Bhojpuri, Bihari folk songs echo in Telangana paddy fields

ADILABAD: With a large number of farmhands from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Telangana to work as agricultural labourers, they bring with them their folk songs and lyrics that they invariably murmur while working in paddy fields.

Most of these Bihari and Bhojpuri songs revolve around themes such as farming, sowing, raising and cutting of crops and farmers’ attachment to the standing crops. Some other songs talk about the relationship between lovers while engaged in farming.

We have a tradition of women farmhands singing folk songs on various subjects including on feudalism while working in the fields in Telangana.

Telangana farmers have developed a relationship with agriculture labourers and small farmers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

We can find agriculture labourers from even Uttarakhand working in the paddy fields in Karimnagar district. It is found that agriculture labourers use some ‘Apps’ on their mobiles to measure the area to be planted with paddy as part of their agreement with the owner of the lands.

Sometimes, farmhands and small farmers come to Telangana after completing their agriculture operations in their areas.

Earlier, Telugu folk songs were heard during paddy plantations now the situation is gradually changing in rural areas with labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand states coming here to work in paddy fields.

Farmer Tirupati of Eggam village in Bhainsa mandal said they engaged agriculture labourers from Bihar for paddy plantation due to shortage of local labourers.

He said farmers and drivers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are also engaged in operating crushers for harvesting paddy.

Tirupati said a team of agriculture labourers from Bihar worked in agriculture operations in their area and they have been coming regularly during the season for last two years and they stay in their village from July to December.

He said labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh listen to their folk songs in Bihari and Bhojpuri languages playing on their cell phones without high volume and give encore to the tunes. Male labourers give encore when their female counterparts sing folk songs in their mother tongue and some other times male workers sing songs while plating paddy in the agriculture fields.