Tribals invented sev 200 years ago. Now, sev makers are evicting them

Ratlam is not a scheduled area, and the Bhil fields are not near forests. So, they were treated as encroachers on public property

“Wheat, corn, pulses like pigeon pea and gram, green chillies, even vegetables like okra and potato…”

Vishna Bai’s eye lit up, as the portly, cheerful farmer rapidly listed the year-round bounty her hectare of land produced until February 2016, when the excavators came and razed her beloved crops.

Illiterate, Vishna Bai is in her 40s--she was not exactly sure--and like 20 fellow Bhils from India’s largest tribe, is now officially an “encroacher”. Their farms were classified “small and marginal” with an area less than 2 hectares, much like 86% of India’s farms, according to