VELIPS OF BHATI

A STORY OF BROKEN TRIBAL MOSAICS

The Velips are descendants of the first indigenous tribes of Goa, settled within the forested foothills of the Western Ghats. Donning the mantle of ‘custodians of the forests’ through times immemorial, these agrarian communities have maintained and protected the important ecological and hydrological ecosystems around them by way of life, highly attuned to the nature that surrounded them and that which encapsulated all sources of subsistence known to them. Changes brought into land management through government policies - both under the Portuguese and the Indian Government - and mining related pressures, are seen to lead to the increasing eviction of the Velips from their forest homes. 

Displaced and untethered, these tribal communities are forced to shift into the closest local villages, trying to rebuild their systems of livelihood and sustenance. Their culture, traditions and customs have been reimagined or even erased to fit their contemporary settings while their identity has evolved to surpass the essential connectors that once linked them to their lands. The project aims to understand the functioning system the community interlinked with ecology once was, and its subsequent disruption through injected changes. The practise of Commoning is then used as the lens to revive these connections, eventually building resilience and ensuring better quality of life.