Nowhere people

The Sudan crisis has highlighted the plight of the nomadic tribes in India, particularly the Hakki Pikki tribe, who are marginalised and ignored instead of being valued for their knowledge

As the strife in Sudan roils the streets of Darfur and Khartoum and sets up a scramble among the stranded expatriate community to get back home, there has been an unexpected fallout in India. The crisis has focused attention on an Indian tribe that few know about—the Hakki Pikki, whose members are caught in the crossfire—and cast a light on the near-invisible existence of nomadic tribes in the country.

Among the most ancient forest nomads, the Hakki Pikki are traditionally foragers, bird trappers and healers. They have reinvented themselves as medicine men in recent years and in countries such as Sudan, where affordability and faith in traditional healing systems play a big role, they have built a reputation for their cures. But in these markets and within India, their existence is on the fringes, as is that of many other nomadic tribes, who are all struggling to rebuild the socio-economic niches that they once operated out of.

For instance, the Ghatiya Jogis who used to make grinding stones for household use have no space in modern kitchens; the Nandiwallahs whose cattle provided manure for household use are reduced to begging in big cities; the Vaidus or traditional healers have scattered in diverse professional directions and the meat trading Banjaras in Rajasthan are regularly targeted by indigenous extremist groups and accused of cow slaughter. And all of them are corralled into the catch-all category of backward tribes.

Nomads have got the short shrift in history, not just in India, but across the world. A lot of this, some may say, is just the inexorable turning of the wheel of civilisations. But it is much more than that; the economic spirit of nomadic tribes was deliberately crushed by cultures that did not trust their way of life—by labelling them thieves and cons.

Anthony Sattin, in his book, Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World writes: “People who live with walls and monuments, who have written most of history, have failed to find meaning in or to recognise the value of the lighter, more mobile, less cluttered lives of those who live beyond borders.”

The Hakki Pikkis, for instance, who are now navigating the messy streets of Sudan have always lived off the forest. They did not own land and as a wandering tribe, they did not drop roots in any one place. They were sought after for their knowledge of the avian world and moved wherever their work took them; the community of traditional healers drew upon their familiarity with medicinal herbs while farmers wanted them to keep birds out their farms. They are now based out of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha and some parts of North India but speak none of their languages. Their language is Vaghri, similar to the Gujarati and Kutchi spoken in the lands bordering India and Pakistan along the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan.

The first blow to their way of life was struck during the colonial rule when, along with numerous other tribes, they were labelled as criminals. This was also around the time that tribes across India began to be forced into the shadows, to escape the brutal treatment being meted out to them under British rule. Indigenous economic networks were broken and they were persecuted for their dress, food habits, wandering nature and whatever else. The tumultuous consequences of the colonial whip on nomads are well documented in books such as Ganesh Devy’s A Nomad called Thief.

Many oral narratives among the nomadic communities have transformed the impact of unfair laws and attitudes towards them, into myths about a curse. For example, the Hakki Pikki believe their ancestor was cursed by “Sita Mata,” because they laughed at the way she dressed and another tribe, the Gaduliya Lohars believed they were cursed by “Kalka Mata,” for not respecting her ways. They rue their meandering way of life because they buy into the mainstream narrative of their wandering nature being the cause for their backwardness.

Recent work by archaeologists and historians has however challenged this notion of backwardness. It is particularly interesting to note just how influential the Sogdians, an East Iranian nomadic group, have been on religions and cultures of the world. They were the glue that gummed up the Silk Route, where they facilitated trade of goods and ideas. Nomads also built vast empires—be it Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun whose rule is only known by the violent battles they fought, but not by the diversity they nurtured within their clans or the trade routes they unlocked.

Ignored, vilified and othered, nomads have had a rough trek through history and the problem lies as much with the deliberate misrepresentation of their achievements, as it does with the idea of theirs being a utopian way of life. Instead, if governments all over, and especially in India could reach into the complex ecosystems that they built and tap into their knowledge about trades, trading routes, the animal world and the environment, development may find a paradigm.