BHOPAL: The long wait for a pucca house for octogenarian labourer-turned-Padma Shri awardee painter Jodhaiya Bai Baiga is finally over. The promise to build a pucca house for the 84-year-old painter in Lorha village of Madhya Pradesh’s Umaria district, which was reportedly made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 2022, has finally been fullfilled by state’s governor Mangubhai C Patel.
The Raj Bhawan has approved from the Discretionary Fund Rs 1.5 lakh for renovating the elderly woman’s asbestos-roofed kutcha house and another Rs 5 lakh to promote tribal art clusters in the same district. The twin sums have reportedly been released by the Raj Bhawan on the detailed proposal of the Umaria district administration.
Jodhaiya Bai, who is a mother of three children and has more than 10 grandchildren, was handed over Rs 1.5 lakh cheque by the Umaria district collector KD Tripathi on April 8, that was 17 days after she received the Padma Shri from President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on March 22.
According to Tripathi, the sum of Rs 5 lakh will be used to develop the tribal art cluster, preferably in Baiga’s native village Lorha, to enable her and other fellow tribal artists to promote and preserve the Baiga painting style. The sum of Rs 1.5 lakh awarded for the renovation is more than what is provided for building a fresh house under the PM Awas Yojana (Gramin). On January 26, 2023, while thanking the government for selecting her for one of the highest civilian awards, she had also expressed disappointment for not having a pucca house.
While recounting her meeting with PM Modi on the eve of receiving the Nari Shakti Puraskar in March 2022, Jodhaiya Bai, had told journalists, “I hugged Modiji and shared my pain about not having a pucca house, after which he promised that I will get a pucca house, but till date I live in a kutcha house and a pucca house remains a distant dream for me. With folded hands I request, both, PM Modi and MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan to render me a pucca house.”
Importantly, Jodhaiya Bai, who spent almost 50 years working as labourer at construction sites, cutting wood and even selling country-made liquor, just to raise her three children, made her international debut as a painter in 2019. She learned painting from around 20 years younger Ashish Swami (an established artist from Santiniketan-West Bengal) when she was around 70.
She made her international painting debut in 2019 when her Baiga-style paintings were showcased at group exhibitions in Paris and Milan. Since then, her paintings have been showcased at painting exhibitions across India.