A small boat navigated through the rocks jutting out of the Betwa river’s turbulent surface. Men and women disembarked at the crossing near Mainwara, a village in Uttar Pradesh, holding large jute and plastic bags, and joined their families by a bonfire on the riverbank. There was no respite for the boatman: on the other side, more people with similar bags were waiting.
Somewhere in the middle of the river, the boat crosses between Madhya Pradesh in central India and the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The Betwa is a tributary of the Yamuna in the Ganga basin and sits on the border of the two states at this point. The boatman makes this journey about 30 times a day, primarily carrying local communities looking for produce in the forests.
“There are no more forests left on this [the Uttar Pradesh] side of the river,” said Devi. She is a member of the Sahariya…