Man’s passion for planting saplings in Bengal’s remote region draws attention

Every morning Dukhu Majhi, a resident of Sindri village in West Bengal’s Purulia district, goes out on his bicycle with two tin containers carrying some water and saplings. He pedals to plant the saplings mostly of fruit-bearing or shady trees such as banyan at places where he thinks there is a lack of shade and pedestrians may need some to avoid the scorching sun. It could be a school or a temple premises.

“I have seen my father planting saplings and been following his footsteps since I was a child. The saplings, when they finally grow into large trees, would provide us with shade and oxygen,” said Majhi, who is in his 70s.

Majhi, who lives in a thatched hut with his wife, two sons, and grandchildren and does odd jobs, tries to plant a sapling daily. “If all of us work like this, the world would be a better place. There would be a lot more shade and oxygen and we can live a healthy life,” said Majhi, who works as a daily wage labourer.

He would erect small fences of bamboo to protect the saplings from cattle. But poor villagers often took the bamboo to use as fuel at home, leaving the saplings unguarded.

“Then I came up with an idea. I started putting up the fence using burnt wooden logs or clothes discarded at crematoriums. Out of superstition, the villagers never touched them. The saplings remained protected.”

Majhi has planted thousands of trees in Purulia, Bengal’s westernmost district bordering Jharkhand, which is part of the Chota Nagpur plateau. The soil in the region is undulating and barren with a porous layer, which cannot retain water. The land remains mostly parched.

Filmmaker Somnath Mondal’s first documentary ‘Rukhu Matir Dukhu Majhi [Dukhu Majhi: Son of the barren land]” based on Majhi won the National Film Awards this year in the best biographical category.

Mondal, an alumnus of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India, said he met Majhi by chance in 2018 in Purulia. “I saw a sapling planted along the road and protected by half-burnt wood and torn cloth. Villagers told me that it was Majhi’s sapling. Everybody in Purulia’s Baghmundi block seemed to know him and his innovative way to save saplings.”

Mondal said forest officials and the local administration acknowledged Majhi’s work and gifted him with a bicycle. “He also has some certificates from the administration acknowledging his work.”

Mondal said Majhi told him the death of a tree is on the pen of a babu, meaning trees are cut whenever the district administration takes up development work.