Songs of alienation, displacement and conflict permeate through the music album, ‘Our Forest Lives,’ produced by a group of Adivasi youth in Gudalur, the Nilgiris. The ten tracks, which were released to highlight the struggles of Adivasis, also express their hope for a better future through reclaiming rights to land, forest and traditional livelihoods.
“Oh rise bravely! It’s time we raised our voice to make history,” sings K. Lakshmi, a member of the Paniya tribal community in Gudalur, one of the main vocalists on a number of songs in the album. “What we are trying to achieve through the launch of this album, and also a story book, Our Forest Dreams is to tell the tale of Adivasis in the Nilgiris, about how we were alienated from our land and forests by the government, and also how we can reclaim them, so that we don't lose touch with our culture and traditions, which are linked to the forests around us,” said Lakshmi, who is also a poet and a musician.
The album was created and produced by the Nilgiris Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (NPVTG) Federation, which brings together Adivasi leaders from eight communities under a single umbrella, and helps them in reclaiming rights to land, forests and resources.
Sobha Madhan, the district co-ordinator for the NPVTG, who was one of the key creative leads for the production of the music album, ‘Our Forest Lives’ and the book Our Forest Dreams said that the creative projects seek to “transmit the intergenerational story of Adivasi resilience to the next generation. They also feature technical information about the Forest Rights Act, communicated in a simple manner, while sharing messages about gender equity and caring for nature.”
About Adivasi culture
The ten tracks on the album feature videos with English translations to the Tamil lyrics. The album has songs about the wealth of the forests ( Kaadu nam kaadu ), land rights ( Nila urimai ), the Forest Rights Act ( Vana Urimai sattam ) and a song about Adivasi political awareness ( Arasiyal adigaram ). “There are also songs about Adivasi culture, our children and our traditional ways of life,” said Sobha.
Eugene Soreng, from ‘Adivasi Drishyam’ which co-produced the event to launch the book and the music album, said that the projects exemplified how Adivasi communities traditionally documented experiences. “Our communities, across India, and worldwide, pass down the knowledge through our ancestors and our music,” said Soreng.
The fully-illustrated book, Our Forest Dreams , which was released alongside the album after being translated into five different languages, tells a story of a young woman, Medhi, who has a waking dream of an untouched forest. She dreams of a time when the Adivasi communities living in Gudalur and Pandalur live in peace and harmony with the environment before the arrival of the police, the forest department, encroachers, settlers and corporations running the large tea estates in the region.
Medhi discusses her dream with her grandmother, Ajji, who then goes on to tell her the story of how the Gudalur landscape has changed since the arrival of the British and right through post-Independence India. Using stories of the communities’ links with the forests, Ajji details the marginalisation of primitive tribal groups in the region for more than a hundred years.
Gam Shimray, general secretary of the Asian Indigenous People’s Pact (AIPP), said that the songs and the book show the bravery of Adivasi youth. “Like a tree, we need to grow strong for our communities and our families and be rooted to the land,” said Shimray. He added that Adivasi communities can only make sense of the present and chart a course for the future by learning, from their ancestors, the history and the struggles that have led to the present.
