Enacting simmered rural realities

While growing up in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, Amar Marawi dreamt of making a name for himself through his passion for music. In April 2013, when he heard that a local mobile news network, CGNet Swara, was recruiting artistes, he enthusiastically applied and there has been “no turning back” since then.

As the lead singer, the 34-year-old has travelled extensively to the interiors of the country, disseminating the message of how tribals can stand for themselves and how city dwellers can help them.

Dressed in traditional Gondi attire, a trio consisting of Ramdai, Rambati and Sruti dance to the tunes of harmonium and dholak played by Marawi and his troupe, while narrating stories of the tribals from the central Gondwana region (which comprises portions of Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra).

Highlighting issues of lack of civic amenities including water, electricity, and absence of teachers in schools, the narrative followed an urban dweller’s visit to the tribal land. Titled Ek Tha Shehri, the 45-minute musical play at Management Design Institute (MDI), Gurgaon emphasised the irony of a nation that has “found water on Mars and moon but cannot ensure safe drinking water for its own citizens”. 

Prof Rohit Prasad has travelled with the theatre group in the early part of the year as part of his research on use of information and communication technologies in the remote areas of Chhattisgarh. He states that the artistes reach out to the people in remote areas and inform them about the available government facilities, the way to avail those, and if the attempts fail (due to corruption or red tape) then how to make their grievances heard.

“They are taught how to use the CGNet mobile phone news network, record the grievances of the tribals and upload it on the internet,” he says.

“After it is uploaded, it goes to a set of urban activists who can look through and can take up the matter directly with the authorities concerned,” he adds.

Empowered with tools like theatre, puppetry, music and dance, these tribals recently went to Mumbai, which was their first trip to a “metropolitan city”. One of the performers, Ramdai says, “It is necessary to communicate with the locals in our Gondi language because we (tribals) will be finished if we don’t practice our rights and profess our culture.”

Espousing this message, journalist and CGNet founder Shubhransh Choudhary says his initiative targets the Naxal infested areas which are out of bound for the state administration.

“We came up with the musical play to reach out to many such communities while enabling news to take a bottoms-up approach. The idea is to tell city people that they can help solve simple problems of rural people by using their mobile and internet: ‘One phone a day, keep problems away’,” he says.

India’s biggest internal security problem can be addressed only through bringing these locals to address more people, he feels. “And if the city dwellers can take up these issues with the authorities, the adivasis will not be driven to take up guns,” says Choudhary.