NEW DELHI: Pramila Pradhan led a normal life in her eastern Indian village, managing household chores and occasionally performing devotional songs for the community. But two years ago, everything changed when forest officials placed her at the forefront of efforts to revive a 15th-century musical tradition — a new tool in preventing wildfires.
Keonjhar district in Odisha state, where Pradhan lives, is an ecologically sensitive region with vast stretches of tropical forests, where most trees shed their leaves during the dry months, making the area highly prone to forest fires.
Many of the fires have been caused by human activity, as people burned leaves to collect fruit, medicinal plants and other produce crucial for rural livelihoods, and believed that burning the soil made it more fertile. But the fires have instead for years threatened the region’s rich biodiversity — including tigers, elephants, sloth bears, and barking deer — and degraded forest ecosystems.
To create awareness against the practice, district officials engaged women like Pradhan to revive the practice of sankirtan mandalis — devotional song-and-dance troupes — and spread the message.
“I was part of a religious group spreading religious messages. I used to move around with that group from one village to another. After joining the awareness campaign, my focus is now on spreading the message about forest fires,” Pradhan, a 32-year-old mother of two, told Arab News.
