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Catholic chief’s green vision protects land from drought
Published : October 07 2009
BERO, India : When drought led to the looting of government food stores in Jharkhand earlier this year, some villagers were thanking an illiterate Catholic tribal chieftain for helping them avoid the crisis.
For the past 50 years, Simon Oraon, 72, popularly known as “Baba” (father), has taught 51 villages in the Bero area to protect their environment using various means.
When this year’s drought turned much of Jharkhand into a wasteland, the Bero area in the state’s Ranchi district was an exception.
“Baba’s 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of farmland stood in stark contrast,” Vidya Bhushan Kumar, a local government official, told UCA News.
Elsewhere the drought forced many to commit suicide, but the Bero people enjoyed a “golden harvest,” he said.
Oraon has no formal education or technical training but used his “great native intelligence” to tame rivers and streams and use water during the monsoon season, Kuma said.
Every year, the tribal chieftain plants more than 1,000 trees, a mission he began in 1960 on his 4,000 square meters of ancestral land. As time went on, neighbors saw how his methods had helped conserve rainwater and allowed him to plant trees on their lands.
“Baba has built three dams, five ponds and three canals that converted vast stretches of barren land into cultivable farm land,” Kumar said.
Father Augustine Kerketta, a Bero native and a Ranchi archdiocesan priest, is another admirer of Oraon.
“Baba works selflessly to encourage people to live in harmony with nature,” the priest told UCA News.
Oraon’s knowledge of nature as well as his leadership skills have won him the respect of Hindus, Muslims and various tribal groups in the state, said Father Kerketta. Oraon has been elected Parha Raja (tribal chieftain) without interruption since 1964.
He is also the only Christian tribal chieftain in the state, Father Kerketta says, and his popularity has indirectly helped evangelization and earned good will for Christians.
Visitors to Oraon’s house are first struck by the sight of a prominent crucifix. Pictures of Jesus, Mary, the Holy Family and Blessed Teresa of Kolkata also adorn his house along with certificates of honors he has received over the years.
Oraon says he inherited his environmental skills from his parents and elders.
“Big people come to see my work. They call me ‘engineer,’ but I am not an engineer. I am an illiterate man," he said.
He had launched a people’s movement to fight deforestation as head of Khaski Toli village due to experiences in his childhood. “As a small boy I had seen trees in our forests cut and carted away in trucks. Later, I understood the importance of forests in our lives,” he explained.
He said by 1960, vast areas of forest had disappeared and he decided to
call a meeting in his village. He spread his movement to other villages after he became chieftain in the Bero area.
"With great struggle we managed to stop deforestation and launched the re-forestation movement,” Oraon said.
He added that their biggest challenge came in 1978 when the forest department sold trees to a contractor and villagers fought back, using bows and arrows to protect the forest.
The contractor then tried another trick. He got permission to collect stones from the forest but clandestinely started felling trees. The vigilant villagers, however, caught them and punished them and the tree-fellers never returned.
These days, forest protection is a more organized affair and the villagers now have committees to protect forests.
Somra Oraon (no relation), who donated a plot of land for a dam, said he is happy to be part of the Catholic chieftain’s mission.
“Thanks to our Parha Raja, we are living a happy life today,” he told UCA News. He says the sacrifice of 8,000 square meters of land has made the rest of his land cultivable.
Luisa Kachhap, a Catholic tribal woman, donated 1.6 hectares of land. “We are happy thousands of acres of land are being irrigated today," she said.
Courtesy : UCAN
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