Drought in the Folklore of Kalahandi
             

Kalahandi is a district in the State of Orissa, It was Known as Mahakantara (great forest) in ancient India. But is now, it is no more than a wasteland. The people of this land who were once self-sufficient and self-contented with abundant forest products and ample harvest, are now lacking the firewood and facing food problem. The land of Kalahandi which was famous for its bumper paddy cultivation, is now depending upon external aid. Depending on food gathering and food producing process, the people of this region were self-sufficient. Their multi-village interdependent-economy shaped an integrated worldview in respect of their social, economic and ideological spheres.

Kalahandi, also known as Karunda Mandal is the treasure of precious stones like karandam (Manik), Garnet (red stone), Beruz, Neelam (blue stone), and Alexandra etc. Mr. P. K. Deo. The Ex Maharaja of Kalahandi, in one of his articles expressed his view that the historical significance of naming Kalahandi as Karunda. Mandala is based on the availability of corundum in this region. Manikeswari (the goddess of Manikya) the clan deity of the Naga kings of Kalahandi may have also necessitated the adoption of the name.

The more interesting fact is that since 1985 Kalahandi has been well-known for its misfortune being affected by acute drought, but merchants from distant places of our country and abroad have been arriving at Kalahandi to build up their good fortunes, exploiting the native soil for getting precious stones. On the other hand the native people of this land, being incapable of providing food to members of their poor family are leaving their motherland, migrating to other parts of India. About one lakh residents of Kalahandi and Bolangir districts of Orissa (most of them Gaurs, and communities belonging to scheduled tribe/ scheduled Caste categories) have settled down in Raipur town of Madhya Pradesh where a slum is known as Raipur ka Narak (the hell of Raipur). Thus in native land, as also in the area of resettlement the life of the poor people of Kalahandi is no better than a curse.

Kalahandi hits the headlines in newspapers for the repeated drought situation that has broken the economic backbone of the cultivators. A long history of drought covering more than a century in Kalahandi has occurred. Drought had occurred in Kalahandi in 1868, 1884 and 1897. The famine of 1899 which is otherwise known as ‘Chhapan Salar Durbhikshya’ has seriously influenced the people to such an extent that if a child hankers for food, her mother tells the child “why are you hankering like a drought-affected child of Chhapan sal?" “The effect of the famine,” according to the District Gazetteers, “were of a magnitude unprecedented in any previous famine.” This famine left a terrible socio-economic gloom in this area. In 1919-1920 another drought occurred followed by cholera, influenza and malnutrition due to lack of foodstuff. A series of drought in 1922-1923, 1925-1926. 1929-1930 1954-1955 and 1955-56 occurred in Kalahandi.

The terrible drought of 1965-66, which occurred in Kalahandi, totally broke down the economic backbone of the people. Due to lack of rain, three-fourth crop production failed. The effect of the drought continued to be felt in 1967. As regards this drought, the following description from the District Gazetteers is worth quoting.
“The bulk of the population which constituted the landless agricultural labourers became unemployed due to suspension of all sorts of agricultural operations. The worst sufferers were the landed gentry, who, because of the drought, could not reap a harvest nor could they take to manual labour to which they were not accustomed. The pastures lost the greenery and the bovine population therefore was equally starved. Everywhere there was an acute shortage of water.”

Again in 1974-75 and in 1985 drought occurred like the human census occurring once in ten years. After the severe drought of 1956 and 1966, the rich cultivators of this area came down to the status of middle class cultivators and the middle class cultivators into ordinary one. They all turned into sukhbasis. The daily wage labourers and landless are generally called ‘sukhbasi’ in Kalahandi meaning those who live happily. A proverb for ‘sukhbasi’ runs thus: ‘Gai nai goru, sukhe nid karu’ which means the men without cattle have happy sound sleep.
Continuous occurrence of drought alongwith the irregular rainfall has resulted in crop failure and thus people became poorer to poorer. The Bureau of Statistics and Economics, Orissa has analyzed the rainfall of South Western Kalahandi and has reported that ‘there is an year of drought in every three or four years’.

Besides a long history of drought, the socio-economic traditions following in the society are the main cause behind the class distinction among the people of Kalahandi. The fact that the agricultural products the rural Kalahandi are being controlled by the urban businessmen is one of the causes of social class distinction. Moreover the customs of loan and mortgage current in the society are the major sources of exploitation. Certain forms of mortgage like Bandha, Kalantaria, Bandhasaheji, and Katti, and that of labour systems like goti, halia (annual servant, bahabandha and Kalibhuti, thika* etc.; have debacle the normal way of peasant life. Alongwith the drought the problems such as rural unemployment, non-industrialization, growth of population and rapid deforestation are some of the major problems of Kalahandi. Hence being gripped both by nature and men, the rural inhabitant of Kalahandi has found no other way of survival. As a result either he has migrated from his motherland or lived in the wasteland as a crippled soldier.

In this section an attempt has been made to investigate the folk psychology reflected in the oral traditions of this locality. Being affected by drought the folk mind has tried to compensate their natural loss in their cultural and ideological setback. As per their folk belief this is a country where miracles are expected as solutions for social problems, through the socio-political process or some supernatural forces.

It is natural that the folk mind of Kalahandi has no concrete solutions for a greater social problem like drought. But the impossibility of solutions to such problems in reality is done up in imagination. Traditionally the culture of the people is shaped according to its natural adaptability. This may be examined through folk tales of Kalahandi. The place of collection of this folk tale is village Boden, were Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the erstwhile Prime Minister of India had to cancel his visit due to lack of communication and heavy downpour of rain.

The tale is as follows:
 

“Once Indra, the rain deity of heaven, being annoyed with the people for he was not worshipped, Promised not to pour rain on the earth for twelve years, which resulted in a terrible famine in the said region. The cattle started dying due to shortage of water and grass. Even people started dying of starvation.”
Meanwhile, an old cultivator of a village called in all his sons to his presence and said that they have spent their time in playing and merry-making. He continued that he has become old like the ripen leaves of a dry tree. Now or then he might pass away. So he wanted his sons to learn the technique of cultivation. Ordered by their father the sons took bullocks and ploughed the field. But the soil was too hard for the share to penetrate. So the old man took all his sons into a river basin and in its sand he started ploughing. The whole atmosphere was filled with an illusion of cultivating the filed in rainy season.

Indra curiously came down to the riverbank in the disguise of a Brahman. He saw the old man ploughing in the river sand with his sons. He asked the old man as to why he was ploughing the river basin like an insane. The old man replied that he knew it was futile to plough there. But one should not forget his occupation. Everyone should make his descendants learn his parental occupation.
Hearing it Indra returned leaving the old cultivator and thought that the old man had opened his eyes.
One should train his sons about parental occupation; otherwise after him they would be nowhere. So Indra ordered his four sons (four clouds according to folk belief) to learn how to pour rain on the earth. Needless to say the barren earth overflowed with rainwater. Indra now realised how the old cultivator extracted rain from him by deception.”

A similar narrative is found in the epic of Mahabharata entitled “Viswamitra Swapaka Samvad”. The tale is that, once a terrible famine occurred on the earth. Viswamitra, out of hunger sent all his disciples to search for food. They did not find food. Later on they saw a dog was lying dead on the roadside. They brought the dead body of the dog and being ordered by the sage, they all skinned it and cooked food. Viswamitra, taking the cooked dogflesh, was about to offer it to the God like Indra, Surya, Vishnu and others. All the Gods requested the sage not to offer the food to make them profane, instead Indra assured rain on the earth and thus Viswamitra brought rain from Indra.

In the Gond story the old man is the counterpart of sage Viswamitra. The trickery played with Indra by the old man has more propriety than the means adopted by sage Viswamitra. In the folktale the old man had solved his problem in a positive way whereas in the Viswamitra Swapaka Samvad, sage Viswamitra had adopted a negative approach in solving the problem.

Now if we analyze the previous tale following the structural analysis method of Claude Levi Strauss the essence of the tale will come out. In the tale there are some sentences with some similar functions and there are some other sentences as opposed to it. In order to find out the essence from the binary oppositions, the whole tale may be decomposed as follows:
 

	I	II	III	IV
1	Indra did not allot  rain on earth and  Hence the famine.
2	Cattle, plants and  People started dying.
3				The oldman     wanted to train     his son about     parental     Occupation.
4	The oldman  Ploughed the barren  field but failed.
5		The oldman   taught his sons ploughing in the river.
6		The sons   learnt it.
7			Indra came down    to earth to watch    the cultivations.
8				Indra wanted     to train his sons     how to pour rain.
9				Drought ended     through rainfall.

 
 

If we read the sentences horizontally taking each column separately, we would get some paradigms in it. The features of Col. I is real, devastation, failure to plough in barren land and occurrence of draught. Col. II shows the unreality and unnaturally of ploughing on the river basin. In Col. III unnaturality of ploughing on the river basin and the unreal Bramhan (Indra) has been shown. The desire to train ones own descendant with his ethnic occupation both by the old man and Indra as also, the heavy downpour of water and ending of drought in earth is the common feature of Col. IV.

The continuous analogy is as follows :
 

Col. I : Real : Drought is to come
Col. II : Unreal
Col. III : Unreal
Col. IV : Real : Rain is to come.

This leads us to the following equation on the basis of continuous analogy.

I : II : III : IV (I is to II as III to IV) or discontinuous analogy : I : II : III (I is to II as IV is to III)

The same are as follows :

I  II  III  IV

Now adapting Levi-Srauss alzebraic formula we may examine the units to get the sum up.

Term  : a - Indra, b - oldman, the cultivator
Function : X - Non allotment of rain
   Y - Allotment of rain
Formula : Fx(a):Fy(b) :: Fx(b):Fa-I(y)

Here term ‘b’ is the old cultivator who is the mediator of both allotting and non allotting rain (Fx and Fy). In Col. I term ‘a’ has function X which means non-allotment of rain, the feature of which is real. Term ‘b’ with function ‘y’ means allotment of rain by the old cultivator which is unreal. In Col. III the non-allotment of rain by the old cultivator is also unreal. In Col. IV term ‘a’ has been inverted. Here term ‘a’ has been motivated by the function-value of term ‘b’. Thus in Col. IV term ‘a’ has been overshadowed by term ‘b’ the outcome of which is real. The sum up is :
 

“the real loss is tried to be compensated by the unreal means and ultimately the real is achieved.” Or “if drought is to come than rain is to come.”

If examined contextually it is not possible for a human being to think against his God or any supernatural power. So the old cultivator cleverly made Indra compelled to allot rain. The trickery played by the old cultivator is nothing but to overcome the real situation of drought through imagination. The sole motif of this tale is based on a theory that when a desire is not fulfilled in reality it is fulfilled in imagination in the form of folklore or dream. The imagination of such a story in the mental structure of a story-maker might have been evolved to keep equilibrium of nature and culture.
 

Drought picture in the folk songs of Kalahandi

The pitiable conditions of the drought-affected people of Kalahandi have been pictured in the folksongs. Some specimen is:
 

Sajani, jadagachha tipi mala
Amari desare akalakala
Indra Gandhi saha hela
O companion, the top of the caster tree dried up
Drought appeared in the country
Indira Gandhi saved us.

Using motor to irrigate the land has compensated the lack of rain due to drought. The song is as follows:

Sajani, hatikana darapana
Marudi helana thakila pena
Motara paipa ghena
O companion, a mirror like elephant ear
Drought, arrived, the rain betrayed
Purchase motor pump.

In another song a visit of the former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, to see the drought situation of Kalahandi in July 1985 has left an imprint on the folk people, who after his departure sang as follows:

Sajani, desare akalakala
Amara Rajiba Gandi ho sate
Jhaje Utrila, sate Sinapali tesan Kala ho
Nuati Jana.
O companion,
Drought occurred in this country
Our Rajiba Gandhi arrived in plane
Made his station Sinapali
O new moon, hear me.

The discontent of the people for the local leaders and gratitude for the Prime Minister is pictured in the song as follows:

Sajani Amara Neta thakila
Rajiba Gandhi ho sate bane bujhila
Sate Khaida pindhana dela ho nuati jana,
O companion, our leaders betrayed
Rajiba Gandhi understood well,
He gave us food and clothes,
O new moon, hear me.

The people of Kalahandi have migrated from their homeland to Raipur (M.P.) Kashmir and Assam and other parts of India to earn their livelihood. They are paid fewer wages and exploited much. Even they have no right to return to their homeland unless their contractors permit. The migration due to drought is pictured in the folksong as follows:

Dalkhaire; desare kala akala
Ghara duara chhadi bidese ghara
Dalkhaire peta kaje harabara.
O leaf eater, drought occurred in the country
Sent us abroad, beyond homeland,
Unrest for belly, O leaf eater.

Some proverbs of this region focus the imprint of drought reflected in the folkmind. Some specimen is as follows:
 • “Chhapan salar durbhikshya” : A food hankering attitude is compared as a drought stricken of Chhapan sal (1899 A. D.)
 • “Judh bele pithir bhai, akal bele duhagai”. Literally meaning a brother in the battle and yielding cow in a drought is helpful.
 • “Garibar kaje akal, mahajanar kaje sukal”. Drought is a problem for poor and fortune for rich for exploitation.
 • “Akalar adhia”, The food of drought that should not be wasted.
There is a folk ritual current in Kalahandi to face the drought situation. The rain God Bhima is woshipped through shamanistic process in tribal areas. If the crop situation is acute due to lack of rain, people perform the marriage ceremony of God Bhima with Goddess Kandhen. They believe that by doing this they will get rain. Here it is seen that to solve the natural problem of drought the folk mind of this locality has imitated the Raisyasringa-Jarata episode of Ramayana parochialising it in the form of Bhima and Kandhen. The solution of social problems is thus initiated through some supernatural process. It is evident from this folk ritual.
Thus the drought is reflected in the folkore and folk life of the people of Kalahandi.

* Bandha : Mortgage of land and labour. Kalantaria: Mortgage of land for money with compound interest. Bandha Saheji: Mortgage of land with share in paddy cultivated, by both moneylender and mortgager. Katti : Mortgage of land for a fixed period of time and fixed amount. After the period of mortgage is over, the amount paid by the moneylender lapses. The mortgager does not return it again. Goti: Free agricultural service to the village headman (Gauntia). Halia: Annual agricultural labourer in the master’s house for 15 to 25 ‘Putti’ of paddy (one Putti = 80 kg) Kalibhuti: Purchase of labour giving a certain price before reaping paddy and collect double as labour during harvest. Thika : Contract labour where the labourers may be in loss or gain. Bahabandha: mortgage of Land Labour by giving advances.

REFERENCES
 

• Deo, P. K., 1987 why Kalahandi is called Karond or Kharonde? The OHRJ. Vol. XXXI. No. 2, 3 & 4 pp. 9-14 and Singh Deo J. P. Cultural Profile of South Kosala, Delhi 1987 p. 166.
• Handoo. J., 1978 Current Trends in Folkore. Mysore.
• Kunar D. C., 1980 Orissa District Gazetteers, Kalahandi, (Senapati. N. Chief Editor), Cuttack. pp. 140-141 Levi Strauss
• Claude, Structural Anthropology, See  Chapter - 12 ‘Structural Study of Myth’. 1968. Penguine Books.
• Mishra, M. K., 1993Influence of the Ramayana Tradition in the Folklore of Central India. (Ramakatha in Folk and Tribal Traditions in India Dept. of Folklore Research, Guwahati University in collaboration with the Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta).
• Rao, R. S. Drought Syndrome
• A Report on Kalahandi Dist. Economic and Political Weekly, 3rd. Nov. 1985.

Contact Address:

Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra
IV-B, 45/2, Unit - III,
Bhubaneswar - 751001
Orissa, India
Phone # : 091 - 0674 - 405483
Email : mahendra_ku@yahoo.com