At sunrise, the courtyards of Mohuli village, an artisan hamlet in Dumka district of Jharkhand, resonate with the rhythmic rasping of dry bamboo being sliced. Buddhan Mohuli (65) sits cross-legged on a fraying jute sack, his toes gripping a curved blade. With each steady pull of his hand, a bamboo strip thins into fine, uniform threads. The village is known for a traditional bamboo slicing method using feet.

“We start around 4 am,” he says, eyes fixed on the strip. “By afternoon, the fingers stop listening.” A full day’s work earns him ₹100–₹200.

Similar scenes play out across other villages such as Kathikund, Ramgarh and Thengi More in Jharkhand. Senior artisans Gultan Mohuli and Khoda Mohuli  say that the foot-based slicing technique wastes almost nothing. The bamboo splits clean, yielding fine, flexible slivers that bend without breaking. Artisans learn to control these movements over the years, shaping the rhythm of the craft with their bodies before their hands fully master it.

“This kind of work can only be understood with the feet,” Arjun Mohuli, a senior artisan from Thengi More, explains.

The artisans make diverse bamboo products: large winnowing trays for sorting grains; flat trays to dry mahua flowers; big baskets to store vegetables; thick-rimmed baskets to carry heavy loads; and curved mats line kitchen shelves. Each object reveals deep traditional knowledge shaped over time.

Each demographic group in these villages is assigned a task — while elderly men split bamboo, women weave the herringbone patterns, and children gather shavings and straighten the strips. Bamboo craft here is not a hobby but a multi-generational labour system, sustained largely by men and women above the age of 50.

Fewer youth remain interested in it now. Better-paid work in towns or brick kilns pulls them away. “Young people don’t want to learn,” 70-year-old Buniya Devi says. “They prefer city jobs. This work demands too much labour and pays too little.”

Women artisans handle more responsibilities, such as splitting and drying strips, preparing rims and even selling the end products in local markets. Yet their work is rarely recorded as labour.

“We make the bamboo trays, but they take the money,” Jhumri Mohuli, a resident of Thengi More says, pointing to gendered divisions of labour in the craft. Men often transport and sell items in the haat.

Field interviews and household-level observations across the surveyed villages suggest that women carry out a majority of the weaving work.

Climate stress reshapes bamboo ecology

Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany at Santhal Pargana College, Dumka, Samuel Kisku, who studies vegetation patterns in the Santhal Pargana plateau, says bamboo clumps are showing signs of ecological stress. He points to the slow but visible shifts in weather.

The artisans have been noticing it too: The monsoon arriving late or with less rain; long dry spells that leave the soil thirsty; and a noticeable decline in moisture around old clumps of bamboo.

In several villages, people also report that bamboo culms are dying soon after flowering. The elders say that they have not observed this so frequently in the past. “Regeneration cycles that used to be three to four years are now stretching to six or more,” Samuel Kisku says. “Culms are thinner, and density is dropping.”

This forces the artisans to walk farther into forests to find culms thick enough for splitting. They often return empty-handed during dry months.

Shaket Kashyap, the Van Rakshi or beat-in-charge at Kathikund block in Dumka district, has been observing changes in the bamboo groves across the range. “Many clumps are now ‘choked’ — their bases hardened by compact soil that stops rainwater from seeping in,” he says. Old and over-mature culms stand tightly packed, blocking new shoots from emerging. With the soil retaining less moisture than before, the younger culms struggle to grow. The pressure increases further when villagers harvest heavily during the lean season, leaving the weakened clumps with little chance to recover.

His team experimented with basal soil loosening, removal of dead culms, and circular trenches, which improved regeneration. But these interventions are “too small and scattered” to make district-level impact, he says. Without structured bamboo management, Kashyap says, the craft economy will feel the shock first.

Raw material scarcity increases pressure

Mukhiya Devi, a bamboo artisan in Thengi More, explains that earlier, bamboo for one family’s annual needs could be collected within a kilometre. Now, they walk three to five kilometres, especially in dry seasons.

To maintain production and meet household needs, families often cut younger culms, further slowing regeneration.

The cycle is simple but devastating. Low earnings push families to cut more bamboo just to survive. The over-extraction leaves clumps too weak to regenerate. As bamboo grows scarcer, incomes fall even further, trapping artisans in a loop they cannot escape.

A survey of 10 weekly haat (markets) across Pakur district, Ramgarh block in Dumka district, and Godda district shows a stark imbalance between artisan earnings and final market prices. For instance, a small winnowing tray, which takes hours to prepare, earns an artisan barely ₹30–₹40. A medium soop can fetch ₹100–₹120, while a large two-handle basket rarely crosses ₹200.

But when these items reach the haats, they are sold at higher prices. Vendors sell the small soop for ₹70–₹90, the medium ones for ₹130–₹150, and the large baskets for ₹230–₹260. The artisans who shape the bamboo earn the least, while middlemen make better margins.

Middlemen continue to earn far more than the artisans themselves. Across the surveyed haats, the price difference shows that traders often take 30–40% of the final value. “We make the product, but someone else makes the money,” says Arjun Mohuli of Luthur Mohuli village. This imbalance sits at the heart of the bamboo economy.

Households share workload

Children play a quiet but essential role in keeping the craft alive. They split thin strips, straighten fibres, weave small pieces and even help gather raw bamboo. Girls between 10 and 14 weave alongside their mothers, while boys learn slicing techniques with their feet, copying older men. Families describe it as “helping with home work,” but these unpaid contributions reveal how low incomes force households to share the workload.

The exodus of youth is another concern. In Thengi More, teenage boys say that the craft offers no future and that the seasonal labour outside the village brings daily wages of ₹350–₹400, far more than bamboo weaving can match. Over 65% of young men in the visited settlements migrate each season. As a result, the craft is increasingly held together by older artisans, raising the fear that the skill may fade before it can be passed on.

What keeps bamboo work alive, despite the low earnings, is its cultural weight. For Adivasi families, bamboo objects are woven into every part of life, from celebrations to business. Elders maintain that the work continues because it is part of who they are.

Across all the hamlets, families emphasised three urgent needs. They want fairer prices — an increase of even 30–40% in procurement rates would offer stability. They want easier access to raw bamboo through community-managed clumps or bamboo banks and better tools, especially slicing blades, which could significantly reduce physical strain for older artisans. “We carry a skilled craft in our hands, but hunger sits in our stomachs,” says Buddhan.

According to Kisku and Kashyap, strengthening the bamboo economy will require taking measures such as community-run bamboo plots, rotational harvesting, soil and moisture conservation around clumps, improved slicing tools, youth training programmes, direct artisan-to-consumer links, GI tagging for Mohuli bamboo work, and inclusion of bamboo craft in rural livelihood schemes. Even small interventions can raise incomes and reduce ecological pressure.

Read more: New Seeds Bill draft promises quality reform, critics question its farmer focus

The author is a biodiversity researcher, working as a Project Lead at Wild Food Forests (TPP, USA). The commentary draws from the author’s own experience during field work. 

Banner image: Bamboo crafts in the works in village courtyards. Image by Kulesh Bhandari.

Credits

Arathimenon Editor

Topics

EcologyEnvironmentIndigenous PeoplesIndigenous RightsVillagesJharkhand

See Topics