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Deccan Herald » Fine Art / Culture » Detailed Story
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Effort to create a wonderful world
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PERIN ILAVIA in conversation with Gautam Basak- a photographer
who has captured fascinating facts about tribals in India. Combs made of bone, a fascination for older women, bananas as dowry and so on...
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Customs differ from one tribe to tribe to another in India. The Bondo girls older by many years, marry a young boy who takes care of her when she’s old. Eligible teenagers of the Dhruva tribe of Chattisgarh choose their own partners. The girls wears a bone comb in their hair. The boy chooses a girl, chases her, takes the comb out of her hair and runs into the deep forest, followed by her. Her mission is to retrieve the comb, and return to the village. That can be after a day or two, when the couples have had time to explore all the sexual rituals. Returning with the comb, she decides if she wants to marry him or not. If yes, the dowry is decided by the families, which would be in form of a goat, chicken, banana, and ‘mahua’.
Gautam Basak is the photographer who documents it all on his camera. “Interacting with people gives me inspiration, and I bring them photographs of a world they have not seen,” he says. His success story is credited to the unconditional support from his wife and son. Gautam’s forefathers, refugees form “undivided India” migrated to Assam, and shortly thereafter to Calcutta. As a child, he was exposed to abject poverty around him. He read about socio-economic issues, and decided he had to do something about documenting the images of depths of poverty, especially tribals, who owned nothing.
During the recession of the 50s and 60s, his family lived in constant nostalgia of how it would have been if they had not migrated. His father, a successful businessman, expected his only child to get educated and take over the family business. There was total opposition when Gautam mentioned becoming a photographer. Photography was considered a passe occupation, and it was after much persuasion, that he graduated in Commercial Photography, at the College of Regional Engineering and Print Technology. He worked with the National Council of Science Museum, with National Chemical Laboratory in Poona, and is currently with Indian Institute of Horticultural Research in Bangalore, where he photographs for scientific documents.
With no family support, it took a while for him to get the funds together, and finally he was on his way to fulfils his childhood dream. He began documenting the ‘Diversity of Indian Tribal Cultures under Socio-Economic Systems.’ Among the numerous tribes in India, with diversified dialects which differ from one village to another, Gautam has documented tribes in Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, which incidentally has the most number, and his photographs over 20 years tell a story of the dissemination of tribal culture.
The Max tribe in Orissa, Bhils of Madhya Pradesh, Bondo of Dandakarayna in Korput, the Santals of Bihar and West Bengal, with close connections to the British, the educated younger generation hold high profile jobs. The Kodavas, the most educated and exploited tribe from Coorg, are threatened.
Most villages consist of 35 families. Generally, the birth of a child, puberty and weddings are celebrated. Houses decorated, music, dance, wine from the ‘mahua’ consumed, they are fun-loving happy people. There are responsible and hospitable, with great affinity to sharing. Food is equally distributed among the tribe. A guest is always given food, even if it means everyone has to give some from his share.
The old and their prodigies lived peacefully, conserving ecology, surviving on the resources of the land, had no value for money, as trade was conducted by Bata system. Through generations, the elders verbally imparted the rules and customs to the young. Then, urban people invaded their space, and this peaceful scenario has changed. Though the tribal thought it was progress, they had actually invited bags full of trouble to their peaceful existence.
In the name of helping them, what one sees is total annihilation of an age-old society and customs, their habitats violated, the exploitation uncontainable. Felling of timber for the city dwellers, the deforestation has upset the ecological systems. As the tribals got more exposure to the other world, their greed and expectations have increased. Organisations are scourging the jungles for medicinal plants, which tribals identify. Henchmen recruit labour for brick factories, road and rail work. They go to the city to work and return with city diseases, AIDS being one of them. Without any censorship one doesn’t know the magnitude of this scourge among the communities.
Exploitation of tribes
The Todas, Badugas, Irulas, Muduvans of South India have been totally exploited. The sturdy, strong people had no diseases.
Now Gautam finds infantile fatality on the rise. Women wear cloth instead of leaves, they have no facility to wash it. The newborn swaddled in the dirty contaminated cloth succumbs to disease. Buying commercial food with the money they get, intestinal problems are on the rise.
In their zest to extend drinking water to tribals, the government in North India went on a bore well digging spree. Water, which they had to fetch from a distance, was at their doorstep, but with stagnant water around the well, malaria and philaria are on the increase.
Potters have lost their lively-hood, as aluminum vessels replace earthen vessels. Agents coming to the settlements, picking up virgins for few rupees some salt and rice, used and sold to the flesh trade, is rampant. While the Western countries have allotted private spaces to their tribals extending beneficial aid, our tribals are under threat of extinction. Settlements are devoid of young people, and the old that are left to fend for themselves, have a bleak view about their future.
Endangering culture, battery-operated radios and tape decks blare out pop music, and tribals are forgetting their song and dance. The NGO’s and Government organisations professing to help tribals are a farce. Not even one-tenth of the aid sent reaches them, instead its exploitation.
The only way to keep a pure ancient culture alive is to leave them alone to continue with their way of life, says Gautam. In his endeavour to contain this dissemination, he has adopted eight villages in Orissa.
With the help of local residents interacting with the tribals, Gautam’s mission is extending monitary help, educating them on the values of their culture, and evils of civilisation. With constant interaction, Gautam finds it has had some impact on the children.
“But, it’s already too late to salvage all the tribes, in a decade or two one will be able to see them only in photographs, if dissemination is not contained. This life is not enough to do what I want to, I have to be reborn,” he says.
Gautam has been through a transformation in perception of life, and feels he is at the right stage to give a sustainable background to the tribal children and to his son. Later this year, he plans to document the tribals of North-East India.
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Sunday, May 15, 2005
