This Raksha Bandhan, Buy a Rakhi That Turns Into a Garden!

What do you find when you walk into a forest whose parts are charred by a fire? 

You find scorpions (with half-burned bodies) scuttling away, hoping the viable half will carry them away from the flames fast enough to survive; butterflies making a dash, their wings — chipped, grazed, and burnt — barely withstanding the soot; wild dogs, squirrels, and deer tottering, crippled by the smoke that reaches their lungs. 

What do you find when you walk into a forest whose parts are charred by a fire?

You find death. 

But when Shweta Bhattad (40) walks into one, she is reminded of why she started the ‘Gram Art Project’ in 2013. The sustainable initiative is empowering village communities through accessories and fabrics made out of desi cotton and seeds. Her motive when she started the collective was to save the planet. And today, the sustainable rakhis (a sacred thread that a sister ties on her brother’s wrist on Raksha Bandhan) are a step in this direction. 

Interestingly, these sustainable rakhis feature designs inspired by the aftermath of a forest fire. 

“Everyone doesn’t see the kind of damage that takes place during these fires,” Shweta reasons, adding, “But we see it. Through these designs, we want people to become more aware of these things.” The dichotomy is where the beauty lies. Colours come together, woven into patterns that are then shipped across India to doting sisters who will tie them on their brothers’ wrists. 

Well, you can go ahead and plan the rest of your Raksha Bandhan itinerary. Because this year, the rakhi part of it is sorted. 

Sustainable threads of love 

In the village of Khairi, 2 km from Paradsinga, Madhya Pradesh, where the Gram Art Project centre is located, a group of women sit around in a circle. It’s a blur of colour, laughter, and joy. Threads are dyed, woven into beautiful designs, and stitched to become a rakhi. The finished product is beauty personified. 

But as Geeta Keskar (47), one of the women, points out, it is not yet ‘finished’. Carefully and gently, Geeta inserts the seeds of different kitchen garden plants — basil, roselle, spinach, amaranthus, pumpkin and cucumber — into the tassels at the end of the rakhi and the design in the centre. She then puts her finishing touches to it. The rakhi is ready. 

How will you know which plant’s seeds are embedded in yours? 

The rakhis are accompanied by a note detailing the seed, its ecological importance and also its symbolic one. The paper also contains seeds and is biodegradable. Sustainability all the way. All you need to do is cut off the end tassels of the rakhi and sow the seeds in your kitchen garden. 

What if I don’t have a garden, you ask? 

Well, then, start one. 

Desi cotton and everything you didn’t know about it 

Ordering one of these sustainable rakhis means a triple cause for celebration — you’re saving the planet, starting a garden, and contributing to the financial independence of 300 women spread across the villages of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. 

Explaining the process of the rakhi from the field to your brother’s wrist, Shweta shares, “The desi cotton is grown by farmers in the regions of Vidarbha in villages like Paradsinga, Wardha and Akola. It is handspun by the women of Wardha in the Gram Seva Mandal on ambar charkhas (a wheel with seven spindles). The threads are given their colours by natural dyes using turmeric, marigold, indigo, and flower waste from temples, collected by the Dhimar tribes.” The coloured yarn is sent to Paradsinga village in Madhya Pradesh, from where it makes inroads into 14 villages where the women will proceed with making the rakhis.

Once without a say in running the home, they now make important decisions about colours, about patterns and about the economics of the business. 

This is crucial for the village’s health, Shweta points out. 

“Our village and its people are suffering. There is debt, people are migrating, and women do not have a voice,” Shweta shares. “For us, art is not just a professional practice but a way of expressing ourselves in ways we find meaningful.” 

Elaborating on how this was inspired by her own experiences, Shweta traces back to her college days when she was studying sculpture and fine arts. Occasional home visits to her family in Paradsinga village in Madhya Pradesh would give her a chance to reconnect with her roots. “Whenever I would return home, I would meet my friends whose families were into farming. But we were always told that while visiting our friends’ homes, don’t eat a lot there and definitely don’t waste what was served on the plate,” she recalls.

Poverty was rampant in the village; people could barely afford a square meal. 

“But these things made me wonder why, even as farmers who grow food for the rest of the country, we never had enough for ourselves,” Shweta shares. “Eventually, I understood that our farming practices have changed so much over the years that we only grow a certain crop — cotton. I started understanding the policies around crops, the MSPs (minimum support price), etc.” 

What do you do with cotton no one wants?

One of the most crucial understandings that Shweta had was the convoluted web of Bt cotton. 

Cotton has been woven into the social fabric of India for centuries — 5,000 BCE, to be precise. But desi varieties of cotton, Gossypium arboreum and their hybrids, G. hirsutum were not as pest-resistant. They were at the mercy of the Pink Bollworm and sap-sucking pests such as aphids and mealybugs. In 1996, ‘Monsanto’, an American biotechnology corporation, introduced the Bollgard technology, which modified the cotton seeds such that they became resistant to the bollworm. In 1998, Monsanto tied up with the India-based ‘Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco)’ to launch Bollgard seeds in India. Since then, Bt cotton has been the commonly grown variant of cotton. 

Records suggest that in 1947, 97 percent of the cotton area comprised desi cotton, but today that much area is swamped by Bt cotton hybrids, leaving only a small area for desi varieties.

So what’s the problem? Firstly, Bt cotton severs the farmers’ agency and control over the crop. This genetically modified cotton has genes that kill the bollworms that attack it; it is unkind to nature. Thirdly, in the last few years, the bollworms have been found to have become immune to the toxin in the cotton. The cotton crops are being eaten and driving farmers to despair.

“When I understood these things, I felt I wanted to encourage farmers to grow desi cotton, instead of the Bt cotton. But even when we did manage to convince a few farmers to do it, the question was what to do with it. ” 

What to do with all the desi cotton that was now flooding their homes? 

Rakshabandhan, a month away, proved to be a good solution. “Let’s make rakhis and sell them,” Shweta and the others decided. And just like that, the idea took off. Today, it’s been nine years to that day, and every year, they sell out. 

Well, this year, they are giving The Better India readers a special discount. 

It will only take three simple steps:

1. Click here.
2. Click on the menu icon and choose ‘Seed Bands’ → Explore the designs and ‘Add to Cart’ → Proceed to order! 
3. Once you complete your Raksha Bandhan celebrations, cut off the tassel of the rakhi and sow the seeds you find in it. Your sibling can continue wearing the rakhi, a reminder of your love as well as sustainability!

Edited by Khushi Arora; All pictures courtesy Gram Art Project

Sources 

The twisted trajectory of Bt cotton: by Sujatha Byravan, Published on 10 September 2020.

Monsanto, Government of India, and the Bt Cotton Conundrum: An Extract from “A Frayed History”: by Caravan Magazine, Published on 12 October 2017.

The Journey of Bt Cotton in India: A Historical Overview and its Impact on Agriculture: by Greenleaf, Published on 3 October 2024.

A lost desi cotton heritage :by Meena Menon, Published on 17 September 2018.

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