01-IMG_7446-MH-In Darrang-ploughing a lonely furrow.jpg

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:center;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Lukor kotha nuhuniba, batot nangol nachachiba.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:center;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">[Do not listen to people, Do not smoothen the plough on the roadside]

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The above figure of speech in the Assamese language is used to describe the importance of keeping one’s attention on one’s work.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Hanif Ali, a wood craftsman who makes ploughs for farmers, says it applies to him, and his work of making precision tools for farming. Around two thirds of the land around him&nbsp;&nbsp;–&nbsp;in central Assam’s Darrang district, is under agriculture, and this veteran craftsman has an array of tools for agricultural work.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“I make all agricultural tools such as nangol [plough], chongo [bamboo ladder] juwal [yoke], haath naingle [hand-rake], naingle [rake], dheki [foot-operated pounding mill], itamagur [mallet], haarpaat [a semi-circular wooden tool attached to bamboo pole used to gather paddy into a pile after drying] and more,” he reels off.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">He prefers the wood of the jackfruit tree – called kaathol in the local Bengali dialect and kothaal in Assamese – used in making doors, windows and beds. Hanif says he cannot afford to waste any of the wood he buys and so makes as many tools as possible from each log.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Ploughs are precision tools. “I must not miss the markings on the wood even by an inch or else I may end up losing a piece,” he adds and an estimated monetary loss of Rs. 250-300.

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">His customers are mostly marginal farmers from the district who have oxen at home. They multi-crop on their land, growing vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, knol-khol, peas, chillies, bottlegourd, pumpkin carrots, bittergourd, tomatoes and cucumber, as well as crops of mustard and paddy.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“Anybody who needs a plough comes to me,” says the veteran craftsman now in his sixties. "About 15-10 years ago there were only two tractors in the area, and people relied on ploughs to till their land," he tells PARI.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Mukaddas Ali is a farmer in his sixties and among the few who still occasionally use a wooden plough. “I still go to Hanif to repair my plough whenever required. He is the only one who can properly adjust the damages. Like his father, he can make well finished ploughs.”<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Ali however says that he is not sure if he will invest in another one. “Bulls have become expensive and farm labour is not easily available, also using a plough takes much longer time than a tractor,” he adds explaining why people have shifted to tractors and power tillers to reduce the workload.

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Hanif is a second-generation craftsman; he learnt the craft when he was a young child. “I went to school only for a few days. Neither my mother nor my father was interested in education, and I too didn’t want to go,” he says.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">He was very young when he started helping his father, Holu Sheikh, a respected and skilled craftsman. “Babaye shara bostir jonne nangol banaito. Nangol banabar ba thik korbar jonne angor barit aito shob khetiok [My father used to make ploughs for everyone in the village. Everyone would come to our house to make or repair their ploughs].”<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">When he began helping out, his father would do the markings – precise marks essential to make the plough work without a hitch. “You must know at which exact point you have to make the holes. You must be sure that the beam is attached to the murikaath [body of the plough] at the correct angle,” Hanif says as he runs his right hand over a piece of wood he is working on.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">He explains that if the plough is too angular, nobody will buy it because then soil enters the share [cutting edge of the plough], creating a gap and slowing down work.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">It took a year before he gained enough confidence to tell his father, “I know where to mark. Don’t worry anymore.”

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">He also started to accompany his father popularly known as ‘Holu mistry’. His father would double up as shopkeeper and a huiter – a person who specialises in carpentry specifically in plough making. He recalls how they would go house to house carrying their work hung on a pole on their shoulders.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">After a few years of working with his father who was beginning to age, Hanif – the only son in the family of six – says the responsibility of his sisters’ marriage fell on him. “People already knew our house and as my father was unable to meet all the orders, I started to make ploughs.”<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">That was four decades ago. Today, Hanif lives alone and his home and workplace are is a single room at Number 3 Baruajhar village, home to many Bengali-origin Muslims like him. The area comes under the Dalgaon legislative assembly constituency. His one-room bamboo-thatched home is sparsely furnished with a small bed, a few cooking utensils – a pot to cook rice, a pan, a couple of steel plates and a glass.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">"My father's and my work are important to people in the locality," he says, speaking of the many farmers that are his neighbours. He is sitting in the courtyard shared by five families, also living in one-room homes like him. The other houses belong to his sister, his youngest son, and his nephews. His sister does wage work on people's farms and in their homes; his nephews often migrate to southern states.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Hanif has nine children, but none are engaged in this craft for which demand is now declining. “The younger generation will not able to recognise what a traditional plough looks like,” says Afaj Uddin, Mukaddas Ali’s nephew. The 48-year-old is a farmer with six bighas of unirrigated land stopped using a plough 15 years ago.

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“When I cycle past houses with big trees with angular branches, I ask the house owner to inform me when he plans to cut the tree. I tell them that the angular and solid branches will make good ploughs,” he says, revealing his familiarity among local people.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Local timber traders also reach out to him when they have a curvy piece. He needs a seven-foot-long beam and a 3 x 2 inch wide wooden plank made of either sal (shorea robusta), shishu (Indian rosewood), titachap (Michelia champaca), shirish (albezia lebbeck) or other locally available wood.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“The tree should be 25-30 years old then the plough, yokes and rakes will last long. The logs are generally trunks or solid branches grow,” he says, showing PARI a branch he has cut into two parts.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">When PARI visited him in mid-August, he was hewing one part of the wood into the body of a plough. “If I can make two haatnaingle [wooden handrakes] apart from making the body of one plough, I may earn extra 400 -500 rupees from this log,” he says pointing towards the angular-shaped wood bought for Rs. 200.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“I must utilize as many parts as possible from each wood. Not just that, the shape has to be exactly what the farmers require,” he adds. Over the four decades and more that he has been doing this, he knows the most popular size for a plough is 18-inch shoes (to stabilise the plough) and a 33-inch body.

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Once he gets the perfect piece of wood, he starts work before the sun rises, placing his tools for axing, chopping, shaping, and curving nearby. He also has a few chisels, an adze, a couple of saws, an axe, a hand plane, and a few rusting rods which he keeps on an elevated wooden platform at home.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Using the plain side of the saw, he marks the lines on the wood to make precise cuts. He measures the distance with his hand. Once the markings are done, he slices the sides of the wood with his 30-year-old axe. “Then I use tessha [adze tool similar to an axe] to shave off the uneven surface,” the master woodworker says. The nangol or the shoe-part of the body has to be precisely curved in a way that makes the soil move to either side easily.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">“The starting point of the shoes [the part of the body that glides on the ground] remains around six inches, it gradually decreases to 1.5 to 2 inches towards the end in width,” he says. The shoes’ thickness should be 8 or 9 inches tapering to two inches towards the end where it is nailed into the wood.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The shoe-share is called faal or pal and is made of an iron bar around 9-12 inches in length and 1.5-2 inches wide, with sharp edges on both ends. “Both the edges are sharp, because if one end gets corroded, the farmer can switch to the other end.” Hanif sources the metal work from local blacksmiths in Bechimari market, around three kilometres from his home.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">It takes at least five hours of continuous pounding of axe and adze to chop and shave the sides of a log into shape. It must then be smoothened with a hand plane.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">When the body is ready, the huiter makes a precise mark to make a whole where the beam of the plough has to fit. Hanif says, “the hole has to be as close as possible to the size of the eesh [the wooden beam], because it must not loosen up while ploughing. It is generally 1.5 or 2 inches wide.”

<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">To adjust the height of the plough Hanif makes five to six hitches near the top end of the beam. Using these hitches, the farmers used to adjust the plough to their requirement of how deep they wanted to till the soil.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Cutting the wood with a saw machine is expensive and tiring says Hanif. “If I buy a log for 200 rupees, I pay another 150 to the cutting person.” Finishing the plough takes around two days and can, at best, sell one plough for Rs. 1,200.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">While some people approach him directly, Hanif also travels to two weekly markets in Darrang district – Lalpool bazaar and Bechimari bazaar – to sell his products. “A farmer has to pay around 3,500 to 3,700 rupees for the plough and its accessories,” he says pointing out the steep costs that have reduced his buyers to those renting out their ploughs and the odd farmer. “Tractors have replaced the traditional method of tilling.”<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">But Hanif is not stopping. The next day he readies his bicycle with his work – a plough body and a kuthi (handle of the plough). “When tractors finish damaging the soil… people will come back to the plough maker,” he adds.<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(26, 26, 26);font-family:&quot;Roboto Slab&quot;, Georgia, serif;font-size:20.4px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px 0px 1em;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

In Darrang: ploughing a lonely furrow

दरांगचे हनीफ अली आणि त्यांचे अखेरचे काही नांगर

ٹریکٹروں نے چھینا ہل بنانے والوں کا روزگار

दर्रांग के अकेल्ला नांगर बनेइय्या

ट्रैक्टर आइल, हल कारीगर के रोटी छीनाइल

ଦାରଙ୍ଗ: ନିଃସଙ୍ଗ ଜମିରେ ହଳ ବୁଲେଇବା

தனியாக உழும் பணி

ਦਰਾਂਗ: ਹਲ ਦਾ ਚਲਣ ਵਾਪਸ ਆਵੇਗਾ

ദരംഗയിൽ: ഉഴവുചാലിൽ കലപ്പയുന്തുമ്പോൾ

ದರಾಂಗ್:‌ ಒಂಟಿ ಹೊಲದ ಉಳುಮೆ

ट्रैक्टरों ने छीना हल-निर्माताओं का रोज़गार 

দারাং: একার হাতে চলছে লাঙল 

దరంగ్‌లో ఒకే ఒక నాగలి రూపకర్త

দৰঙত নাঙল-যুৱলিৰ সপোন দেখা এজন সূতাৰ 

દારંગમાં હળ બનાવવાની વિસરાતી જતી કળા

Dalgaon (Pt), Darrang District, Assam, India

1-Bamboo_makers-08-MH-Darrangs_vanishing_bamboo_basket_makers.jpg

“If this profession vanishes, I will
have no option but to go to another state,” rues Majeda Begum, a bamboo basket
maker from Na-mati village in Assam’s Darrang district, as she spins thin
strips of bamboo around the base of the basket.

The 25-year-old craftswoman is a
daily wage worker and single mother, supporting her 10-year-old son and ailing
mother. “I can make up to 40 khasas
[baskets] in a day, but now I only weave 20,” she says in the local Miya dialect. With the fall in demand, Majeda earns Rs. 160 for every 20 baskets she weaves which is well below the
state’s minimum wage of Rs. 241.92 for scheduled employment (Report on Minimum Wages Act, 1948 for the year <a href="https://labourbureau.gov.in/uploads/pdf/Minimum_Wages_2016.pdf">2016</a>). 



The returns from selling bamboo
baskets have been affected by both the rising price of bamboo and falling
demand for the baskets in the vegetable mandis
here. Darrang hosts two of Assam’s biggest mandis:
Bechimari and Balugaon from where agricultural produce is supplied all across
the northeast and as far as Delhi.



Majeda’s fears of forced migration are real:
Around 80 to 100 families have left already in search of “better work”, says
39-year-old Hanif Ali, as he shows us around Ward A, located near the local madrasa. Roughly 150 families were once
involved in bamboo craft, but now, many homes lie vacant as the craftspeople
have migrated to other states like Kerala and Karnataka to work in coffee
plantations.

Since the Covid-19 lockdown, sales
have fallen sharply. “Earlier, we used to sell 400 to 500 khasas each week, but now we are only able to sell 100 to 150,”
says Siraj Ali. The 28-year-old runs his family’s bamboo basket business.
“Vegetable traders started using plastic trays and sacks to pack and store
their produce during the pandemic. We could not sell our tukris [small bamboo baskets] during that time,” he adds. 



Siraj lives in Ward A with his
family of five. “Despite all of us working, we make only 3,000–4,000 rupees in
a week,” he says.  “After paying wages to
the labourers, and expenses incurred in procuring bamboo, my family’s earnings
come down to 250–300 rupees a day.” As a result, many members of his extended
family have migrated to Karnataka to work in coffee estates. “If things
continue like this, I will also have to go,” he says. 



But not everyone can leave. “I
cannot go to Kerala [as a migrant] because my two children are going to school
here,” says 35-year-old Jamila Khatun, another basket-weaver, sitting in her
house. Like most other homes in the village, hers too has no toilet or gas
cylinder connection. “We cannot afford private schools. If we migrate, the
children’s education will be ruined,” this resident of Na-mati adds.



The bamboo basket weavers of the village are
mostly descendants of migrants from Mymensingh in present-day Bangladesh who
had left their homes when it was still a part of undivided Bengal during
colonial rule. The word ‘Miya’, literally meaning ‘gentleman’ is often used
pejoratively by Assamese ethno-nationalists to describe the Bangla-speaking community as
“illegal settlers” in the state.

Na-mati village, located about 110
kilometres from Guwahati, is the hub of bamboo craft in Darrang district, especially the traditional baskets known locally as khasa. Mud-roads and alleyways lead to the two clusters of roughly
50 families where these Bengali-speaking Muslims live in densely packed
bamboo-thatched or tin-walled houses and a few concrete homes, on the flood
plains of the Tangni river.



The name of the area – Khasapatti – means ‘bamboo basket neighbourhood’ and most homes here are surrounded by piles
of bamboo baskets. “Since before I was born, people from our area have been
supplying bamboo baskets to daily and weekly vegetable markets at Lalpool,
Bechimari and Balugaon mandis,” says
30-year-old Murshida Begum, as she weaves outside her home in the chapori cluster. 

Three generations of Hanif’s family
have been involved in the trade. “Bring up Khasapatti, and people will know
it’s this village you are talking about. Though not everyone is engaged in the
craft, this is where the first generation of khasa weavers started their work.” 



Hanif is trying to form a registered
self-help group (SHG) of bamboo craftspeople in the village to obtain
government assistance to sustain the craft. “If the government provides us
technical and financial help to set up a workshop, this craft will survive,” he
hopes.



The primarily Muslim community who engage in this
craft, say they took it up because they were landless and could not practise agriculture.
“Bamboo baskets are an integral part of the chain of vegetable trade, as the
region is dependent on agriculture,” says 61-year-old Abdul Jalil, a basket
weaver and social worker from Ward A.



“The locals needed tukris to take their produce to the markets and vendors needed them
to package the vegetables for transportation. Hence, we have been making these
baskets for generations,” he explains.<hr/>

The workers also attribute the
higher prices of bamboo baskets to higher expenses incurred in procuring the
raw material. Afaj Uddin, a 43-year-old bamboo craftsman from the chapori cluster, says that for each
basket priced at Rs. 50, they have to spend around Rs. 40 including the cost of
bamboo, thread, paying the weavers and local transport. 



Munser Ali has been sourcing bamboo
from various places and selling it at Bechimari bazaar for more than two
decades. The 43-year-old says that transportation is the chief hurdle. The
Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 levies a fine of Rs. 20,000 for
overloading a vehicle, and Rs. 2,000 per extra tonne of load.



The Handicraft Policy of Assam (<a href="https://industriescom.assam.gov.in/portlet-innerpage/handicraft-policy-of-assam-2022">2022</a>), however, stipulates
that the responsibility of sourcing the bamboo lies with the State Bamboo
Mission, other agencies of the forest department and the panchayats. 



With the rise in prices, Munser Ali has lost his
key customers – the bamboo basket makers. “They have to buy each bamboo cane
for Rs. 130–150,” he says. “If they have to sell it for Rs. 100, then what is
the point?”

The
elaborate process of making khasas
starts with sourcing the bamboo, says Abdul Jalil. “Some 20 or 30 years ago, we
used to go to villages in Darrang to collect bamboo. But as it became scarce
here with a decline in bamboo plantations, traders started to supply it from
various places like Karbi Anglong and Lakhimpur districts, or from Arunachal
Pradesh and other hilly areas.”

Once the bamboo tree is brought to a
weaver’s home, the men in the family cut betees
(strips) of varying sizes ranging from 3.5 feet to 4.5 feet from the bottom
to make the base of a basket. Strips of eight, 12 or 16 feet are cut from the
middle to make the connecting strands and the upper culm is used to make the
strips for finishing the top of the basket. 



The relatively thicker strips are
used to make the toli (base or frame)
of a basket. “Toli defines the size
of the basket. Once the base is made, women and children weave lithe strips by
spinning them from the centre. These strips are called pechni betee,” explains Jalil.



“At the top, two or three rounds of
stronger strips are used to end the weaving process which we call pechni. To finish the basket, the
remaining ends of the base are broken and inserted into the woven bamboo
threads. We call the process muri bhanga,”
he adds.



The entire process, Murshida says,
is done by hand: “To cut the bamboo into the required sizes, we use a hacksaw.
We use a kurhail [axe] or a dao [machete] to slice the bamboo stems.
To make the bamboo threads, we use very sharp machetes. To bind the top ends of
the baskets, we use a batali [chisel]-like
tool to insert the remaining ends of tolir
betee into the pechni betee.”



Each basket takes around 20 to 25
minutes to weave; this, excluding the process of muri bhanga and toli bhanga.
On the day before the weekly market, women sometimes work well into the night
to craft as many baskets as possible. The work takes a toll on their physical
health. 



“We get back pains, calluses in our hands, we
get pricked by the sharp parts of the bamboo,” Murshida says. “Sometimes
needle-like pieces of bamboo pierce through our skin, causing severe pain.
Before the weekly markets, we work late into the night and the next day, we
cannot sleep due to the pain.” This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).