Kora Tribe: The People Of
Their Land
This article portrays the daily experiences and challenges of Koras, an agrarian tribal community living in the Dangapara village, situated under the Bolpur subdivision and Birbhum district, West Bengal, India. Although the exact time of their migration to this particular land could not be ascertained by them it was revealed that a group of people was induced to come to Birbhum for their subsistence pattern, from Ranchi, under the state of Jharkhand, as migrant laborers as they were well- known for their traditional skills in various earthworks such as cutting soil, digging tanks and agricultural laboring. Later many of them started settling here far from the main district area, at the Kopai river basin, which was a great source of water and agricultural need among the community members. Now they are living by managing their own traditional identity as an agrarian community of the place. They are living within their own hamlet “Korapara” with 37 households along with other 4 caste and tribal hamlets in the Dangapara village.
The Kora, a
Dravidian ethnic group found mainly in many districts of Odisha, Jharkhand, and
West Bengal. They are also known as Kuda, Kura, Kaora, Khaira, Khayra, Dhangar,
Dhanger, and many more given different places. There is a great deal of controversy
regarding the ethnic and linguistic affiliation and the history of migration of
this tribal community. Although it is speculated that they are an offshoot of the
Munda tribe and have been identified as a Scheduled Tribe of India. The tribe's
name Kora and its alternate spellings possibly originated from the Mundari word
"Khoda" which means “digging the earth” and this is what their
journey starts with.
Most of the Koras do
not have their land. They do serve as laborers under the Mahajan or landlords of
their village and have their way of managing livelihood with them. Few of the
female members go outside for seasonal labor or other services but male members
do if they have the opportunity. Most of the female members do engage
themselves with agricultural laboring and hold various household services.
As agricultural laborers,
their working time is from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and then from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. They
come home only for 2 hours to have their lunch. They always try to be very
honest, they love their occupation and complete their duties with honesty. They
mainly work at rice fields and potato fields and do all the agricultural work
like cleaning the weeds from the land to make that appropriate for the
agricultural activity, making seed beds, planting seeds, making the way of
supplying water on the field, et. In April, they usually clean the land with their
co-workers by using iron-made sickle (Datrom). After cutting the weeds they clean
those weeds from the ground. Then makes the land for planting seeds and also plants
the seeds of rice by spreading those seeds onto the seedbed. After 1 month when
the rain falls starts during the month of May-June, they pick up the saplings
and took care of them Then after some days, they plant the saplings followed by
a line by giving a small space between each sapling and take care of 3 months
till the plants provide grains. When the grains become mature, they cut the
plants and keep them on the field for soaking in the sun heat. After some days
the crops are tied up into bundles. Then the bundles are stored in their nearest
store. Then they bolt the rice crops, collect rice grains and boil those grains.
Even they spread the boiled rice grains to soak the sun heat and to be prepared
for going to the mill. They have their bullock carts which help them to
transport the grains they make ready to sell. They usually use an iron-made Plough,
Hoe, Big Knife, Crowbar, Kaaste, Axe, Hand tractor, Hand Hoe, and Ladder as
their agricultural tools.
But after all
these responsibilities, they receive only Rs.200 per day, which is not
sufficient for them to take care of their children, satisfy their basic family
needs, buy the iron-made tools that are required for them to use in the fields,
and ultimately to live a sustainable life, to satisfy their basic needs from
the present high priced globalized markets. For this reason, most of them have
cows, goats, and chickens as a source of their sustenance and extra earnings. Despite
having critical losses in terms of their service they provide labor to the landlords,
but they still engaged themselves with their land in forms of either agriculture,
agricultural labor, day labor, or by serving in the brickfields seasonally.
‘The seed they have originated from, the identity they have preserved by and the subsistence they are growing through, is the land, the lifeline of Kora people...
The development of
techno-economic aspects in the village shows some interesting features. Since most
of the villagers are agriculturalists, many among them were found to use the
threshing machine, spray machine, insecticides, seeds of high-yielding
varieties, and use of shallow-pump for irrigation. It was found that they sell
the crops in the retail markets in Bolpur, Illambazar, etc., at the price fixed
up by the government. So, the villagers are getting exposure to the market
economy. But along with this while the machine laborer is increasing for being
easy, beneficial for time, money a high
demand, these people are actually in the stage of crucial fear of losing their
manual labor, lose their traditional earth workings, which they are specialize
of and engaging to decide getting involved to other possible services. The
influence of outsiders making them out of their traditional agrarian practices,
sometimes offering them for trafficking and violent activities to earn more and
seducing them for the hard employment, to some extent exploiting their money or
land or little capital with the promise that they can earn more money, can have
a better life, which is a fake promise to make them a member of the mainstream modernized
society. So they need governmental or other organizational support to
understand these challenges they face, the traditional experiences that they
all want to carry on and to help them accordingly so that they can live a
sustainable and happy life.
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