Murli was one of my closest friends. He was from the Kuruba tribe that once inhabited the jungles of Karnataka. He was a hero to his clan for he was part of a forgotten people. He was one of the few links left that this world had with the past, yet all through his life India had no idea that he lived. He died a few years ago and India’s link with her 10,000 year old golden past was severed forever, but nobody cared. Little wonder that he was buried with all tribal dignity, without the least of fuss, sans any pomp or splendour.

Murli was the chief of the Kuruba clan that settled near our house in Mangala village, next to Bandipur. I met him many moons ago and became his close friend and ally through the decades that we spent in the bush together. Through the first few years of our friendship, he would take his clan from one camp site to another, moving every three to four days making sure they stay clear from disease. Like the Masai of East Africa, even Murli’s clan was nomadic. They had lived off the forest and like their neighbours the elephants; not having the privilege of knowing how to write, passed on information required to survive in the wilds by verbal communication.
Thousands of years of experience and knowledge had filtered down from one generation to another and rested with him. He was his own doctor and had known where the animals moved, how to avoid the dangerous ones and kill the edible ones. He was a master at surviving off the land. He knew no other way.
When I met the clan, they had no clothes and so wore nothing but the odd rag around their loins. The women walked around without any inhibition, their breasts swinging to the rhythm of the sun. As long as the clan remained nomadic and as long it was just my wife and I that visited them, the clan paid no attention whatsoever to their own nudity. But the moment they were forced to settle down into the rehabilitation village, where funds were required at all times to make two ends meet, problems started to multiply faster than they could be solved.
Now, instead of having the freedom of the infinite jungles to feed from, they would have to buy their provisions. To buy something they needed money. To earn this, they would either have to sell something or work. Sadly they knew neither. Selling wood, game meat and forest produce had been outlawed and so they had nothing to sell. Having lived the life of a proud and free people, they had never known how to work.
Murli forever rued the day when, for no fault of theirs, they were thrown out of the forest and found themselves trying to survive in a society corrupt in mind, body and soul. Where earlier they were ruled by a benevolent monarch, they never met him so never really had any proof of his benevolence but they had no reason for doubt for he never took anything away from them, now they were ruled by a ruthless king called the politician. They knew him for every few years he would come and offer money and liquor to get their votes and then they would be forgotten. Though he knew the new order thrived on dividing people in order to garner votes, he was beyond caring. His people were too poor to care.
The lewdness of urban society changed the clan forever. Unknown diseases wracked their ilk and not having the confidence to visit hospitals they fell to every fever for age old jungle medication of Murli’s had no cure for these deadly urban diseases.
No sooner that his people settled down they came in contact with an alien society where the women covered their bodies. It took the tribal some time to understand that hiding, something made it more desirable.
Soon a few women started to wear a blouse and sari like the village damsels and learnt that a mere glimpse of flesh hidden behind revealing blouses would drive urban man wild with desire. It was a desire that enabled a few of them to make quick money. For now, finally, they had something to sell without stealing. Venereal disease, apart from other ills, killed many.
The Jarawas in the Andaman Islands, much like the Kurubas of the past, see no harm in nudity. And I don’t blame them. How can these simple, yet beautiful, people of the deep jungles ever hope to comprehend the many corruptions that plague our developed society? But sadly the same fate that happened to Murli’s clan will befall them for India is on a roll. She is trying to achieve the status of a developed country and in this journey everything is permitted. As long as we have development, Indians can be split wide open by caste and religious divide, they can be killed randomly and abused for after all what’s a few lives in a population of over a billion when compared to the development of a progressive state.
Whilst the rich and powerful get richer, the tribals of our country desperately try to come to terms with the sheer magnificence of “pure-corruption” in a developed society. Having journeyed with the rich, powerful and famous and having walked my India with the tribal, knowing that the judiciary is working overtime to level the playing field, if I was given the choice of being born again, I would choose to be a tribal. My India is too beautiful a country and I would rather be abused than abuse her.
Today, I sit with Murli’s progeny and lament how a wealthy, beautiful and free people were reduced to miserable poverty and for what? I hope someone in Delhi can answer this question for Murli. He is long dead and his family lives in their village awaiting a life with hope as their only support.
They don’t know that a draconian law is being proposed that will stop development within five kilometres of a national park. Draconian because there is barely any development existing in these long forgotten places and hardly any work in the immediate area for these people to earn legitimate revenues. Draconian because the poor tribals of our country don’t have a voice and are expendable in the scheme of the rich. Draconian because the lost people of India will remain forgotten — forever.