How Adivasis in Jharkhand are taking the leap into entrepreneurship
The community has long struggled to access capital. But a new breed of entrepreneurs is determined to run ventures centred on Adivasi culture.
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In 2019, Kapil Toppo realised he’d grown tired of his job as an engineer with Flipkart. “In corporate jobs, all that people care about is your package and how much you earn,” said Toppo, who belongs to the Kurukh, or Oraon, Adivasi community, and lives in Ranchi, Jharkhand. “It’s never about what change you’ve brought or what legacy you leave behind you.”
Toppo decided to take a year-long sabbatical to explore other professional opportunities. Around this time, people in his social circle were working on the revival and promotion of Adivasi culture – inspired by them, Toppo decided to try and set up a food enterprise. In February 2020, he launched a restaurant in Ranchi, which focused on Jharkhandi cuisine and which he called Mandi Eddpa at the suggestion of friends. The term blends words from two Adivasi languages – mandi means food in Mundari and eddpa means home in Kurukh.
“Our idea was to bring Adivasi cuisine into the mainstream,” Toppo said. He noted that an older restaurant in the city, Ajam Emba, founded by a Kurukh restaurateur named Aruna Tirkey, also worked towards preserving and promoting Adivasi cuisines, but catered to a more elite customer. “We wanted to bring our food to...
