“Indeed, cheap rice has only made the availability of cowherds more difficult, if not impossible. People who tended cattle for payment in kind (food every day and grain at the end of the year) did not do it any more.” — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“Food should figure in the writing of Adivasi identity. In villages far off the road, all the food – meat, fish, kuccha, yams – comes from the forest. Having complete independence in procuring one’s food allows a people to disregard all outside interference, even apparently relevant NGO (non-governmental organization) or government programmes. Consider, for instance, the luxury in food choices… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share
“Adivasi is only an incidental factor; a collateral that barely contributes to the GDP shrine.” — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“A society’s self-reliance is usually in inverse proportion to its reverence for the state. In some inexplicable way, the Adivasi of the deep forest… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“The kotwal is the perfect mouthpiece of the village, saying exactly those things that the police want to hear. The kotwals have perfected this… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“the subtler impact of not having one. The effect of a few hundred cattle grazing unrestrained, every day, within and around the village is… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“A child’s first visit to the haat, known as haat paithanow, ‘going to the haat’ is an important event.” — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“the Adivasi is not viewed as ‘a person’ with individual attributes and character, with specific roles and importance within his community, but lumped into… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“An Adivasi home fashions several kinds of leafcups each day: dokpa for rice; chokni for the side dish; koondu for the chava; and chipdi… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“The absence of cowherds and the presence of the tractor have edged out other sounds from many Adivasi lives. The sounds of men waking… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“Without the waist string, kita todu, and a name, a child does not belong to human society: the passage from nature to culture has… — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
“. Sarkar teen parkar: Adei thindana, narpitana Auru jiyam noipitana. (The” — Madhu Ramnath Copy Share Image
