Jharkhand News: No animal hunting during Sendra festival in Dalma Hills

KUMUD JENAMANI

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Jamshedpur, April 25: With the tribal festival, Sendra, just 10 days away, the forest department held a meeting with the functionaries of Dalmaburu Sendra Samiti at Jamshedpur on Friday, seeking cooperation from the latter as to how could minimum ‘harm’ be inflicted to the wild animals on that auspicious day.

Sendra festival, better known as Vishu Sikar festival which is scheduled to be held on May 5 assumes significance this year because there is a tiger living in the sprawling Dalma Hills where the tribals tend to go on hunting the wild animals while following rituals of the festival.

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Traditional Hunting Poses Challenge for Wildlife Conservation

In the Sendra festival, separate groups of tribals throng to Dalma Hills from faraway places carrying their traditional weapons a day before festival. Early morning of the festival day, they perform some puja ritual and subsequently go on a hunting spree for the whole day.  By the evening, the participants, hundreds in number, return back to their houses, with the carcasses of the hunted animals, which include deer, mongoose and wild boar.

As the Sendra festival used to be observed around this period every year, the hills continued to get bereft of the animals, posing a great challenge before the forest department which use to make every possible effort to prevent the hunting in the name of Sendra.

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Samiti’s Shift Towards Ritual-Only Observance Welcomed

Fortunately, good sense prevailed among the functionaries of the Dalmaburu Sendra Samiti, the outfit which organises the Sendra, deciding to restrict the festival to the Sendra Puja ritual only. And positive change came following incessant efforts by the forest department carried out over the past couple of years.

Under the changed circumstances, a very small number of participants do turn up on the Sendra day and return back home just performing the Sendra Puja ritual.

At the meeting between the forest department officials and Dalmaburu Sendra Samiti today, the Samiti’s president Rakesh Hembram has assured the Dalma West ranger, Dinesh Chandra that no wild animal will be hunted during the Sendra festival this year also.

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Hembram also urged the ranger to keep the forest department machineries posted across Dalma to ensure that no animal is killed.

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“As a matter of fact, participants come from various routes into the sprawling Dalma and carry out the hunting, knowingly or unknowingly. Therefore, the forest department must remain vigilant against any killing,” Hembram said at the meeting which was held at his residential premises in Govindpur and attended also by the Dalma East ranger Arpana Chandra besides about a dozen forest guards.

Hembram Clarifies True Meaning of Sendra

Significantly, while fledgling his support for the cause of conservation of wild animals, Hembram revealed the actual meaning of Sendra.

“A wrong conception has developed with the term ‘Sendra.’  Sendra means not killing or hunting. As per our ancestors, on the day of Sendra, participants used to gather knowledge about the jungle life. On this occasion, the seniors would share their knowledge about how to grow foodgrains in the forest, how to use various kinds of herbs available in the jungle and of course, how to save oneself from the wild animals. It is not at all about killing any wild animal,” Hembram elaborated while speaking on the occasion.

Ranger Dinesh Chandra while addressing the gathering, said that the distinct change in the mindset of the Dalmaburu Sendra Samiti is a wonderful thing to happen, adding that this is the reason that now big cat has also started living in Dalma.