Looking for greener pastures

For the Toda people living in the upper Nilgiri plateau in Tamil Nadu, the growing forest cover—a cause for celebration anywhere else in the world—is not good news. As traditional pastoralists, wide open grasslands as far as the eye can see are their home. Without the grasslands, there are no buffaloes. As Killdass Kuttan, a Toda herder, succinctly summarises, “If there are no buffaloes, then there are no Todas.”

The community has worshipped buffaloes for centuries, even separating the herd into sacred and regular buffaloes. Killdass adds, “In our temples there has to be a sacred buffalo, and the milk of that buffalo is not used for anything else other than rituals. Once the sacred buffalo dies, the temple is closed for good.”

Traditionally, the Todas grew few things and relied heavily on trading their dairy products with the five other tribes in the region. “Earlier, Todas did not know how to farm, they only knew to rear buffaloes,” says Peetagarai, an elder Toda tribesman. Buffalo milk and milk products formed the basis of their entire economy and for many in the tribe, life used to be as simple as melting butter at home and selling the ghee for whatever they needed. 

Now, the Todas face an uncertain future as they battle unplanned afforestation, which has inadvertently resulted in greater conflicts with displaced wild animals. Buffalo numbers were already falling before this, leading to serious concerns among the Todas about the future of their culture.

“Our whole lives are intertwined with the buffaloes. Without them, our entire culture will disappear,” adds Peetagarai.

Native Picture is a content partner for #groundupstories on IDR. You can watch a short video on about the experiences of the Toda community here. Read the original story here and more from Native Picture here.

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