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NEW DELHI: Pramila Pradhan led a normal life in her eastern Indian village, managing household chores and occasionally performing devotional songs for the community. But two years ago, everything changed when forest officials placed her at the forefront of efforts to revive a 15th-century musical tradition — a new tool in preventing wildfires.

Keonjhar district in Odisha state, where Pradhan lives, is an ecologically sensitive region with vast stretches of tropical forests, where most trees shed their leaves during the dry months, making the area highly prone to forest fires.

Many of the fires have been caused by human activity, as people burned leaves to collect fruit, medicinal plants and other produce crucial for rural livelihoods, and believed that burning the soil made it more fertile. But the fires have instead for years threatened the region’s rich biodiversity — including tigers, elephants, sloth bears, and barking deer — and degraded forest ecosystems.

To create awareness against the practice, district officials engaged women like Pradhan to revive the practice of sankirtan mandalis — devotional song-and-dance troupes — and spread the message.

“I was part of a religious group spreading religious messages. I used to move around with that group from one village to another. After joining the awareness campaign, my focus is now on spreading the message about forest fires,” Pradhan, a 32-year-old mother of two, told Arab News.

Encouraged by her husband, she now leads the troupe of 14 women and two men in Murgapahadi village, performing with drums and small percussion instruments, as they dance and sing in local languages and add to devotional lyrics also lines about forest conservation.

“I am happy that I am part of a mission to save the forest, which shelters us, and which is our lifeline. We cannot think of our existence without the forest,” Pradhan said.

“Forest fires have dropped drastically … Earlier, the whole forest used to burn. I am very happy that our efforts are yielding results.”

The campaign and Pradhan’s role were recognized by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in his monthly radio talk in late July spoke about her as an “inspiration” and praised Odisha singers who chanted mantras for environmental protection.

The sankirtan mandalis devotional song-and-dance troupes originated in the 15th-century Bhakti — social and religious reform — movement in eastern India. They became embedded in religious and village life, particularly in Odisha and Bengal, but are no longer that common in present times.

The local forest department decided to revive them as part of its awareness fund.

“We thought of reviving this dying art form in each village using the fund, and we thought that no one can spread the awareness about forest fires better than them, so we engaged them,” Dhanraj Hanumant Dhamdhere, Keonjhar district forest officer, told Arab News.

“These groups are having an impact. People (feel more) connected when they hear these cultural troupes in their own language.”

There are now 80 such troupes in Keonjhar district, working in villages with a history of forest fires.

Members of the troupes often perform voluntarily, especially in their own villages, but are also supported by the forest department, and can make some $60 to $100 a month from their work, which helps their communities, too.

“This gives livelihood. Depending upon the number of persons in the group, they get money, and this helps in sustaining the livelihood in villages,” Dhamdhere said.

The community engagement has helped reduce by about 60 percent the number of forest fire incidents in Keonjhar — from 1,772 in 2023 to 727 in 2025.

“This remarkable decline in fire incidents is attributed largely to increased community awareness and participation driven by cultural outreach, especially the sankirtan performances … The awareness (campaign) has created a situation where we are getting cooperation from the people,” Dhamdhere said.

“If we don’t get people’s cooperation, we will not succeed in our mission.”

LONDON: A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy showing a judge beating an unarmed protester with a gavel will be removed from a wall outside one of London’s most iconic courts, authorities said Monday.
The mural appeared Monday and depicts a protester lying on the ground holding a blood-splattered placard while a judge in a traditional wig and black gown beats him with a gavel. Banksy posted a photo of the work on Instagram, his usual method of claiming a work as authentic. It was captioned “Royal Courts Of Justice. London.”
Security officials outside the courthouse covered the artwork Monday with sheets of black plastic and two metal barriers, and it was being guarded by two officers and a security camera.
Because the Victorian gothic revival style building is 143 years old, the mural will be removed with consideration for its historical significance, according to HM Courts and Tribunals.
“The Royal Courts of Justice is a listed building and HMCTS are obliged to maintain its original character,” it said in a statement. Listed buildings are considered the country’s most significant historic buildings and sites and are protected by law.
While the artwork doesn’t refer to a particular cause or incident, activists saw it as a reference to the UK government’s ban on the group Palestine Action. On Saturday almost 900 people were arrested at a London protest challenging the ban.
Defend Our Juries, the group that organized the protest, said in a statement that the mural “powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed” by the government ban.
“When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent, it strengthens it,” the statement said.
The courts have weighed in on the Palestine Action case, with judges initially rejecting the organization’s request to appeal its ban. A High Court court judge then allowed the appeal to go forward, though the government is now challenging that decision.
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.
Banksy’s work often comments on political issues, with many of his pieces criticizing government policy on migration and war.
At the Glastonbury Festival last year, an inflatable raft holding dummies of migrants in life jackets was unveiled during a band’s headline set. Banksy appeared to claim the stunt, which was thought to symbolize small boat crossings of migrants in the English Channel, in a post on Instagram.
The artist has also taken his message on migration to Europe.
In 2019, “The Migrant Child,” depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life jacket, was unveiled in Venice, Italy. In 2018, a number of works including one near a former center for migrants that depicted a child spray-painting wallpaper over a swastika were discovered in Paris.
Banksy has also created numerous artworks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the years, including one depicting a girl conducting a body search on an Israeli soldier, another showing a dove wearing a flak jacket, and a masked protester hurling a bouquet of flowers. He designed the “Walled Off Hotel” guesthouse in Bethlehem, which closed in October 2023.
Last summer, Banksy captured London’s attention with an animal-themed collection, which concluded with a mural of a gorilla appearing to hold up the entrance gate to London Zoo.
For nine days straight, Banksy-created creatures — from a mountain goat perched on a building buttress to piranhas circling a police guard post to a rhinoceros mounting a car — showed up in unlikely locations around the city.