A Bunch of Wild Flowers and Other Articles

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This book by Amir Hasan is a collection of his essays, written from time to time, on tribal folk of Uttar Pradesh. Amir Hasan is not a professional anthropologist. However, as Officer-on-Special Duty (Tribal Welfare) attached to the Directorate of Harijan and Social Welfare, U.P. Government, he is familiar with the fortunes of these primitive people of the State. He has a wide knowledge of these people and affection for them which is reflected in his essays. These essays will thus be interesting and informative reading for laymen and professionals alike.

Amir Hasan, dedicated his life to the welfare of tribals. His interest was ignited when he was working as a research scholar of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research at the Central Fuel Institute, Jealgora, Dhanbad (Bihar) in 1953- 1954. This led to a long association with the tribals. Later, as a civil servant, he maintained a dedicated and productive association with the tribals and their welfare. His large collection of authored books is a result of his intensive live research.

Our earliest memories of our father, Dr. Amir Hasan (1929-92) are of an author at work. Every morning, we would find him diligently working on some article, paper or book chapter. An early riser, his writing work would be taken up after a walk and a spot of gardening He would be surrounded by reference books, loose sheets of paper and a tea tray precariously balanced in the midst of it all. One by one, we would wake up and troop to where our parents were having their morning tea. He welcomed us with a smile and read out parts of what he was working on. We were treated to beautifully worded narratives of Awadh, his experiences with the tribals of Tarai and on some rare occasions tribal folklore and also Awadhi shayari. All this was delivered in his deep mesmerizing voice which overrode the early morning chirping of birds and the whisper of breeze in the trees. The scents of the earth rose in the background from the plants he had watered when the rest were still asleep. We were given small proof-reading tasks in the summer vacations. We got to work after breakfast and competed with each other to complete our tasks. We were amateurs and perhaps our work yielded no real results but we learnt camaraderie, team work and we learnt to be proud of our ink-stained fingers. This was the nourishment we grew up on and this was the exposure that enriched our childhood and furnished us with a legacy for life. Our father did not teach us how to become authors. Through sharing his interests with us, he taught us a way of life. His writing was his hobby. He was a civil servant dedicated to the nation and his profession. By sharing his interests with us, he shared values, wisdom and notions of nobility.

Thanks to the study undertaken by anthropologists and sociologists, a good deal of interesting literature is coming out about the aboriginal tribes living in many parts of India. They are far away in jungles and in hilly tracts remote from railway stations. There were no roads and they were left to live in their own blissful isolation. There was a theory among some of the anthropologists that they must be left alone without being contaminated by the modern ideas of civilization and culture. They must be encouraged to preserve and foster their social customs, their diet and dress and their tribal sports and dances. There was also another contrary view among the sociologists that they must also be given the benefits of modern education, modern techniques of agriculture and take civilization to their doorsteps. Anyway, after Independence, a good deal of interest was shown in the tribal welfare by the various Governments and there was a good programme of commünications also so that they could come to the nearest towns for marketing their forest produce and for buying their requirements like kerosene, salt etc. Good many schools were also opened in those areas, thus imparting to them at least a local language. They were also encouraged to stick to certain line for their agricultural operations instead of their customary shifting cultivation. There was a perceptible change in the attitude adopted towards them. They were also given the right of voting; they come to the Legislatures and the Parliament and are trying to build up a new leadership among them.

I am indebted to editors of Pioneer (Lucknow), National Herald (Lucknow), Northern India Patrika (Allahabad), Social Welfare (New Delhi), See (New Delhi) and Smarika, a Souvenir to the Tribal People of U.P. (Lucknow) for publishing a large portion of the material used in this book in one form or another and permitting me to use them partly, wholly or in a revised form in this book.