NUAPADA, (Orissa): Mangal Sunani was thrilled. The government was giving him a miracle cow which would greatly reduce his poverty. The cow would be impregnated with Jersey semen—brought all the way from Pune and elsewhere. So it could, over the years, make him the proud owner of several bulls and high-yield milch cows.
A little later, Sunani, a harijan of Ulva village, was even more grateful. The government had given him an acre of land free. On this, he was to grow subabul trees to provide fodder for the cattle he would soon possess. There were thirty-eight such beneficiaries in his village. And a thousand in other villages of Komna block. The government had targeted them for a major dairy development scheme aimed at reducing poverty.
The beneficiaries were ecstatic when they learned they would also be paid the minimum wage to work on the free land, growing those trees. The project, called ‘Samanwita’, evolved around 1978. By the early ’80s, it was in full swing. ‘Everybody pitched in enthusiastically,’ says Jagdish Pradhan of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha.
‘Five agencies got involved,’ he says. Among them were the Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), a body set up by the leading corporate house, Mafatlal. With it was the Satguru Seva Trust, an NGO linked to the same group. Also in on the show was the State Bank of India. Completing the cast were the veterinary and revenue departments of the state. The theatre of action was mainly Nuapada, now a separate district in the Kalahandi region.
The authorities, like everybody else pushing the scheme, were committed to their purpose. The idea was to create a new, higher breed of cattle. Impurities, in any degree, were not welcome. How then to ensure that all the cows given to the beneficiaries received only Jersey semen and none other?
This dilemma weighed heavily on the minds of those involved. What if those cows mated with local studs? They decided to prevent the cows from crossing with local bulls. That would ensure the purity of the future race. So, according to Bishwamber Joshi, principal of the high school at Komna, local bulls were subjected to a massive castration drive. ‘The livestock inspector relentlessly castrated all bulls in Komna, Khariar and Khariar Road,’ he says. ‘Then, they resorted to artificial insemination of the cows with Jersey semen.’
Two years and Rs. 2 crores later, says Pradhan, ‘just eight crossbred calves were born in the entire region. Not one extra litre of milk was produced. And subabul trees had vanished from the area, though they were planted in thousands.’
A decade later, the results are even more stark: many villages across Komna are without a single stud bull. The castration drive has rendered the local ‘Khariar bull’ extinct—in this region at least.
There is not a single bull in this village now, Fudku Tandi tells me in Ulva. He was another ‘beneficiary’ of Samanwita. ‘Eight calves were born,’ he says, ‘very small, useless ones. Some died, the others were sold. Their yield of milk was nil.’
Shyamal Kuldeep, also a Samanwita beneficiary, says: ‘My wife and I managed to breed six calves, four of which died in a single day. Finally, none survived.’
‘When we told them of the problems,’ says Chamru Niyal, ‘they said they would give more injections and some day the calves would come.’ The initial eagerness of the villagers arose from the wage employment the project provided. ‘Whoever gives us work that feeds us is god,’ says Fudku Tandi.
As Tandi recalls, ‘A government officer came from Bhubaneswar. He said we would get employment, wheat and rice if we planted subabul on the land given to us. At first the subabul grew splendidly. Then they told us to cut the trees down for use as fodder. We did this. But they did not grow again.’ (Experts like Pradhan say this tree is most unsuited to the soil of the region.)
What upsets the villagers most is that the employment is over. ‘The land is back with the government,’ says Mangal Sunani. ‘A revenue official came and told us to vacate it. So the thirtyeight acres now lie fallow.’ This happened in the villages of other ‘beneficiaries’ too.
The disaster has been enormous. Throughout Kalahandi region, people traditionally keep large numbers of cattle. The cattle population here is among the highest in Orissa and India. During lean years, peasants compensate the loss from agriculture by selling two or three head of cattle. This is about the only insurance they have. Consequently, the decline of the species has battered their fragile economy.
The mass castrations destroyed the Khariar bull. In 1980—before the scheme had fully blossomed —the Kalahandi District Gazetteer had noted the calibre of this species. It recorded that ‘if properly maintained, a cow of this breed is capable of yielding four to five litres of milk per day. This breed was selected for research by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).’
Locals wonder why the Khariar bull has vanished. The fact that the cows and bullocks these days are very small also puzzles them. The number of cattle is not increasing the way it used to. Quality has suffered badly.
‘I have five cows and I buy milk daily from the market,’ laughs Bishwamber Joshi. ‘And I doubt if there is a single decent ox in the whole block now. Several one-time surplus milk producers suffered enormously and are now milk buyers.’ In 1977-78, pure ghee was actually cheaper than Dalda in Komna and Khariar. Ghee cost just Rs. 7 a kg against Rs. 9 a kg for Dalda.
‘The Khariar bull is almost extinct,’ confirms Dr Maheshwar Satpathy, the veterinary surgeon at Khariar Road. Dr Satpathy says specimens of the old type may still exist outside Kalahandi. But there is ‘definitely a decline in the quality of Khariar cattle as a whole’. For years prior to this, cattlebreeders from other parts of Orissa used to come here to buy Khariar bulls. They were popular as studs and helped improve breeds elsewhere. Now they do not exist.
The Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha has tried to assess the damage. Their estimate: in Komna block alone, the loss of cattle during the last ten or twelve years has been to the tune of Rs. 30 lakhs a year. Bishwamber Joshi believes the decline of cattle wealth has spurred further migrations from the region.
~~Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts -by- P. Sainath
No comments:
Post a Comment