Sardars sometimes charge 5 to 10%.

Rajputs are a proud people. They are very particular of their caste. They don’t like people proclaiming themselves as equal to the Rajputs.

However, when each caste is having its own function, then other castes are not allowed to participate.

Many people are going to the city and there they forget their castes.
Our traditions and theirs are different. We have different Gods. So there is very little opportunity to mix socially. However, in the issues related to village development, we do discuss.

Earlier, all village related work was done through the village Panchayat. We have not done any work collectively before Seva Mandir. It is only this time for the watershed that there has been an opportunity to come together.

The Battle of Haldi Ghati

Maharana Pratap had almost given up the battle and had run off from the battle field, when the diety of Bhils visited the Maharana in his dreams. The diety gave him confidence and told him not to loose hope. Maharana said that he did not have any funds, but the diety told him not to worry about it. An unknown entity called Vamasha then visited the Maharana and provided the funds. Vamasha told the Rana to prepare his army with the funds. The Bhils supported the Maharana and formed most of his army. Together, they were able to defeat the Moghuls.

Rana Punja, the Bhil leader, was thus rewarded with half the throne of Maharana Pratap. On one side is the Bhilu Rana and on the other side of the throne sits Maharana Pratap. Both have one hand on the throne. Babri Mandi has a photo of Bhilu Raja.

Today, the whole story is commemorated in a museum at Haldi Ghati.

"Honge" oil economy - sustainable development for rural India

This is a very interesting article about how oil from the Honge trees can be used to produce diesel to give sustainable and continuous economic development for semi-arid parts of rural India. Dr. Udipi Srinivasa from IISc Bangalore has been running a pilot project in 7 villages around Kagganhalli in Karnataka.

Honge trees grow in large quantities in these regions, and are largely ignored by everybody because the oil from Honge seeds is inedible. But, it can be converted fairly easily into diesel which can be used to power water pumps, generators, vehicles, etc. And a liter of the oil, which is pretty much equivalent in performance to a liter of diesel, can be manufactured at half the cost, or less. The claim is that large tracts of semi-arid rural land in India can be used to plant such trees and generate renewable replacements for fossil fuels.

Read the full article. It is very interesting.

I often read over-hyped articles (especially in Indian newspapers) about amazing new technologies which are ignored by the rest of the rest of the world. These are "too good to be true" stories, which turn out, on closer inspection, to have some fatal flaw. Hence, I am skeptical of such claims. So I asked Makarand what his bullshit-meter says about this story and this is his response:

I am afraid that most of it is true... Not an over hype... There are other such similar things happening around... The problem is that while scientists do 'discover' these things few have the ability to look at it economically... Which is why Newton a great mind, almost a philosopher made some contribution to progress of mankind... but Edison, with a much lesser intellect, contributed a lot too simply because he made things WORK for all... He made as significant a contribution to every day life of humans simply due to his practical approach (my opinion entirely and would not like to argue on that too much)... Our guys are not able to get out of the lab and into the field where ones hands get dirtied in managing business... That is why we have a lot of scientists but few entrepreneurs..

Allow me to help you somewhat in your relentless pursuit of knowledge (I am not joking)...

You may also want to study some more about these types of fuels.. http://www.jatropha.de/ is a good site to visit.. The government of India (and a few state Governments) is gung ho on Jathropa.. They are promoting it on a large scale.. Last year the Government of MP actually issued a dictat for the District administration to bring Land under Jatropha..

I feel however that we need to be careful about these technologies and prevent ourselves from going overboard... These technologies, though low cost are un-tested for large scale.. I personally am of the opinion that these should be used ONLY in small units, preferably for household consumption. The reasons are

1. Taking Jathropa type of crops on a large scale for cash purposes will destroy the agri balance...
2. We do not have any infrastructure to use on large scale.. In any case economies of scale do matter in production... All of us know, or should know, what happened when the Peoples Republic of China tried to make steel making a small kitchen unit...
3. Plants like Jathropa do not allow any thing else to grow in the vicinity.. These are called allelopathic plants.

I would feel that Jathropa must be used to line bunds and fields and to act as hedges.. Waste land can be used for that purpose since they are hardy and drought resistant...

So one may use but on small scale and at household only... Unless technological progress makes safe and large scale usage possible.. After all oil was discovered in the tar sands of Alberta province in Canada a 100 years BEFORE one came up with the technology to extract it !

Hope this was useful...

Makarand