Rohtak (Haryana):The standing crop which is ready to be harvested in the lush fields of Haryana was at the brink of getting destroyed due to the impact of the Corona pandemic. Both the state government and farmers were worried about the destruction of their ripe crop, however, to combat the situation the farmers decided to adopt their old practice of cutting the crop. The practice called Dangwara which was in vogue in Haryana 50 years ago.
What is Dangwara?
Dangwara is an old practice, which was prevalent in Haryana, where people used to help each other in the spirit of social brotherhood, especially in agricultural activities. At that time too, the supply of labour was almost non-existent so farmers used to lend each other their help in the harvest. In this form of agriculture members of one family used to help the other family in harvesting the crop. First, the produce of one farmer was harvested, after that everyone used to harvest the produce of the other farmer together. This was known as Dangwara lena (to take dangwara) and Dangwara dena (to give dangwara), this method had been used a lot earlier but since the last 5 decades the easy availability of machines and cheap availability of labour had seen the existence of dangwara lost in the flow of capitalism, but like many other things, the lockdown has breathed life into the discarded agricultural practice.
The farmers from Rohtak district in Haryana are using the same old practice of Dangwara to harvest their fields. The advantage here clearly is that not only does everyone’s crop gets harvested, no one suffers from needless loss too.