When Jamuna Tudu moved from Odisha to Maturkham village in Jharkhand after her marriage in 1998, she saw something that disturbed her deeply; the forests around the village were being destroyed by illegal loggers.
Born on 19 December 1980 in Mayurbhanj, Odisha, Jamuna came from a tribal farming family. Her parents, Bagrai Murmu and Bobyshree Murmu, had given her a childhood closely connected to nature. She had studied till Class X. But protecting the forest meant confronting powerful people.
Undeterred, Jamuna brought together a small group of village women and formed the Van Suraksha Samiti (Forest Protection Committee). Armed with sticks, bows and arrows, the women began patrolling the forests, often at night, and reporting illegal logging. The timber mafia fought back.
Jamuna and her husband faced threats, attacks and intimidation. In one incident, they were attacked with stones near a railway station, leaving her husband injured. But fear did not make her retreat.
Her small group eventually grew into a large women-led forest protection movement involving thousands of women and hundreds of village committees. Their efforts helped protect around 50 hectares of forest in the region.
Jamuna also turned conservation into a community tradition. Villagers began tying rakhis to trees during Raksha Bandhan, while tree planting became part of celebrations such as the birth of a girl child and weddings.
Her courage and environmental work brought national recognition, including the Godfrey Phillips National Bravery Award (2014), Women Transforming India Award (2017) and, most significantly, the Padma Shri in 2019.
From a village woman with little formal power to the woman popularly called Jharkhand’s “Lady Tarzan,” Jamuna Tudu proved that protecting nature does not always require money or authority. Sometimes, it simply requires the courage to stand up; and refuse to move.
