Why Chhattisgarh’s adivasi women are being nuts about Bastar Cashew

Dense forests, minerals, tribals, poverty, penury, Naxals, bloodbath, socially laggard, physically cut-off, economically backward — of the many words that pop into the mind at the mention of Bastar, these are just a few. What certainly doesn’t sound compatible with this region of Chhattisgarh is cashew.

Yet, over 150 adivasi women from nearby hamlets and towns make way every morning at 9 to the Kaju Prasanskaran Kendra (KPK) at Bakawand village, a 45-minute drive from Jagdalpur, Bastar’s district headquarters, just off National Highway 63 to work in an eight-hour shift for processing what the Chhattisgarh government is now aggressively marketing as Bastar Cashew.

At first glance, KPK may not look much. It’s just a unit of three buildings that from a distance appear like mid-sized godowns. However, even a brief probing halt here would reveal how this visibly spartan structure has, since mid-2020, become a symbol of self-reliance and enterprise for scores of tribal women of Bastar who now throng to the KPK for both full-time and part-time employment.

“The KPK was set up over a decade ago but it was only in July 2020 when the Chhattisgarh government decided to optimise its operation and turn it into a source of employment for tribal women from the Bastar region. Since the Covid pandemic had just begun around that time, all other activity had come to a standstill and because of the lockdown people of Bastar were suffering economically. The state government procured modern machinery, repaired the old KPK building and made some additions to it through MGNREGA and then we asked women from the villages in and around Bastar to come and work here so that they could make a living,” Abhinav Chandrakar, who oversees operations at the Bakawand KPK and is one of only three men working at the centre, told The Federal.

Chandrakar says the move was an instant hit and “at one point, we had over 250 adivasi women working here with several others still lining up for a job”. A little over three years later, the Bakawand KPK has, during harvest season (March to May), an average of 150 tribal women — now organised under a self-help group — under regular employment while another 100 or so work here part-time.

Together, the women process over 6,000 quintals of raw cashew (on average; the quantity varies from year to year and has, at times, crossed 10,000 quintals too), which is procured by the Chhattisgarh government from the over 15,000 hectare of cashew cultivation spread across Bastar and other parts of the state. Last year, the government had also revised the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for cashew to Rs 100-Rs 120 per kilogram, up from the previous rate of Rs 50 per kg.

Dr Hulas Pathak, professor at Raipur’s Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya’s department of agricultural economics, says cashew cultivation was not endemic to Chhattisgarh but began here in the late 1960s when the state was still part of Madhya Pradesh. “Some farmers tried cashew cultivation but it never picked up on an economically viable scale till a few years ago. Perhaps because a major chunk of cashew cultivation was in Bastar, which was also the hotbed of Naxalite activity, cashew processing as an industry did not take off as it should have but now, with the government showing both interest and intent, it is surely making impressive progress. In fact, some years ago, IGKV had also recommended as part of an economic study that cashew processing industry should be established in Bastar for promoting cultivation and production of cashew and awareness should be created among cashew farmers regarding high-yielding varieties of cashew and intercropping while the government should provide farmers technological support.”

Chandrakar says though KPK now has machines for processing cashew, the Bakawand operation still remains “largely labour intensive and to produce one finished or processed cashew, you need around four days”. Once the raw cashew is brought to the KPK, it is first graded as per its size. Then, the cashew is boiled and dried so that it can be cut and scooped out of its shell easily. The women then clean the cashew and pass it on for being dried again in special ovens. After this entire process, the cashew is graded once again, this time into 18 different categories, based on its size, the number of time one cashew has been broken — if it’s full or has been broken into halves, or if the halves have further been broken into one, two, three or more pieces.

Each grade has a different price and is used for different purposes, Chandrakar explained further, adding, “The best ones that are sold for the export market can fetch up to Rs 1,700 per kg while even the churi or tukda (tiny pieces) is sold in bulk to sweets manufacturers for making mithais like kaju katli... nothing from a cashew goes waste, we even collect the rinds once the cashew has been scooped out and sell it as it is rich in oil that is used in the paints and lubricants industry.”

While Chandrakar, a mechanical engineer by education, supervises work at the KPK and oversees administrative work like training of staff, stock inventory and procurement by the government, two other men — both tribals from Bastar — are employed to operate machinery. Besides these three men, the KPK is an all-women affair — and it has instilled in its workforce an infectious sense of purpose, self-respect and pride, besides making them financially independent.

Dhanwati, a 12th pass girl from Bastar who joined the KPK two years ago, told The Federal that working at the centre gave her a monthly income of about Rs 8,000 a month, a seemingly meagre amount but an impressive hike from the Rs 1,000 that she made from working odd jobs earlier. Given that there is no age bar for those working at KPK nor is educational qualification a yardstick for employment, the women working at the centre belong to a wide demography; some like Dhanwati who are around 19 years old and have had different levels of school education, and others, like Phulo Devi, who is uneducated and in her 60s.

Bela, like many others at the KPK, used to work as farm labour and make around Rs 1,500 per month, often even less. “I joined the KPK three years ago. Like all beginners at the centre, I used to cut cashew (the first process after boiling in which raw cashew is cut out from its shell). Now, I help in sorting. I make Rs 8,000 per month and if I want to do some other work after my shift here ends, I can still do it and earn more,” Bela told The Federal.

The success of the KPK, says Chandrakar, has encouraged private players in the cashew processing industry to also set up units in Bastar, which has increased employment avenues in this region where Naxalite violence had stalled all economic progress for the past several decades. “There are now three or four privately-owned cashew processing units in Bastar. Since the government has set the MSP of raw cashew at Rs 100 per kilo (up from Rs 50 per kilo before 2020), the private players can’t buy raw cashew from Bastar cultivators at a lesser price, which has also helped cultivators get more competitive rates. It has also increased employment because outsiders are still wary of coming to Bastar for work,” Chandrakar says.

Over the past year, the Bhupesh Baghel-led Chhattisgarh government, which is now seeking a fresh mandate in the ongoing assembly polls, has also diversified its cashew business. “It had started with processing the regular cashew and now we have another unit at Asana (15-minute drive from Bakawand) where we package Masala Cashew and Salted Cashew. Who knows, maybe in another year or so, we will also have Bastar Feni (an alcoholic drink made from the cashew fruit) just like the Goan Feni,” Chandrakar adds.