Seasoned Custodian of the Forests

For 25 years now, Jamuna Tudu has been taking on the jungle mafia of Jharkhand. The 42-yearold has built an army of 10,000 women, armed with bamboo sticks, spears, and bows and arrows, who patrol the forests. For this, she is lovingly called Lady Tarzan by the locals. In 2019, the government awarded her the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, for social work.

“Growing up, we used to help our father in his farm. I was fascinated by watching the plants grow and used to love playing with animals. Nature was an integral part of our lives,” says Tudu.

So when she moved from Odisha to Muturkham in Jharkhand, 100 kms away, Tudu was shocked looking at the rampant deforestation. The day after her wedding, her in-laws took her to

She found herself surrounded by tree stumps. She resolved to do something about it.

Tudu and four other women confronted the timber mafia who had been illegally felling the sal and teak trees. “Many villagers shared my concern, but very few came forward to support us, either because of the fear of the mafia or social boundaries that women were subject to,” she says. The five women formed the Van

Suraksha Samiti (Forest Protection Council) in 1998. They would go into the forest to keep vigil and openly challenge the mafia. The mafia responded with physical violence and death threats.

But that did not stop them. “Slowly, other members of the community also came forward,” says Tudu. Since then, she has helped create and strengthen over 400 such forest protection councils.

In addition to patrolling, even at night, they undertake plantation drives to restore degraded forest areas. The councils are also a medium to liberate women from oppressive social constructs. “If women rise up, the entire village will wake up,” Tudu believes.

She has inspired women in Muturkham to plant 18 trees when a girl is born and 10 when a woman gets married.

It’s the love and reverence for nature, which she learned from her father, that drives her. “Even today, I make time to go to the forest… I believe that since all of us benefit from nature in some form, all of us also have a responsibility to take action, in whatever capacity we can,” she says.