People's Archive of Rural India

It’s ten years since PARI was officially launched on December 20, 2014. Our biggest achievement? We’re still here. A piece on PARI's evolution by @PSainath_org ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/pa…

ruralindiaonline.org/article/caste-… Dalit students routinely face brutal atrocities for their academic success, sporting victories and even love. Vengeful caste dominance still pervades educational institutions in Tamil Nadu.

For more than a decade, a lone elephant has been pacing the boundaries between the forest, village & farmland in #Mizoram ’s Mamit district. Read the story of the last elephant of Dampa? @PARInetwork ruralindiaonline.org/article/the-la…

ruralindiaonline.org/article/how-mo… Burning holes into bamboo flutes, ensuring the right tone and clarity, is a skill that many women like Mona practise in Pilibhit. But their wages are low and their labour goes unrecognised #paristories #craft #india

“Tiger killings, elephant attacks can draw compensation of some 20 lakhs. Even the Large Area Multipurpose Societies offer insurance policies covering serious accidents and health issues. But if you fall from a tree harvesting honey there is no insurance, no compensation.”

“There’s no one to help. In the morning I take myself out of this room and sit in the sun.”

“We’d go in the morning, within a 15-kilometre radius, to check the jenu gudu (beehives), come home, and return in the evening for honey collection.” Their earnings depended on the number and size of hives they found. They could collect up to 60-70 kilograms of honey on one trip

Arun learnt to climb trees and harvest honey by watching his friends. “In the beginning it was scary, but I got the hang of it. People usually march to the trees singing jenu kuyyo haadu [a honey gathering song]. I never learnt that song.”

Soliga Adivasis are traditional forest dwellers and skilled honey harvesters. They often climb tall trees inside forests to gather honey. Arun used to earn from harvesting honey. The season lasts for just five to six weeks between April and June.

ruralindiaonline.org/article/the-br… Arun Kumar, a young Soliga Adivasi suffers a crippling fall from a very tall tree in the Biligirirangana Hills of Karnataka while harvesting honey.

“I tried getting up after the fall. But I had hit the ground on my back and the pain was unbearable. My bones were broken. I just couldn’t move.” Arun fell from a tree 25 feet down to the ground while he was harvesting honey, badly injuring his spinal cord.

@PSainath_org at the 12th BG Verghese Memorial Lecture

The LPG crisis is a time to reflect on the haves and have nots of Indian society.

Indravati Jadhav from Nagpur cooked for years on an open wood and coal stove. Today, she has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease — restricted airways, chronic cough, damaged lungs. "My lungs have become useless by cooking food on the open stove." ruralindiaonline.org/article/in-the…

The fear of an LPG shortage is gripping India. Long queues of anxious customers outside refilling stations. But many Indians have never used LPG to cook, relying instead on dung cakes and firewood. These stories from our archives put it in context: #lpgcylindershortage

My father often tells me: 'You cannot work under the hot sun and on the hard ground like me. Study what you love. Don’t worry about the cost, pursue it. Get a good job.'

I ask my father why he chose this job. He tells me that he had worked in a leather factory for five-six years. Once that closed down, he worked in agriculture, but the income was too little. We have our own one-acre land, bought by our grandparents that we farm.

ruralindiaonline.org/article/drilli… #paristories K. Mukesh from the Government Model School in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu looks at his father’s life at the stone quarry through his lens