THE KING’S GUARD
Every year, thousands of Nepalis flood the Konkan. They live in and among the mango trees, guarding the precious fruit. Some bring wives and children too, to help keep away monkeys, birds and thieves
It’s a quarter past five. Fluffy clouds glide over a dense Alphonso orchard in Ratnagiri. The only sound is the breeze in the trees. Until a sudden, piercing shriek and the ruffling of leaves. The monkeys have arrived. The battle has begun. Standing 40 ft below the treeline, Narbahadur Vishwakarma, 65, takes position and aims his catapult. With one stone, the monkeys are silenced. Calm returns. The Alphonsos are safe, for now.
Narbahadur is one of nearly 70,000 migrants from Nepal who arrive in the Konkan every year to work as Rakhwaldars (Protectors) of the prized fruit. Their work begins when the first flowers bloom, and ends only when the last crate has been packed off to market.
Armed with catapults, rope, stones and a sickle, these workers spend about seven months a year in the coastal districts of Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. Most come from the hilly Kailali district of Nepal, nearly 2,000 km away, but just across the border with India.
Local farmers say the boom in the Alphonso mango business in the late 1990s drew the first batches of Nepali migrants around the turn of the century.
“By 2000, the Alphonso mango had become a prized commodity; the export market was growing, and farmers were willing to pay to protect the fruit from damage and theft,” says Vivek Bhide, president of the Konkan Mango Orchard Owners and Sellers Cooperative Association.
Before the boom, locals were employed to do the job. “But outward migration has grown,” says Ratnagiri district collector MN Kamble. “Youngsters choose to work in big cities instead of on the farms.”
“Locals also won’t live in the orchards as the Nepalis do. They are fearless,” says Madhukar Jadhav, sarpanch of Ratnagiri’s Roon village and a mango grower.
The Nepalis are also desperate, and make few demands — there is no insurance in case of injury, no minimum wage, rates are negotiable. If mangoes are damaged on a Rakhwaldar’s watch, the sum they were promised goes down.
The total cost of maintaining two Rakhwaldars (they usually work in pairs) ranges from ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh for a six-month season. “Over six months, one Nepali worker guards, picks and packs over 2,000 boxes of mangoes, which fetch more than ₹20 lakh on the market. So, payment of even ₹1 lakh is a good deal for the orchard owners,” says Bhide.
Senior Rakhwaldars act as agents. The orchard owner will call, usually in October, to discuss timelines and how many people are needed. “Based on the owner’s need, we bring along neighbours and relatives,” says Kiran Gharti, 32. Kiran has been coming to the Konkan for four years. In 2017, he brought along a cousin, 16-yearold Mahesh Gharti, to work as his partner. With the annual Kailali-to-Konkan journey drawing more and more Nepalis — there are no official numbers, but mango growers say there were fewer than 1,000 a year coming to the Konkan a decade ago, and about 70,000 today — private buses have begun to ply from Palia Kalan in Uttar Pradesh, on the India-Nepal border, to Pawas in Ratnagiri.
“Until about 10 years ago, the men would work individually on the farms. But that meant there was no time to cook and do chores, and they would end up spending a lot to buy food,” says Deepak Paradkar, a field executive with Aajeevika Bureau, an NGO working with labour migrants. “So, they began to bring the womenfolk or a younger relative along. The owners sensed opportunity for cheap labour, and offered the junior partner half the salary to work as Rakhwaldar, while the men graduated to picking, sorting and packing mangoes.”
This partnership, known as the jodi system, is widely practised across the Konkan today. The couple is paid 1.5 times what one Rakhwaldar would earn. Over the years, the conventional single male migration pattern has expanded to include families too. That way if one of the adults is unwell, one of the children can step in.
For the children, this annual shuttling means disrupted education. “The kids are usually between 6 and 10 years old. Parents approach us when they arrive and, based on their age, we allow them to attend classes,” says Mangesh Hatkar, a primary class teacher at the government-run school in Roon village. “We don’t add their names to attendance registers. We give them old textbooks and the daily meal. They usually leave by June.”
It’s a rough life even for the adults. There are no days off, and no real living conditions. Workers and their families live in makeshift shelters in the orchard — or up in a tree. Some are assigned a room on the property, but guarding up to 1,000 trees means there’s only time for sporadic rest, so even those with rooms rarely use them.
The Nepalis still return every year, because there is little employment back home, and the money they earn here is 1.6 times as valuable in Nepal.
“The money I earn here helps solve one problem every year .... my sister’s wedding, a semi-permanent home,” says Seema Vishwakarma, 28, who has been accompanying her husband to the Konkan from Kailali, with their three school-going children for the past four years.
Majboori ka naam hain Mahatma Gandhi, she adds, referring to the image on all Indian currency notes.
“Nepali workers are uniquely
vulnerable, as marginalised outsiders. The question of safe working and living conditions is so distant, nobody has asked them that question — not even their own government. They are out of the purview of state policy and action, a floating population.”
AMRITA SHARMA, director of the Centre for Migration and Labour Solutions, a policy research organisation