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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The salt farmers of wild ass country -Kavita Kanan Chandra

The salt farmers of wild ass country -Kavita Kanan Chandra

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published Published on Feb 28, 2017   modified Modified on Feb 28, 2017
-The Hindu

Under a searing sun, the Agariyas continue to make salt in the Little Rann of Kutch just as their ancestors have done down the ages

A pair of black gum boots stands in the corner of Dhirubhai’s temporary shack, his home for eight months in the Little Rann of Kutch. The shack, built entirely of jute bags and plastic sheets and propped up by bamboo poles, houses nine members of his family. It is shaded a little by a babul tree from which hangs a rope swing.

Adjacent to the shack stretch the salt pans, beyond which lie miles and miles of barren, saline, cracked mudflats. These mudflats are intermittently broken by more salt pans, each with a solitary shack under a lone tree.

I am in the Dhrangadhra salt zone of the Wild Ass Sanctuary inside Little Rann, which has five other concentrated salt zones: Kharaghoda, Halvad, Santalpur, Adesar and Malia. Scattered in these zones are 8,000 to 10,000 families of Agariyas or salt farmers (‘agar’ is a salt farm). The majority are Hindus, belonging to the Chunvaliya Koli community while the Miyana and Sandhi are Muslim. They are a Denotified Tribe, united by their shared occupation, their culture, folk songs and the hardships of salt farming.

As we sit on the string cots outside the shack, sipping black tea—milk is unavailable here—Dhirubhai and his wife Liliben introduce us to their family. They are dressed like city-dwellers, the women in sarees and salwar kameez and the men in shirts and trousers. The older son Vikram is married with three young children. Their daughters Bhavna and Aarti have been able to attend school up to Class VIII, even though most Agariyas are illiterate.

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The Hindu, 24 February, 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/the-salt-farmers-of-wild-ass-country/article17361838.ece


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