Jharkhand: Unique election awareness program inside jungle to educate tribals

By Rizwan Arif
Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) [India], May 03 (ANI): In a unique election campaign, election awareness messages to educate and motivate tribals to cast their vote are stuck on trees in Doodhmatiya jungle (Hazaribagh), around 30 kilometres away from the district center.
A group of people, not associated with any organization, has taken the initiative to aware the voters who live in and around the jungles.
Talking about the motive of such a unique awareness campaign, Shambhu, one of the individuals associated with this campaign said, "We are doing it for the tribals. They do not know about voting. As they mainly live in jungles, we are trying this way. They will see and read these things and go to polling booths."
Another person involved in this said that if people find awareness messages even at a place like the jungle, they will definitely go to vote. "It will help them understand how costly their vote is. Majority of the tribals do not go out of the jungles, so they need to be educated like this only. It will help a lot because they roam in the forest most of the times," he said.
Doodhmatiya is the same jungle where Tie Rakhi (a sacred thread) Campaign started in 1995 to save trees. A school teacher Mahadev Mahato started this and associated this with religion. Later this unique approach was recognized across the country.
"Since this forest has already witnessed a successful change in form of Tree Rakshabandhan, we hope another big initiative will be very successful in this jungle," said Parmeshwar Yadav, who is one of those who fights for forest conservation. (ANI)