NEW DELHI: Pramila Pradhan led a normal life in her eastern Indian village, managing household chores and occasionally performing devotional songs for the community. But two years ago, everything changed when forest officials placed her at the forefront of efforts to revive a 15th-century musical tradition — a new tool in preventing wildfires.
Keonjhar district in Odisha state, where Pradhan lives, is an ecologically sensitive region with vast stretches of tropical forests, where most trees shed their leaves during the dry months, making the area highly prone to forest fires.
Many of the fires have been caused by human activity, as people burned leaves to collect fruit, medicinal plants and other produce crucial for rural livelihoods, and believed that burning the soil made it more fertile. But the fires have instead for years threatened the region’s rich biodiversity — including tigers, elephants, sloth bears, and barking deer — and degraded forest ecosystems.
To create awareness against the practice, district officials engaged women like Pradhan to revive the practice of sankirtan mandalis — devotional song-and-dance troupes — and spread the message.
“I was part of a religious group spreading religious messages. I used to move around with that group from one village to another. After joining the awareness campaign, my focus is now on spreading the message about forest fires,” Pradhan, a 32-year-old mother of two, told Arab News.
Encouraged by her husband, she now leads the troupe of 14 women and two men in Murgapahadi village, performing with drums and small percussion instruments, as they dance and sing in local languages and add to devotional lyrics also lines about forest conservation.
“I am happy that I am part of a mission to save the forest, which shelters us, and which is our lifeline. We cannot think of our existence without the forest,” Pradhan said.
“Forest fires have dropped drastically … Earlier, the whole forest used to burn. I am very happy that our efforts are yielding results.”
The campaign and Pradhan’s role were recognized by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in his monthly radio talk in late July spoke about her as an “inspiration” and praised Odisha singers who chanted mantras for environmental protection.
The sankirtan mandalis devotional song-and-dance troupes originated in the 15th-century Bhakti — social and religious reform — movement in eastern India. They became embedded in religious and village life, particularly in Odisha and Bengal, but are no longer that common in present times.
The local forest department decided to revive them as part of its awareness fund.
“We thought of reviving this dying art form in each village using the fund, and we thought that no one can spread the awareness about forest fires better than them, so we engaged them,” Dhanraj Hanumant Dhamdhere, Keonjhar district forest officer, told Arab News.
“These groups are having an impact. People (feel more) connected when they hear these cultural troupes in their own language.”
There are now 80 such troupes in Keonjhar district, working in villages with a history of forest fires.
Members of the troupes often perform voluntarily, especially in their own villages, but are also supported by the forest department, and can make some $60 to $100 a month from their work, which helps their communities, too.
“This gives livelihood. Depending upon the number of persons in the group, they get money, and this helps in sustaining the livelihood in villages,” Dhamdhere said.
The community engagement has helped reduce by about 60 percent the number of forest fire incidents in Keonjhar — from 1,772 in 2023 to 727 in 2025.
“This remarkable decline in fire incidents is attributed largely to increased community awareness and participation driven by cultural outreach, especially the sankirtan performances … The awareness (campaign) has created a situation where we are getting cooperation from the people,” Dhamdhere said.
“If we don’t get people’s cooperation, we will not succeed in our mission.”
