Dukhu Majhi

Dukhu Majhi is an environmentalist from Purulia district in West Bengal who has spent three decades planting trees on his own. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2024 in the field of social work, from West Bengal ^[1].

A hot, dry land

He was born on 1 January 1945 and lives in Ghorabandha, Sindri, in Purulia, where summer temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius and rain is scarce ^[2]. He was inspired by his father and later by a government tree-planting campaign, which taught him that trees help bring rain and give oxygen ^[2].

One man, many trees

Each day he cycles out with two cans of water, sacks, a shovel and saplings to plant and tend trees ^[2]. With no formal schooling, this tribal farmer has worked out his own way of preparing, planting and caring for each sapling until it is grown ^[2]. To keep young plants safe from passers-by, he wraps them in cloth taken from a nearby cremation ground ^[2].

He plants along roadsides and at village markets, bus stops, cremation grounds, temples, schools and health centres ^[2].