Swachh Bharat: what is it, say broom-makers

The cleanliness drive should include some kind of provision for this community, say experts

The broom-makers from Chhattisgarh near Adilabad town.-Photo: S. Harpal Singh

If there is one section in society which has remained ignorant of and untouched by the Union Government’s Swacch Bharat campaign, it is the broom-makers in the country. Experts opine that the cleanliness drive should have included some kind of provision for the poor broom-maker community, mostly hailing from downtrodden segments.

The few broom-makers from Chhattisgarh camping outside Adilabad town and those from Gerjam village in Ichoda Revenue mandal of Adilabad district appeared to be uninformed about Swachh Bharat when The Hindu broached the subject on Monday. The faces nevertheless, lit up when they got to think in terms of a possibility of having their business improve due to the campaign or the government directly addressing their problems.

“Cleanliness and Jhaadu (broom) making have been a great tradition in India which can be seen in Komal Kothari’s

Arna-Jharna jhaadu museum in Jodhpur of Rajasthan which has on display 350 different types of brooms made in the country,” points out Kala Ratna award winner and founder of Adilabad’s Kala Ashram, Guruji Ravinder Sharma, concurring with the view on Swacch Bharat being inclusive of community welfare. “The broom makers are facing tremendous problems, especially of raw material availability,” recalls the acknowledged expert on rural life of his experience with the community in Dewas of Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere.

“We now need to pay Rs. 2,000 to get the wine palm leaves for making brooms,” states Bachali Ashamma, a broom”-maker from Gerjam as she talks of the problems faced by the community. “The increase in price of raw material nonetheless, has not affected the price of the jhaadu which has remained the same for the last 20 years,” she adds. “The Telangana State government can make provision for allocating wine palm trees to the community as it envisages plantation of at least 1 crore of these under

Telanganaku Haritha Haram programme in the coming three years in Adilabad district,” opines a Forest Department Official. This would definitely bring down the cost of manufacture of the brooms. “We cannot help but lead a nomadic life,” observes Jagdish Kumar Punwar from Masna village of Bilaspur district, Chhattisgarh State as he divulges of the difficulties of his tribe. “We constantly need to search for new markets to make both ends meet,” he adds.