L24: Trades — Toddy Tapping & Mining Legacy

Good morning, everyone! Welcome back. The interviews from last week about lost agricultural and fishing knowledge — I have read them, and some of them are genuinely moving. One of you recorded an 82-year-old former Ramponkar fisherman from Betul who described in detail how he read the colour of the water to find mackerel schools. That is the kind of living knowledge we need to document. Excellent work. Recap: Lecture 23 covered fishing — the Kharvi community, traditional boats, beach seine, fish traps — and agriculture — the khazan system, the Gaunkari, rice landraces, cashew orchards. Today we turn to two more trades: Toddy Tapping and the Mining Legacy. These are both fascinating and, in different ways, deeply controversial. Lecture 24: Trades — Toddy Tapping and Mining Legacy. [INTRODUCTION — 0 to 10 minutes] I want to begin with a rhetorical question: what do the Sanna bread, the Mando dance evening, the prawn balchao, and the Goan fish curry all have in common? The answer is toddy. Toddy is the sap of the coconut or palm flower bud, collected daily by the toddy tapper from the top of the palm tree. It is used to leaven bread, to ferment into vinegar for Catholic Goan cooking, to consume fresh as a drink, to distil into feni. Toddy is woven into the culinary and social fabric of Goa so deeply that to understand Goa you must understand toddy — and to understand toddy you must understand the man who climbs the palm tree at dawn. Mining is a completely different story. Goa was, for several decades in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, one of India's largest iron ore exporters. The mining industry transformed the economy of Goa's interior — the Sanguem, Quepem, and Bicholim talukas particularly. It employed tens of thousands of people. And it caused some of the most severe environmental damage in Goa's history, affecting the rivers, the forests, the agricultural land, and the communities who lived in the shadow of the mines. The mining industry is now largely suspended following Supreme Court orders, but its legacy — economic, environmental, and cultural — is a live and contested issue. Two trades, then — one ancient and gentle, one modern and violent — both part of the heritage of Goa's working people. [CORE CONTENT — 10 to 40 minutes] Let us begin with toddy tapping. The occupation of the toddy tapper — called a Randhari or Bhatt in different Goan communities — is one of the oldest skilled occupations in Goa. The toddy tapper's work begins before dawn. He climbs the coconut palm — typically without any mechanical aid, using only a coir loop around his feet — reaches the top of the trunk, slices the tip of the flower bud, and collects the sap that has accumulated overnight in a clay pot tied to the bud. He descends, empties the pot, re-ties it, and moves to the next tree. A skilled toddy tapper can manage fifty to a hundred palms in a morning's work. The climbing technique is a precise physical skill that takes years to master. The coir loop — called a Naral Dori — is placed around both feet and around the trunk. The tapper leans back against it, walks his feet up the trunk alternately, using the loop as a support against which to push. His entire body weight is suspended between the loop and his hands and feet against the trunk. A fall from a 15-metre coconut palm is fatal. The casualness with which experienced tappers ascend and descend — often carrying a full pot of toddy without spilling it — is remarkable. The toddy collected in the morning is called Niro — fresh, slightly sweet, faintly cloudy sap. Niro must be consumed within a few hours of collection because fermentation begins almost immediately. By mid-morning, the same sap has become light toddy — mildly alcoholic, pleasantly fizzy. By afternoon it is strong toddy — significantly alcoholic. By evening it is sour and vinegary. This progression — from Niro to toddy to vinegar — happens in one day, in the same pot, at ambient temperature. The tapper manages this chemistry by the timing of collection and by choosing between the morning and evening taps. The toddy tapper traditionally sold fresh toddy from a roadside toddy shop — called a Taddimaar in some parts of Goa — which was a social institution in Goan Catholic villages in particular. The toddy shop was where men gathered in the afternoon, where local news was exchanged, where political arguments happened, where songs were sung. In Catholic Goa, the toddy shop occupied a social space somewhere between a pub and a community centre. Tiatr frequently features the toddy shop as a setting — because it is a democratic space, a space where distinctions of class and education are temporarily suspended. Feni — Goa's most famous spirit — is distilled from either cashew apple juice or coconut toddy. Cashew feni production happens in the months of March, April, and May, when the cashew trees bear fruit. The cashew apple — the swollen fruit that precedes the nut — is crushed to extract juice, which is then fermented and double-distilled in clay or copper stills called a Bhann. The first distillation produces a rough spirit called Urrak. The second distillation produces Feni — with approximately 40 to 45 percent alcohol. Feni has a distinctive, complex aroma — fruity, slightly funky, herbal — that is an acquired taste but is deeply loved by Goans who grew up with it. Coconut feni is rarer and more expensive. The toddy is allowed to ferment in a clay pot for several days, then distilled. The result is a cleaner, sweeter spirit than cashew feni. Coconut feni is considered superior by connoisseurs. Cashew feni received a Geographical Indication tag from the Government of India in 2009. This GI tag means that only feni produced in Goa from Goan cashews can be called Goan cashew feni. This is important protection against imitation, and it has spurred some investment in premium feni production. There are now artisanal feni producers who use traditional double-distillation methods, age the feni in clay pots or wooden casks, and produce high-quality spirits that are starting to compete in the premium spirits market internationally. The culture of toddy and feni in Goa is complex. Alcohol consumption has long been associated with certain social problems — alcoholism, domestic violence — and temperance movements have existed in Goa, particularly among reformist Hindu movements. At the same time, toddy and feni are genuinely embedded in Goan culinary and social heritage. The use of toddy as a leavening agent for bread and Sannas is a culinary technique, not a drinking practice. Feni is consumed ceremonially and socially, not merely for intoxication. The heritage argument for toddy and feni is about artisanal knowledge, ecological relationships, and cultural identity — and it is separate from questions of alcohol policy. Now let us turn to mining. Goa's iron ore deposits are in the laterite plateau zone of the interior — Sanguem taluka's Codli and Curchorem areas, Bicholim's Sirigao and Mayem areas, and the Canacona region. These deposits were being commercially exploited from the Portuguese period, but it was after liberation in 1961 and through the 1970s and 80s that mining expanded dramatically. At its peak, Goa exported over 48 million tonnes of iron ore annually — making it one of India's top mineral exporters and generating billions of rupees in revenue. The mining industry employed approximately 25,000 people directly and many more indirectly in transport, logistics, and services. The Zari barges — large flat-bottomed vessels — that carried iron ore down the Zuari and Mandovi rivers to the port of Mormugao were a fixture of Goa's riverine landscape for decades. The social impact of mining was enormous and contradictory. On one hand, mining provided cash incomes to communities in the interior that had previously subsisted on agriculture. Schools were built, roads were improved, and village economies were transformed. On the other hand, the environmental costs were catastrophic. Mining operations caused massive deforestation, destroyed agricultural land through tailings and overburden, silted rivers, and contaminated water sources. The Selaulim reservoir — Goa's main drinking water source — was severely threatened by mining silt. Villages in mining areas experienced dust, noise, and the steady destruction of the landscape they had lived in for generations. Several Goan writers and activists — most notably Ramachandra Guha in his ecological history work, and locally Norma Alvares and the Goa Foundation — documented the mining damage and litigated against it. A series of Supreme Court orders between 2012 and 2018 halted and then severely restricted mining activity in Goa, pending a review of mining leases and environmental compliance. This halt threw thousands of mining-dependent workers into economic crisis — a crisis that has not been fully resolved. The mining legacy debate touches deep questions about what we mean by heritage. The mining communities — the truck drivers, the barge workers, the ore handlers — developed their own occupational culture, their own social networks, their own festivals tied to the mining calendar. This is also heritage — it is the heritage of industrial labour. It exists alongside, and in tension with, the heritage of the forests and rivers that mining destroyed. How do we hold both? [ACTIVITY AND DISCUSSION — 40 to 55 minutes] I want to do a stakeholder perspectives exercise. I will describe a scenario and then assign each table a different stakeholder perspective. The scenario: The Goa government is considering whether to renew mining leases in Sanguem taluka, with new environmental regulations. Table 1: You are a family in a village in Sanguem. Your father and grandfather both worked in mining. Your family's income was entirely from mining wages. Since the mining halt, your family has been struggling. What is your position? Table 2: You are an ecologist at Goa University who has been documenting the damage to the Selaulim reservoir from mining runoff over twenty years. What is your position? Table 3: You are a tourism entrepreneur who runs a resort on the Goa coast. Your guests come for the beaches and natural beauty. What is your position on mining renewal in the interior? Table 4: You are a traditional farmer on khazan land downstream from the proposed mining zone. Your rice cultivation depends on clean river water. What is your position? Take five minutes to develop your stakeholder argument, then we will do a brief role-play discussion. [pause and role-play] Notice how all four positions have legitimate claims. The mining worker's economic reality is real. The ecologist's data is real. The tourism economy is real. The farmer's water dependence is real. Heritage conservation is never simple when it intersects with livelihoods and competing needs. Discussion Question 1: The toddy tapper is one of Goa's most endangered occupational practitioners. Young men from toddy-tapping families are largely refusing to take up the trade — it is dangerous, labour-intensive, and economically precarious. Should the Goa government subsidise toddy tapping as a cultural heritage practice, the way it supports folk artists? What would that look like? Discussion Question 2: Is industrial mining heritage? The iron ore barges on the Zuari, the processing plants in Curchorem, the miners' housing colonies — these are material culture of a specific economic era. Should any of them be preserved as industrial heritage? [SUMMARY AND ASSIGNMENT — 55 to 60 minutes] Today we covered toddy tapping — the physical skill, the daily rhythm, the cultural significance of toddy and feni in Goan cooking and social life, the GI tag for cashew feni, and the complex position of alcohol in Goan culture. We then examined Goa's mining legacy — the scale of iron ore extraction, the economic benefits for interior communities, the severe ecological damage, and the legal and social crisis following the mining halt. Assignment: Research the Goa Foundation and its role in the Goa mining controversy. Who are they? What legal strategies did they use? What were the outcomes? Write a 400-word summary. There is substantial online documentation from the Supreme Court proceedings and from the Goa Foundation's own archives. Next lecture — Lecture 25 — we turn to Traditional Crafts and Artisans. Goa has a rich tradition of pottery, weaving, metalwork, wood carving, and basket making — all of which are endangered. We will look at the craft communities and their knowledge, the tools and materials, and what is being done — and not done — to support them. See you Thursday!