Koli Legacy in Rajasthan: Fishermen Who Tamed the Desert
Bharu Baa was showing us the Koli way to hunt for a partridge. We expected him to pull out some sort of contraption, but instead, he gave us the most confusingly amusing lesson in human ingenuity. Partridges are notoriously difficult to hunt, they camouflage among the dry, dusty leaves of desert trees and are quick on their feet. So, the Kolis devised a clever method: they catch a baby partridge and raise it to adulthood, training it to help lure other partridges into a cage.
“We train them so well, it only leaves its home when we whistle and return the moment we signal,” he said.
The Kolis of Surachand, a village in the southern district of Jalore in Rajasthan, are exceptional hunters. The village, however, has no proper natural or government-supplied water access. A community historically found in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the Kolis have their pasts tied to the water. Once fishermen and later agriculturalists, they were known for their connection to rivers, seas, and the fish that fed them. The irony of their current reality is not lost on them.
Today, the Kolis predominantly live in three districts of Rajasthan that border Gujarat: Jalore, Sirohi, and Barmer. Their migration to Rajasthan, particularly to my village, initially made little sense to me. There’s barely any water, agriculture is sparse, and good produce is hard to come by. But I later learned that their move, said to be roughly a century ago, made perfect sense for its time. It is believed that back then, this region had water! The land, now dry and cracked, once supported fishing and the kind of agriculture possible a hundred years ago. These three districts form part of the Luni River delta, which once provided ample water for both farming and daily life. There was also an abundance of wildlife to hunt, especially rabbits.
Historically, the Kolis have had a complex and often contentious relationship with governing powers. In the early 19th century, they were seen as a challenge to the British East India Company’s expanding control. British officials frequently labelled the Kolis as unruly and disruptive, branding them one of the most "turbulent" and "predatory" communities in the subcontinent. Many Koli settlements fell outside the Company’s formal territory, and their resistance to colonial laws was seen as a defense of long-standing autonomy.
During the Maratha wars, many Kolis, known for their skill in hunting and combat, were given military roles, some of which later shaped their surnames, like Thakur. Around Surachand, it’s also common to find Kolis who’ve adopted the names of their ancestral villages as surnames. While a few have found political footing, most remain scattered, living on the margins.
Tracing the Koli community, however, is not an easy task. They are difficult to map. Even estimating their population is challenging. While many communities across different states share the name "Koli," there is little recorded history or collective memory to confirm whether they share any cultural or ancestral ties beyond the name itself. Their stories often live outside official records and are rarely documented.
The Silent Gun: Soni Bandook
The Kolis of Surachand, are some of the most freakishly skilled people I’ve ever met. Their handmade arsenal of weaponry, simple yet deadly, are only as lethal as the hands that wield them. Their weapon of choice is the slingshot, which, to them, is what a lathi is to the Raikas. They call it the “soni bandook” meaning the silent gun and their aim is unnervingly precise.
They make little balls from a clay-like soil found in the region, shape them tightly, fire them in a chulha, and use those as pellets. If they wanted to, one well-aimed shot could kill on the spot. Their hunt of choice is rabbits, in the dead of night and they always aim right underneath the animal’s ear, never a millimeter off, so as to not ruin the meat.
On my birthday, I wanted my friends from the city to experience what it feels like to cook a fresh hunt. So I asked around to see if anyone could bring us a rabbit. A couple of hours later, Pehlad Baa came in with a ball of fluff in his hands.
He laid it down, made a small incision on the rabbit’s head, no more than an inch long, slipped his fingers in, and in one smooth motion, deskinned the rabbit in a single pull. The entire skin came off so intact it could’ve passed for a taxidermist’s dream. The whole thing took no more than five to seven minutes.
Even the Koli children grow up learning how to make these slingshots and the clay pellets. While they don’t actively participate in the hunt just yet, the skill is passed down almost instinctively. I watched a ten-year-old boy from one of the families climb up and down a tree like it was just a flight of stairs, completely unbothered. He was just as at home in the wild as the elders who taught him.
Cute but deadly: Dhanudi
Another handmade weapon the Kolis use is something they call, quite endearingly, a dhanudi – a small, homemade bow and arrow. The name itself is a feminised version of dhanush, as is often the case in local dialects when referring to smaller versions of things. To make it, they take two slender neem twigs. One is bent and strung tightly at both ends with a thread to form the bow. The other is sharpened to a point, turning the twig into a dart-like arrow.
To ward off feral dogs or other animals that might try to harm them or their livestock, they use some sort of a boomerang handmade from a dense, heavy wood. It’s designed to disable an animal mid-charge, whether in defense or attack, by striking just hard enough to trip or throw it off balance.
Their arsenal of weapons is impressive, but what struck us even more was how effortlessly they made them. When we asked how these tools were made, they simply gathered the materials and began making one right in front of us. Their hands moved with such speed around blades and churis sharp enough to slice through flesh in seconds, we stood there stunned, occasionally gasping, occasionally giggling at the sheer thrill of it all. It was hard not to be drawn in by this choreography of creation and destruction, a ritual that, when stripped of moral judgment, was simply a matter of instinct and survival.
What's on a Koli’s Plate?
Most of their diet revolves around what the land, and their skill, can provide. Rabbits, partridges, quail, and desi chickens make up the bulk of their meat intake. But even that comes with seasonal restrictions. The chickens they consume aren’t store-bought, they raise them throughout the year to be eaten during the winter months. “Summer isn’t the time for meat that takes so much heat to cook or digest,” Bharu baa told us. It made perfect sense.
Goat meat and eggs are also part of their everyday fare, as is fresh water fish, which appears like clockwork during and after the monsoon, when the dams overflow and send surging water through the dry riverbeds towards Surachand. The Kolis are ready when that happens, prepared for another shift in the rhythm of their food. My father jokes, “The moment water from the Luni or Narmada overflows, you won’t find a single Koli around. They just leave everything and spend days catching fish.”
Apart from meat, their everyday meals are simple, unembellished, Rajasthani foods that are common across communities in this area. Dal, raab, khatiyo (a thin, tangy kadhi), and sogra form the base of their meals. Onions are a staple, eaten both raw and cooked. The raw ones are often sliced, topped with a little ghee, salt, and red chilli, and eaten with sogra. They eat whatever grows in the fields they work in, greens like dhaniya (coriander), chandaliya (amaranth leaves), and sua (dill).
By conventional standards, they might be considered underprivileged. But to walk through their settlements is to see a life that’s dynamic in its own challenges. Pehlad Baa, for instance, brought home a pair of white pigeons years ago. His kabutar khana now houses over a hundred birds. When we asked him what prompted him to take up pigeons as pets, he said he saw them in Gujarat one time and liked them so much that he wanted a pair too.
There is a lack of water, infrastructure, and government attention, but they continue to live with a surprising sense of abundance. With no formal water supply, they dug their own well, its clean, cool water was shown to us without fail. The little mud chicken coop, full of desi hens, was one of the last of our stops, shown to us with laughter and mischief, “come winter, they might become dinner.”
