Bhopal: With 52 varieties of coarse grains in her repository, Phuljhariya Bai Kewatia, a Baiga tribe woman of Gaura Kanhari village under Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh, can be credited with running the ‘largest’ millet seed bank in the state.
A 16.07 minute-documentary, screened at the two-day tribal film festival held here recently, narrated how the millet seed bank in the state came into being, thus putting the spotlight on Phuljhariya, the second Baiga woman to set up a millet seed bank in the state.
“It is an all-women seed bank, established with the participation of the womenfolk in the village. Members of the bank borrow seeds from the bank and return twice the quantity of seeds they borrow after the harvest”, Phuljhariya tells the documentary maker Shivali Biswas.
After the harvest of the crops, the Baiga women in the village line up at the seed bank, run in Phuljhariya’s thatched house, on a fixed day, to deposit their seeds they had borrowed during the sowing period.
Phuljhariya came forward to take the responsibility of establishing a millet seed bank to ensure that no farmer in the village discontinue agriculture operation in an agriculture season owing to lack of seeds, when all such attempts by some men in the village have failed.
“When women can be good homemakers why can’t they be good bankers (of seed)?” Phuljhariya explains about his success in running the seed bank.
She says how millet is not only the staple food of Baigas but also the inseparable part of the tribal culture.
“Can you hear the beautiful music created from the crushing sound during the de-husking of kutki (finger millet) and also during the process of separation of grain from the husk by a plate made of bamboo?
We tribals sense music in all our works in day to day life. Music is as essential as food for a tribal”, she says while de-husking the kutki grains.
Kutki is the most delicious food among the millet grains and is highly nutritious, she says.
A Baiga woman takes cooked kutki and dal during her pregnancy, she adds.
Phuljhariya’s millet bank has around 15 varieties of kutki and 37 varieties of other millet seeds.
Leher Bai, another Baiga woman residing in Silperia village under Dindori district, had earlier caught the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for running a millet seed bank which has 32 varieties of millets.
