Several small streams, channels of flowing water and rivulets drain to constitute one larger and broader mainstem stream in the form of a river. The drainage or catchment of a river becomes a significant area where the dynamic interaction between two vital natural resources that make life possible on earth—soil and water—take place. The interface of soil and water has provided human communities with a productive potential for harnessing these natural resources, which took the form of managing traditional irrigation and cultivation systems for food production. Further, these repositories of knowledge ensured a minimum, yet reliable, yield supporting the subsistence needs of cultivators, sometimes under the vagaries of the weather. This process of purposive manipulation of biota to produce food for human sustenance is often associated with agriculture.
The following case study explores the dynamics between soil and water in the Matkuli village of the Satpura hills by looking at 1) Dangarwari practised on the common lands of the Denwa riverbed; and 2) rainfed crops that are grown on slopes of hills—Pahari Kheti—in the surrounding area that falls under the river’s watershed. I conducted several interviews with the region’s inhabitants, including fisherfolk and Adivasi communities, to learn about the traditional agricultural practices and how a perennial source of a flowing river system provides essential ecosystem services to subsistence practitioners. Moreover, the case study would help us see the conjoined narratives of the environment and traditional knowledge of local communities in the highlands of central India.
Dangarwari cultivation in the Satpura hills
Satpura is a collective term referring to a series of mountains parallel to the Vindhya Range in the central part of the Indian subcontinent. Numerous streams and rivers originate in the region and flow westwards, prominent among which is the Narmada, which meets the Arabian Sea. Rainfall is a major water source in peninsular India, and the Satpuran deciduous forest ecosystem plays a vital role in maintaining the hydrological and biogeochemical cycles.
Spells of rainfall on the dry, stony, and coarse soiled (ककड़ीली पत्थरीली, kakdeeli-pathreeli) landscape during monsoon create gradients that let small streamlets and brooks flow from the hill slopes. The flowing water cuts channels on the surface of the highlands, which gradually allow the formation of river courses and valleys over time. In this region, several communities depend on the river for their livelihoods in places such as Matkuli, among whom the Kahaar-Baraua community is prominent. Matkuli is a small village that falls in the downstream catchment of the Denwa River that originates from the Satpura highlands. These communities are traditional fisherfolk who practise Dangarwari (डंगरवाड़ी) cultivation on the common riverbed lands during the post-monsoon months. The unique form of cultivation includes growing Cucurbitaceous and other crops such as dangra (डंगरा, muskmelon), kalinde (कलिन्दे, watermelon), kakdi (ककड़ी, cucumber), lowki (लौकी, bottle gourd), tinde (टिंडे, indian round gourd), karela (करेला, bitter gourd), bhate (भटे, brinjal) and tamatar (टमाटर, tomatoes) among others (Shankar*, personal communication, October 2022).
During monsoons, rainwater replenishes small streams (झोड़े–नाले, jhore–naale) that carry along mud, sand, leaves and other forms of matter – that constitute alluvium deposits (कप्पो, kappo) – to the riverbed and floodplain (Bansi, personal communication, December 2022). As the water recedes, the floodplains and the riverbed become exposed, and the first seeds of Dangarwari crops are sown during the Poos-Maagh months (December-January).
The alluvium sediments (कप्पो, kappo) wash away from the forested landscape and are deposited on the riverbed, providing fertile grounds for growing the crops (Ibid). However, not all crops are suitable for this kind of cultivation. The fact that plants of the gourd family have a long tap root system makes them perfect crops to be grown in this form of recessional agriculture on the riverbed. The crops take around three months to ripen during Chaitra-Baisakh (roughly March, April and May).
Figure 1. Dangarwari field
Until harvest, the whole family temporarily resides on the riverbed to look after their Dangarwari fields and protect them from wild animals that inhabit the surrounding forest areas, such as monkeys, boars, chitals, and sambars, among others (Ghanshyam, personal communication, December 2022). Women play a pivotal role during the whole Dangarwari process. They do most of the work, from collecting fallen leaves, twigs and branches for fuelwood (murgatha, मूढगटठा) to tending the crop and selling the produce in the weekly market (हाट बाजार, haat bazaar). Children also help their parents to look after the crops and do other household chores during these four months on the riverbed. After the harvest, most people take up different kinds of work. Some sell seasonal fruits and vegetables, while others migrate to nearby towns to work as daily wage labourers in construction sites, mills, and small-scale brick kiln factories. (Narayan, personal communication, December 2022; Shankar, November 2022).
Figure 2. Huts on the floodplains during summer
Being landless farmers, the cultivators heavily depend on the crops’ yield to sustain themselves through a substantial part of the year (Shankar, personal communication, October 2022). This is why Dangarwaris have become essential for household income generation, enhancing food security and nutrition levels among landless subsistence communities. Other activities alongside Dangarwaris include small-time fishing (Bansi, personal communication, December 2022). However, the risk associated with such traditional agricultural practices, sometimes under the vagaries of the weather, renders their input and physical labour fruitless and in vain. This often takes the form of floods (पूर, poor); being a mountain river, Denwa is prone to periodic flash floods, which was the case the year before the last one, devastating many Dangarwaris (Rajesh, personal communication, June 2022).
Farming on the rugged hill slopes
As agriculture in the region is mainly rainfed, people have developed traditional techniques to conserve surface water, which is significant for irrigation purposes. Furthermore, people also cultivate singhare (सिंघाड़े, water caltrop) and fisheries in their field ponds (Hakke Dada, personal communication, October 2022). On the hills, the topsoil layer is thin, loose and stony (ककड़ा पथरा, kakra–pathra) (compared to the thick layer soil of the plains with relatively fewer rocks and boulders), which creates difficulty in the percolation of rainwater into the ground. The ecological constraints of the landscape make digging borewells and tubewells in hilly areas difficult due to the presence of rock and boulders (पत्थरा चट्टान, pathra chattaan) as well as because of the high cost associated with such activities (Puranlal, personal communication, October 2022; Hakke Dada, December 2022). However, the relative abundance of talaab (तालाब, ponds) and dabra (डबरा, tanks) in the area play a considerable role in conserving surface water, maintaining groundwater as well as helps prevent soil erosion (मिटटी कटाव, mitti katav) during poor (पूर, floods) (Hakke Dada, personal communication, December 2022; Shankar, December 2022).
Figure 3. Stratas of the soil
As a significant amount of soil, rich in biotic components (कप्पो, kappo), drains down and gets carried away along the river basin, the hilly region is left with stony, coarse, thin-layered soil (ककड़ा–पत्थरा, kakra–pathra) that does not prove to be very productive for agricultural purposes. In addition, the annual rainfall is also not regular for the last few years (Ghanshyam, personal communication, December 2022). In a region where drinking water is hard to come by, perennial surface water in streams and rivers is even more pertinent. Despite these difficulties, communities that include Adivasis, among others, have developed and adopted several traditional techniques to harvest rainwater by building ponds and small tanks to ensure the year-round water availability. This, in turn, helps maintain the overall water table levels (पिंजरा, pinjara), as has been observed (Hakke dada, personal communication, December 2022; Shankar, December 2022; Bansi, December 2022).
Figure 4: A Pond in the hills
Water shortage in the face of relatively less fertile soil and other ecological limitations makes it difficult for local communities to depend solely on agricultural produce for their family’s sustenance. This is why they include uncultivated forest produce in their food, such as mahua (महुआ), ber (बेर), aam (आम, mango), aavla (आँवला), amrood (अमरुद, guava), jamun (जामुन), (पौआर भाजी), among others, which meets their nutritional intakes (Hakke Dada, personal communication, December 2022). They also complement their subsistence practices by cultivating vegetables such as semi (सेमी, beans), torai (तोरई, gourds), bhatte (भटे, brinjals), kaddu (कद्दू , pumpkins), etc., in their kitchen gardens (बाड़ा, baada).
Moreover, vegetation cover is maintained in the fields by planting trees and shrubs on field edges (मेड़, maedh), which supports ‘column water.’ It has been seen that these kinds of practices hinder the fast flow of rainwater that is common in hilly regions and, therefore, helps prevent soil erosion (मिट्टी कटाव) (Ibid; Shankar, personal communication, December 2022).
The cultivation practices (riverbed, hillslope) show how challenging and demanding agriculture is in the highlands. Notwithstanding, people have devised novel ways through which traditional knowledge is passed on over generations to mitigate the ecological limits of physical geography. The agricultural practices in the watershed, such as Dangarwari, not only provide subsistence but also constitute spiritual and cultural links with the river for the fisherfolk and other communities, whom they call their mother (Shankar, personal communication, October 2022). The connection of the Kahaar-Barauas to the river and the more-than-human world is reflected in their traditional knowledge systems enmeshed in the local surroundings, which is also why they are apposite in playing an important role in conserving the river if they continue to practise their subsistence livelihood.
A little up in the watershed, in hill slope cultivation, people have developed traditional ways of water conservation that ensure the year-round availability of water for irrigation and other practices that help farmers and try to retain and maintain the natural cycles of the ecosystem at whatever level they could. It has been noticed that planting trees and shrubs in fields also helps alleviate the risk of soil erosion and the quick flow of water during rainfall (Shankar, personal communication, November 2022; Bansi, personal touch, November 2022). Such initiatives should be promoted so that the natural processes of a river basin can be retained, enabling the coexistence of humans, nonhumans and the larger natural world in the face of human-induced changes to the ecosystem.
