Seeking Emergency Relief for the Creeping Drought of 1998-99

Before we get into describing and passing on the information about the drought conditions that have been prevailing and worsening in the semi arid and arid regions of the Thar it would be not out of place to keep in mind certain broad characteristics. These apply to the drought conditions in Marusthali, the stalking ground of famines and more particularly to the drought cycle that had it’s onset in the beginnings of the summer of 1998. These are important to keep at the back of the mind especially while planning for the drought mitigation and long term proofing in the Indian Thar.

1. Droughts in the Thar are prolonged, gradually intensifying nightmares, like a chronic wasting disease that doesn’t get over but only slowly worsens. They are a creeping phenomenon, making an accurate prediction of either their onset or end a difficult task

2. Drought severity too is difficult to determine. It is dependent not only on the duration, intensity and geographical extent but also on the demands made by human activities and by the natural resource base of the region.

3. The last two decades have seen a weakening of the institutions of the State in responding to drought and commissioning timely and realistic drought relief programs. Droughts have become more prone to political manipulations and rhetoric for populism.

Meteorological Drought

To most observers here in the Thar the drought conditions seem to have started with a delay ( and a failure) of the rains after April 1998. Rainfall records from locations like Jayal, Sujangarh, Devikot, Kolayat, Haddan, Chimmana, Nokha, Lunkaransar and Pugal since April 1998 indicate the complete failure or perceptibly low rainfall than is considered ‘normal’ for these regions. Another interesting thing which emerges from a trend analysis of the rainfall records from these different micro locations is that there was a spell of excessive rains around October’98 that damaged the winter crops. In the month of July’99 rainfall was reported in villages in Lunkaransar, Kolayat, Sujangarh, Haddan, Chimmana, Pugal Nokha, Devikot area in Jaisalmer and parts of Nagore. The high hopes these initial rains of July and the illusion of a good monsoon they raised was followed by a period of lull and there have been no rains in the past three months.

But what is critical to remember here is that meteorological drought has just played a triggering role to precipitate the crisis that had been influenced by non climatic factors like economic, social or political developments. For instance one of the causes of the present pervasive societal vulnerability is the result of the decreasing resilence of the Thari society and resource base to cope with the drought conditions.

Drinking Water

The criticality of this need doesn’t need to be stressed in area that is anyway characterized by acute water scarcity. The failure of rains in July-Aug’99 has increased the pressure on the ponds in the settlements. There is a severe competition between the humans as well as livestock for drinking water from the same source. Families in many villages in the project areas would not be able to pull the coming months without an emergency water supply.

Crop production & Family Diets

The initial rains of July’99 had prompted farmers to go all out for sowing their fields that they had not been able to do for now a year. The expectations of a good crop tempted many of them to sow costly seeds like gowar at the cost of large amounts of advances from the bania / middlemen in the towns. Since last two months all such expectations of even an average crop are over. More than sixty to seventy percent of the kharif crops like bajra, moong, moth in Bikaner, Nagore, Barmer and Jodhpur district has been damaged. Even the crops in the irrigated areas of IGNP have suffered. In and around the Rajasar Cluster and Pugal area the crops of cotton, narma, groundnut, gowar have not developed properly.

The decline in crop production and reduction of the net sown area has had it’s own effects on nutrition and family diets. In the largely subsistence based agriculture in large tracts of the arid Thar family diets constitute matiras, kakadi, phali, keria that grow along the crops and act as a buffer to buying food from the market. Not only traditional diet ingredients are not available even fodder grasses like dechab is not to be seen. Needless to say the major onslaught is on the most vulnerable targets - children between the age grp of 0-6 yrs and pregnant & lactating mothers.

Prices of Essential Commodities

Prices of essential commodities have been increasing consistently since last year and a half. They are of course related to several other factors. The drought conditions and increased dependence of people on the market for not only their own rations but also for fodder has raised consumption expenditures in the context of declining incomes and increased scarcity.


Fodder

The regeneration of the natural grasslands in the first spell of rains in July have been gradually decimating over the last three four months. Fodder prices have been consistently rising having gone up three to four times as high than they were three months back. The rates for tudi (fodder from wheat) that usually sells at Rs60-80 per quintal at the time of harvesting is difficult to get these days at Rs150-200. The fodder market is going to become more aggressive and exploitative in the coming months. The demand for opening fodder depots is one of the most pressing demands in the Panchayat and District meetings.

Livestock

Steep rise in cattle mortality and numbers of stray cattle surely are signs of the intensifying drought conditions. But the precision of numbers cited should only be accepted with caution in the absence of a reliable system of monitoring livestock mortality in the normal times. What can be definitely vocuhed for is the gradual intensification and increase in the number of cattle deaths and stray cattle in these last three months. More than forty thousand cattle deaths have been reported from URMUL project areas in the Thar. Perceptions of elders rank this drought as even more grave and fatal for livestock especially cattle than the previous droughts of V.S. 2025 (1969), one of the severest droughts of this century.

Distress sales of small ruminants has been picking up. Since last two months it is quite common to encounter trucks packed with sheep and goats on the highways. This destocking strategy has been resorted to by thousands of semi nomadic pastoralists from villages of Kolayat, Bap, Phalodi and villages in Jaisalmer and Barmer district. Most of this traffic is bound to Punjab and Delhi. The distress sales have dropped the prices of the livestock by more than half. Sheep and goat that usually sell at a price of Rs2000-2500 now have to disposed off at Rs600-800. The price of milch animals has also declined by more than half.

Milk yields from the cattle has been dropping. The daily procurement of URMUL dairy that collects milk from more than 38000 cattle keepers in 526 village cooperatives has reduced from 1lakh 28 thousand litres per day in July to only 85 thousand litres per day in September.

Human & Livestock Migration

Seasonal mobility of communities as well as livestock is a well established and organic rhythm of life in the Thar. The regular seasonal transhumance (that began after Holi) of lakhs of families and their herds / flocks has been prolonged. Many have not come back or have got stuck on the way back from the neighbouring States of Punjab, Harayana, MP. Drought has made the migration more prolonged and uncertain. The process of inter region migrations, that are desperate attempts to find fodder and water, has intensified in the last three months. For instance truck loads of sheep and goat and cattle were dumped in villages around Devikot by families from Barmer. Thousands of cattle have been sent to the scared cattle pen of Bhadariya Maharaj near Pokaran.

The migration of families from the villages of Sujangarh and Jayal tehsils in search of employment opportunities has intensified. Many families are reported to have come back from older and familiar places of employment because of the massive influx of families from other places. The employment opportunities in agricultural fields, brick kilns and construction sites have saturated and are no longer available. In Nokha number of people seeking employment from the neighboring villages has increased manifold. Even the cities and towns like Bikaner, Makrana are unable to absorb the massive exodus of families who are pouring into the city almost daily.

Popular Coping Strategies

From the standpoint of human strategy one of the well understood and popular tactics is to try and outwait the drought. It is a disquieting situation to see farmers being driven off their land, pastoralists incessantly on the move and marginal classes migrate to escape starvation. One of the conviction that has pulled communities since the failure of rains in April’98 has been that the rains, will, indeed, come back. Meanwhile the coping strategy of the sangathans members has been to wait, economize, defer decisions, watch with growing anxiety the grain banks and the fodder stock. So abilities to outwait a drought depend on who and where we are, and how long it lasts.

Govt Response / Relief Works

The Govt response to the creeping drought that has now reached it’s high peaks has to be understood in the context of the volatile political situation in the State. Since 1998 despite several declarations of commissioning relief works the District bureaucracies and the Panchayat bodies have not been able to initiate any sustained efforts at relief works. The State has carried out a reassessment of the severity of the drought third time in these two years. Many of these employment generation relief works seek to cover not more than 10 to 15 percent of the lakhs of families that have been affected.

(A Note By AZERC, URMUL Trust for discussion with donors agencies, September 1999)

Photo Credits: Vikram Channa

The pastoral splendor of the great Sufi mystic Khwaja Ghulam Farid

"But what tongue shall tell the glory of it, the perpetual strength of it, and sublimity of its lonely desolation! And who shall paint the splendor of its light."

Khwaja Ghulam Farid, in praise of the desert (Rohi)




In their efforts to reinvigorate their tradition of sufiyayna qalam singing, the Mir musicians from Pugal, north west Bikaner have been reviving the pastoral splendor of the qalam of Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1841A.D. – 1901 A.D.), the great desert fakeer.

Khwaja Ghulam Farid one of the most popular Sufi poets in Siraiki language was born in 1845 A.D. at Kot Mithan, in a family of Arab settlers who had come along with the Arab forces. Also known as Farid Chachran from the place where he was born in Bahawulpur state he is one of the important Sufis of the Chishti silsila of Fariduddin Shakar Ganj. He is said to have spent many years in the blazing deserts between Bahawalpur and Pugal. The mediations of the intimate relation between men, their livestock and nature was so evocatively described by Ghulam Farid whose compositions are rich in imageries borrowed from the daily lives of the pastoralists of the north west Bikaner region.

Mirs have been known for their passionate and intimate renderings of the sufiyana qalam of Sufi mystics of the north-west Indian subcontinent. The qalam of Baba Sheikh Farid, Sain Bulleh Shah, Hazrat Shah Hussain, Hazrat Sultan Bahu, Ali Haider and Khwaja Ghulam Farid are intrinsic part of the repertoire of this musical tradition. In particular compositions of Khwaja Ghulam Farid form the kernel of this tradition of the Mirs. These are mostly sung in Siriaki, a dialect of West Punjab having strong affinity with Sindhi and Punjabi. In addition to this soul stirring singing, the Mirs are deft players of been (a kind of bagpipe) and algoza (a double barrel wind instrument) whose reverberating and lilting melodies form part of the ethereal music of the Mirs, setting the mood for mehfis that steadily unfold in the majestic serenity of vast horizons and star lit desert nights. In addition to this, the Mirs have been musicians of the common people par excellence, serving as a medium of devotion, harbinger of peace, hope, love through their ecstatic performances of bhajans and vanis of Meera, Kabir, Gorakhnath, Baba Ramdev, Achalram and others that form part of the versatile repertoire of many among the Mirs.

For communities whose lives revolved around mobility on trade routes, trails of caravans and free ranging pastoralism with its seasonal routes of transhumance, the compositions of Ghulam Farid borrowing from the symbols of everyday life of the pastoralists had an immense appeal. These compositions, while reaffirming the intimate ties communities had with nature, articulated the deep veneration they had for it. Many of the compositions by Farid are passionate descriptions of the bounties of the desert, an otherwise barren tract that comes to life with little rains. Like one of his most famous qalam Kaldi Jungle Vich is a pastoral romance par excellence that passionately describes how In the spring season the grasslands in the desert have come to life, the ponds are full to their brims with water and the vegetation, flocks of sheep and cattle are out in the grasslands and a lot of migratory birds have come to enjoy the bounties the desert offers.

Khwaja Ghulam Farid chooses rustic metaphors from life of the desert like praising pilu (a wild berry) or the rich desert grasses, the different shapes and colors of clouds, the mushrooming of temporary encampments on the chains of sand dunes after rains, the brightness of a rainbow, the rhythmic lilting sound of the bells of cattle marching in the vast sprawling grasslands, the teeming variety of birds, snakes, insects, vivid descriptions of dexterous pastoral women milking cows and their tough routines to debate the metaphysics of life and death. Farid is at his best when he draws on the imageries of everyday struggles of survival of common people in the harsh desert, like the qalam toba khata de pakdiya tadu sindhari da manu udaas hai builds on travails of people suffering from severe water crisis pleading to be blessed with a pond. Not only does the qalam resonates with the feelings of people it also has a graphic description of the place that would be chosen for such a (natural catchment of clayey soil...with no bushes and grasses) where water would freely flow from all the four directions.

The incidents of Farid’s life are well remembered and recounted by the pastoralists of the region. Like one of the significant ones are those surrounding his marriage. Ghulam Farid is said to have married a lady by the name of Hotan Laad, who was the daughter of one Lalu Laad. Pathane Khan of Adoori further elaborates on the significance and meaning of this bridal symbolism in qalam of Ghulam Farid.

“…Hotan was the daughter of Lal laad and Ghulan Farid was in love with her it… was true love…and wanted to marry her. Worldly love (duniaavi ishq) was so important and that was the way to true love for the God (Ishq hakiki).

The central idea of every qalam of Khwaja Farid is one, and that is love. He regards beauty as a mirror from which rays are reflected which lead to God. Khwaja Farid was also a connoisseur of music and his home was a haven for leading musicians. A believer in the philosophy of Wahdat-al- Wajood (Unity of Being), he believed that music was a significant means of achieving divine unity .


Photo Credits: Vikram Channa, Sunil Rakecha, Bibhas das

Mir Mukhtiyar Ali and Mir Abdul Jabbar – trailblazers in reinvigorating sufiyana qalam singing of north- west Bikaner

During Holi this time, Abdul Jabbar and Razak Ali from Pugal visited us. Passionate involvement of enthusiastic students and motivating teachers of NID Film Club and SID, CEPT welcomed them with organizing small mehfils, where the Mirs enthralled the audience with their music.

We were graced by the Holi pyre at the Paldi village. The aura of the pure flames melted the accumulated rust on the pelt, vulnerable as we humans are to the corrosive impact of time. The colours of the desert (Rohi rang) permeated within our inner soul. As morning descended over the Sabarmati river, caressing its dark waters with the sublime illumination of the first rays from the rising sun, the true meaning of ideal of Fuqr-a-fannah (annihilation of the ego) as medium to an enlightened path to gnosis (knowledge) came to light.

Mir Mukhtiyar Ali and Mir Abdul Jabbar have been trailblazers in the arid desert landscape of Pugal. Despite economic hardships they took to rediscovering their tradition of singing sufiyana qalam, firming it up and singing it to the outside world. For most of the outside world Pugal had been arid backwaters where nothing grows and the devouring landscape is a stalking ground of drought and drudgery. With remarkable ingenuity these musicians have belied this paradox of aridity and creativity. They have shown that soul stirring music so relevant to the contemporary world plagued with xenophobic conflict, unbridled consumerism, social stress and ecological devastation of habitats of the poor, is nurtured in the sprawling horizons and start lit skies of the arid Thar. For them many of these live performances have been occasions to interact with audience who they feel knows about their music and the Sufi poetry they sing.

Mir Mukhtiyar Ali has been mesmerizing audiences not only all over Rajasthan but in the Indian metros of Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mysore and many countries abroad. Taking Mir gayaki from the interiors of the Thar to new heights, he has emerged as the best exponent of his tradition and has established new standards for the young Mir singers. Mir Mukhtiyar is one of the star Sufi singers in the Kabir project of Shabnam Virmani of the Srishti Design School at Bangalore. Recently Mukhtiyar was telling of his live performance in Malwa, in the land of the famous Kabir singer Prahlad Singh Tiapniya, attended by thousands of audience. He was happy that SPICMACAY was giving him an opportunity to demonstrate Mir gayaki in different places in India.

Mir Abdul Jabbar is a versatile musician who sings along with his ecstatic playing of tabla, and is a deft player of the alogoza as well. He accompanied Mukthiyar during their intital journey of disseminating their Mir gayaki. For the past some time, Abdul Jabbar has taken to grooming young Mir singers, embellishing their singing with the nuanced intricacies of tabla beats and expositions about the sufiyana qalam of mystics like Bulleh Shah, Shah Hussian, Sultan Bahu, Khwaja Ghulam Farid. In addition to this he has been talking to old listeners and singers of the Pugal region to understand the deep message of wisdom, love, peace and dignity of all life inherent in the teachings of these Sufi mystics.

Photo Credits: Bibhas Das, Swasti Singh

Read More on Mirs of Pugal:

Qissa Mir-i-Alam

Mesmerizing Mir