Jadav ‘Molai’ Payeng | Elder

Meet The Elder — Jadav ‘Molai’ Payeng, Indigenous Mising Tribe, Assam.

“People want to know my story. I tell them I just plant trees, and I’d like all of you to do so. Trees are the lifeline of the forest. They don’t just give us shade and oxygen. They feed birds and animals and balance our eco system. If there is no life left, what is the use of all the advancements we have made?”

Jadav ‘Molai’ Payeng, during an interview with The Hindu

Learn with Jadav Payeng not just about the forest that he built single handedly and yet does not take any credit, for he believes it takes all the in-habitats of the forest and nature at work undisturbed that has been the greatest contributor for it all. Humility, perseverance, love, co-existence are few of the many emotions one can hope to learn from when in company of a man of his knowledge and belief.

Lovingly known as the forest man of India, Jadav “Molai” Payeng belongs to the indigenous Mising tribe of Assam and is an environmentalist from Majuli. Over the course of last three decades, he has single handedly planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra turning it into a forest reserve called ‘Molai’ after him is located near Kokilamukh of Jorhat, Assam, India encompassing an area of about 1,360 acres / 550 hectares.

The Mising, sometimes called Miri, are an indigenous community inhabiting parts of the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh and believe in Abotani, as their ancestor. The history of this tribe has been passed down orally in the form of folk songs and stories by the ancestors from generation to generation and is still prevalent among these communities.

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Contact us at fellowship@indigenouspathways.in