The residents of Jharkhand’s Bandisember village of Simdega district were not aware that August 9 was being observed as the International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples for the past many years.

“I never heard of the day till I was told about it today,” said Ramnath Gond of the village that is also referred to as Nawa Toli, adding there were 58 families with about 450 members residing there.

The body of a girl hockey player who died of snake bite recently had to be carried for 2km on cot across a waterlogged nala Manob Chowdhary

“Not only us, none of the village was aware of this day,” Lakhan Besra, another villager, said about the day that is as also known as the World Tribal Day and celebrated with much fanfare across the globe. All those residing here are tribal people, making it one of those 2,451 villages of the state that were identified as fully inhabited by the tribals during the 2011 census.

“We face many problems,” Gond said, adding the village lacked approach roads, drinking water facilities. Though their village have a primary school, children interested in pursuing education have to go to another village about 5km away for attending high school.

A hand pump sunk years ago lying defunct in Bandisember Manob Chowdhary

There is a primary health centre about 10 m away but the villagers have to travel to Simdega, the district headquarters about 30km away, for getting better treatment.

“We came to know about the importance of this day from the office bearers of Hockey Simdega who came to meet us today,” Lakhan replied when asked.

“We came here about a fortnight ago when Komli Besra, a girl of the village who was a promising hockey player, died of snake bite,” informed Hockey Simdega president Manoj Konbegi, adding they thought of visiting the village again as they found them facing many problems.

Women are forced to carry water from distant sources. Manob Chowdhary

The body of the girl had to be carried through a waterlogged nala on a cot for about 2km before sending it for post-mortem that day, he informed to illustrate their plight.

Besides lack of basic amenities, they also found most of the children were malnourished. The 2011 census had found that 85 per cent of the tribal women were anaemic and 64.3 per cent of their children were underweight.

“We tried to do what we can do best,” informed Hockey Simdega treasurer Kamleshwar Manjhi who accompanied Konbegi, adding they spoke to the children in presence of their guardians and motivated them to play hockey for which they also presented them some balls they had taken for them.

“Playing hockey will help them get exposure to the outer world and will also create an awareness among them,” Konbegi tried to justify their efforts, adding the children could also draw attention of the authorities by playing the game well which, in turn, will help improve the condition of their village.

“We will level an open space near the village and will certainly motivate our children to play hockey there regularly,” Lakhan promised. He said they would organise a match on the tribal day next year.