The Funeral Pyre Protest: Ken Betwa

The word Adivasi in Hindi means original inhabitants or Indigenous peoples of India. "Jal, Jangal, Zameen."Water. Forest. Land. a famous Adivasi slogan implies that they are not simply natural resources For Adivasi or Indian indigenous communities, they are ancestors, memory, identity, and life itself. For generations, Indigenous peoples have protected forests, rivers, and biodiversity through relationships built not on ownership, but on care. When they defend their lands, they are also defending the ecosystems that sustain us all. Yet across India, these same communities continue to pay the price of so-called development. Forests are cleared, rivers are diverted, villages disappear from maps, and compensation can never replace a homeland, a sacred grove, or centuries of belonging.Today, we travel to the Ken–Betwa protest with independent journalist Bindu Romi Gurjar or @samachar_by_bindu on instagram, who reports from the heart of a movement led by Adivasi women, elders, and children. Through funeral pyre demonstrations, kitchen shutdown protests, and hunger strikes, they are refusing to let their voices be erased.