Lohars, originally from Mewar, made weapons for rulers

Farming, a key occupation of our country, receives ample mention in the traditional professions of India. Often, in an expression of gratitude, we are asked to trace our food back to the farmer who grew it. But what goes unnoticed is the set of hands that helped the farmer grow the grain in the first place.

Such hands created the equipment that empowered the farmers, the hands that have been shaping metal from ancient times—the hands of the unsung Gadia Lohars (blacksmiths) —who have been applying traditional sciences to their work without ever going to school or being recognised as practitioners of science. And, like many traditional occupations, the women are equal if not greater contributors in taking this work ahead.

Off the Ajmer-Jaipur highway in Padasoli village, a settlement of Gadia Lohars lives in extreme poverty. Dali Gadia Lohar, a 60-year-old woman from the settlement, says, “We don’t know what a school looks like. We started working from the age of 15 years. Earlier, we moved with our parents from village to village selling iron goods on a bullock cart. We used to get food sometimes and had to go hungry at other times. There was no surety. Centuries have changed, but not our plight.”

The Lohars were originally from Mewar and made weapons for the rulers. When Maharana Pratap lost the kingdom to Akbar, the Lohars swore to the lives of nomads until their kingdom was free again. Their gaadi (cart) on which they went around making and selling their goods earned them the name Gadia Lohar.

Kitab (63), Dali’s sister-in-law, has had a similar life journey. She started making farming and sheep-rearing equipment when she was 15 years old. In this blacksmith community, the woman plays an important role in shaping the metal into equipment. While the man sits on a raised surface to heat the coal and the iron, the woman first fan the coals and then as the metal is being shaped, she hits it from the other side to give it a form. This painstaking, labour-intensive process requires an accuracy and scientific precision which the community learns while being on the job.

The women, besides making the equipment, also go from village to village, fair to fair, to sell the fare. “We make the chimta (pair of tongs), chhalni (sieve), daantli (hand saw), kulhari (axe), kassi (spade) and take them from village to village. We source the iron and coals from the city,” says Kitab.

The women of the next generation of their family, Badam (40), Sugna (30) and Mamta (32) also do similar work and have barely had any exposure to education. But now, since they are settled at one place for the past decade or so, their children go to the government school close-by.

The women start their day early in the morning. If people come to them to buy equipment, they sell it to them, else they go to the village. Their work involves a significant risk to health, not just in terms of sitting by the fire, but the possibility of injury, too.

“We do get injured at times, but there is not much we can do about it,” says Dali. “We have been doing this day in and day out for so many years now; it is just so exhausting! We often run out of breath,” adds Kitab.

However, despite their hard work, these women don’t have a daily income. And, even though the Lohars are settled at one place now, their lives have only become tougher. Large-scale mechanisation has deprived them of their already-low remuneration.

(To be concluded…)

(The author is an independent journalist and educator from Ajmer, Rajasthan: Charkha Features)