Come hear the hargila’s speech
With a cry of the heart’s eyes
Hear o hear me out

Please do not chop down our trees
Do not erase our forests
How are we going to keep living
How are we going to keep living

The voice of 43-year-old Daibaki Saikia, a resident of Dadara village in Assam’s Kamrup district, crackled through this journalist’s phone. She sang a folk song she had penned about the greater adjutant stork, locally called the hargila (Assamese for bone-swallower) for its distinctive neck.

Several years ago, Daibaki would never have thought to sing in praise of a bird, especially one that has been described as a “prodigy of ugliness.” The scraggly looking bird, which can be recognized by its bald head, a wedged-shaped beak and dangly orange pouch that hangs loose from its neck, was admonished in many places in Assam until a few years back.

Daibaki told Mongabay, “I used to think of this as a dirty, smelly bird.” It was a view that was widely held among the people in her village and villages around. They would callously attack the greater adjutant storks (Leptoptilos dubius) with stones and cut down the trees where they would nest. So in 2007, when conservationist and wildlife biologist Purnima Devi Barman ventured to Dadara and the nearby villages of Singimari and Pacharia, the bird had been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which at the time had pegged its population to between 650 and 800.

Purnima Devi Barman experienced a moment that would change the fate of these birds. “A person cut down a tree and a baby bird [of the greater adjutant stork] fell down. … I felt torn as a mother and not a researcher,” she said, adding, “I realized that this bird should be a part of our traditional culture. … I knew I had to bring on women and their traditional knowledge.”

And so she founded the “Hargila Army,” a group that currently encompasses more than 20,000 women, including Daibaki Saikia. Many of the women belong to villages around Kamrup district in the Brahmaputra Valley, which has a large population of greater adjutant storks. They have just one mission: to save the hargila by aiding rescues and incorporating the bird into the local culture. By embedding the birds in local folklore, including prayer songs, the women breathed a new life into the species. As their pledge goes: “We are going to be the Hargila Army! Protector of the Tree! Protector of the Bird! Our duty is to weave the stork’s motif on the cloth!”

As of 2023, the stork’s population had risen to 1,360-1,510 with its status changing to “near threatened.” This is a notable shift since Mongabay reported on this project in 2016 when the bird was classified as endangered with the population of mature individuals being pegged between 800 and 1,200. “This species was, at one time, considered endangered because of rapid population declines, but since the early-to-mid-2000s, dedicated conservation action in its two remaining subpopulations (north-east India and Cambodia) has reversed this trend,” the IUCN website’s page about the greater adjutant states. “In India, the community work of P.D. Barman is directly responsible for the change of fortunes in this species.”

Over the years, Purnima Devi Barman, who is also director of the Women in Nature Network and a biologist with the conservation NGO Aaranyak, has garnered awards and certificates. In February, she was named to Time’s 2025 Women of the Year List for her work.

Elevating a bird to folklore

The living room of Purnima Devi Barman’s house in Guwahati, the state capital of Assam, is nearly engulfed with prizes and certificates. As I request a photograph, Barman quickly shuffles inside to change into a green mekhela sador (two-piece saree-like attire traditionally worn by women in Assam). The mekhela sador is embroidered with motifs of the greater adjutant stork.

In a 2024 paper published in the journal Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, researchers noted how the Hargila Army incorporated folkloric elements including handicraft in their conservation efforts.

“Dr. Barman utilized folkloric elements in the form of folk songs, ritualistic practices as well as material culture like handloom and handicraft to create awareness among the community for conserving the bird,” researchers Meghna Choudhury and Umesh Das noted.

The paper highlighted how birds are often seen in folklore, which plays a significant role in influencing social norms and values. Back in 2007, witnessing the population of birds dwindle, Purnima Devi Barman sought out ways to emotionally engage the villagers in saving the storks. A Ph.D. candidate at the time, she was told off by a conservationist who held that it was not her job as a scientist to change an age-old perception. But she persisted.

“She knew that it was necessary to establish public relations among the villagers and folklore was the best method to establish quick communication,” the paper noted.

Barman explained that she organized an event to first get people’s attention and participation. “I started with pitha competition,” referring to rice cakes and pancake delicacies of Assam. Then, soon, the naamghars in the area (traditional houses of worship associated with the Vaishnavite culture prevalent in the state) were echoing with naam prasanga (prayer songs) about the hargila.

The researchers mentioned one of the prayer songs sung about the stork:

I arrived at company of good people
I sat down to sing devotional songs (naam)
I heard the words of the Hargila
Which are like drops of nectar.

The Hargila builds nests on tall trees
We should not cut these down
Autumn is the season of laying eggs
They build the nests during this season

Noni Rajbongshi, a 50-year-old resident of Dadara village, also joined the Army back in 2007. “At the hargila pathshala [school] they taught us how to make clothes. … My clothes also went to the Natural History Museum of London.”

By the women, for the women

Purnima Devi Barman says the Hargila Army women protect the birds in numerous ways — by protecting the habitat, preventing trees from being cut down and informing local authorities when the birds fall from the trees and need to be rescued. And the birds feature in local festivities too. The 2024 paper noted how the women celebrate the Panchaamrit ceremony, or “baby shower,” for the hargila and pray for the safety of the mothers along with their nestlings. These interventions have also gone a long way in saving other birds. “Until 2010, people from outside would come to hunt birds. The first impact I found is that this stopped,” Purnima Devi Barman said, adding, “That helped some migratory birds as well who would come to the paddy fields.”

For the women, the Hargila Army has come to mean so much more. Many of the group’s members were homemakers.

“After joining, I started using a [sewing] machine. Before, I didn’t know how to do this work. But now [after learning], my income has increased,” Kamini Das of Dadara village said. Many of the women of the Hargila Army are entrepreneurs who sell their weavings.

For 32-year-old Lubita Baishya, a resident of Pacharia village, the Hargila Army provided a boost to her confidence. “The way I am speaking to you, I would not have been able to speak before,” Lubita said, alluding to the group meetings.

The women of the Hargila Army meet several times a month. Kamini Das describes these meetings as a space of merriment. “People come from Dadara, Singimari and Pacharia villages. Since the women are busy at other times, when we meet, around 300-400 people come,” she said. The meetings are like fairs. The women bring vegetables they grow, and they dance and sing.

“Our women love these meetings. Sometimes I think it is like rehabilitation for them … they have to do so much [at other times]. So this meeting is a space of fun,” Purnima Devi Barman said.

She also cited examples of women like Daibaki and Noni while she highlighted how the women have now become leaders in their community.

It is no surprise that the number of members has also reached more than 20,000. According to Purnima Devi Barman, the group is now growing organically.

But the initiative has not been without challenges.

“Hargila conservation itself is the biggest challenge. They breed on trees, [especially] on private land,” Purnima Devi Barman said, adding, “Development is a concern everywhere. Yesterday, when I was going through the city, I kept asking my family, ‘If we have so much development, where will the hargila go?’”

Banner image: Greater adjutant storks photographed in Assam, India. Image by Yathin S Krishnappa via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Citation:

Choudhury, M., & Das, U. (2024). Integrating Environmental Education Through Folkloric Practices: A Case Study Of The Greater Adjutant Conservation Movement In India. Educational Administration: Theory and Practice. Retrieved from https://www.kuey.net/index.php/kuey/article/view/5250