Economic exploitation
Debt runs through tribal households, reaching as high as ₹10 lakh in a single family.
The land and its people
About Jhabua
A district on the western edge of Madhya Pradesh, where the hills meet Gujarat and Rajasthan, and where one and a half million Bhil tribespeople live on land that has more than enough to sustain them.
- 150 km from Indore
- 1.5 million tribal population
- Bhil tribe, with Bhilala & Patelia
Where is Jhabua?
A district at the meeting of three states
Jhabua is a district town of Madhya Pradesh, 150 km west of Indore, sitting where the boundaries of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh come together. The Jhabua–Alirajpur belt is home to a tribal population of around 1.5 million, mainly of the Bhil tribe, with the Bhilala and Patelia sub-tribes.
- District
- Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, India
- Distance
- 150 km west of Indore
- Borders
- Where Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh meet
- People
- The Bhil tribe, with the Bhilala and Patelia sub-tribes
Looking back in time
What a few decades took away
The region was rich not long ago — in natural resources and in cultural variety alike. In the name of material development it was heavily deforested, and the ecosystem of sustainable living came apart. The rain that falls is not enough to farm on through the rest of the year, and losing the forest left the tribal community with a set of problems it did not create.
Water crisis
Undulating land and lost tree cover send the rain straight off the slopes. People walk as far as 5 km for drinking water.
Seasonal agriculture
Rocky, sloping ground makes the soil hard to farm, and the water shortage cuts the cultivating season to four to six months a year.
Deforestation
Tribal people, being vanvasi, are expert at using a forest without exhausting it. The exploitation and depletion of these forests continues regardless.
Lost traditions
As demand for traditional products fell away, the knowledge behind them faded too. Health clinics, roads and banks remain scarce in rural Jhabua.
‘Majdoori’ is not the problem. ‘Majdoori ki majboori’ is the problem.
Labour is not what wounds people here. Being left with no choice but to leave and sell it is.
40,000
indebted farming families migrate out of the district every year, simply to keep going.
People of Jhabua
Knowing the Bhils
A community that has been reading this landscape for far longer than anyone has been trying to develop it.
Bhils are traditionally very skilled archers, and relate themselves to Eklavya. Their practices and traditions — Dirha, Halma — are built around community participation and a working connection with nature, and that ethic sits inside the language itself.
- Jamimata
- Mother Earth — the land addressed as a parent, not a resource.
- Matavan
- ‘Forest of the Mother’ — groves the community protects absolutely, where no tree is cut in any case.
- Babadev
- The guardian deity of a village, tied to the land it stands on.
- Halma
- Coming together, unasked, so that one household’s trouble becomes everyone’s work.
Bhils worship deities of their own alongside the Hindu pantheon. There are 45 Bhil surnames, each corresponding to one of the panch tatva, the five elements — the name making that family the protector of it.
- Sitlamata
- Vaghdev
- Bholababa
- Parvati Mata
- Ganesh
- Kartikey
Festivals and traditions
The calendar the villages keep
Jhabua is enriched with a range of cultures and traditions. Through the year the villages organise events that pull the whole community in and mix the age groups.
When a household is in trouble
Halma
An ancient Bhil tradition of coming together to make something happen. People of Jhabua would gather to help a person or family in distress, out of selflessness rather than obligation.
Year round
Matavan
‘Matavan’ literally means ‘forest of the Mother’ — the Mother here being the earth. It is the Bhil term for specially protected forest, where no tree is cut under any circumstances.
Ten days, alongside Holi
Bhagoria
A ten-day celebration running alongside Holi, in which people gather to meet, sing and dance together. It falls as the cultivating season ends and the rabi harvest comes home.
Shravan
Kanwad Yatra
Held in the month of Shravan, the yatra is organised to build leadership among the young.
Bhadrapada
Ganeshotsav
One of the celebrations the villages organise through the year, drawing the whole community in and mixing age groups that would otherwise keep to themselves.
Before the digging season
Gaiti Yatra
The yatra holds a particular place for the tribals because of what it carries: the gaiti, the mattock these farmers dig with, held up as a weapon of change.
Jhabua is not short of resources. It was short of water.
With plenty of natural resources, Jhabua has enough for a healthy living — yet people still leave their land and their families to find work. Shivganga works with these villages to close that gap on their own terms.