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dam-l LS: Indian Express: Holi colours mask the sorrow
Holi colours mask the sorrow
Darshan Desai
DOMKHEDI (MAHARASHTRA), March 4: The night before Holi seemed as
boisterous, as colourful as ever. The ground shook to the tom-tomming of
drums, the jungle silence was split by the deafening cries of the dancers
and the massive bonfire kept darkness at bay. Yet beneath the celebrations
was a poignancy, a feeling of loss that caught you in the throat and in the
heart and wouldn't leave. For this was to be the last Holi for the tribals
of Domkhedi.
Sometime later this year, if calculations are proved right, the waters of
the Narmada will wash away their village. The extra five metres added to
the dam's height means that, come the rains, there's more water to spread
out to and submerge surrounding villages. And Domkhedi is one of them.
The tribals should be safe, but they will never be able to celebrate Holi
as they did this year. Dancing through the night, hundreds of them --
bodies painted with limestone, fruit hanging from their shoulders, imposing
headgear flaunting peacock feathers -- bore a steely stoicism that hid the
torment within.
The stoicism runs pretty deep. ``They can drown our houses and our farms,
but nobody can finish our home, our culture, our Gods, our bonds. We will
not leave this place; we will run to the hills to escape the water, but we
will not leave,'' says Hulia Bhola Vasave, sarpanch of Domkhedi. But he
can't conceal the catch in his voice, just as Keshubhai Vasave sitting next
to him, can't hold back the tears in his eyes.
Most villages around Domkhedi in Akrani tehsil of Maharashtra's Nandurbar
district celebrate Holi in full tradition, but the biggest one, at which
where tribals from 50 villages gather, is the one by the hillock in
Domkhedi. That's where the 'dhols' ring out through the night, where the
earth pounds with the thud of feet.
Caught between hostile rocky terrain and a treacherous river, Domkhedi
exists without even basic facilities like electricity, transport, telephone
and postal services. It survives on its river-based economy and its
culture, which the tribals do not wish to part with. ``It is better to
suffer and die here rather than live a dead hostile life at a resettlement
site a hundred kilometres away,'' say the Vasaves.
Ask them what there is to cling to in Domkhedi and the reply is swift.
``Holi. Do you understand what it means? It's not just dancing around a
fire with colours pasted all over. I know you will not understand, you are
from the city.''
That may not be much of an answer, but it's more than what the future
holds. Thirty-four of the 57 families from Domkhedi who are on record as
having resettled in Rozva in Taloda tehsil over 100 km away since 1992, are
actually yet to be given any land and have been clearly told by
resettlement officials in that State that they would be given land by June
1999, only if there's any land.
``The Government told us this at a meeting on February 12; nobody from
Domkhedi will go to the resettlement site because there is simply no
land,'' explains Pratibha Shinde of the Punarvasan Sangharsh Samiti
(Rehabilitation Struggle Committee) working for the project-affected in
Maharashtra.
While Maharashtra's Rehabilitation Minister Jaiprakash Mundada could not be
contacted, Deputy Secretary (Rehabilitation) D R Mali admitted that the
State Government hasn't been able to give land to 169 families, ``but we
will provide for them, somehow.'' When he was told that others were not
willing to move because there was no land, he said, ``No, no, we will give
them when they come.''
The State Government, says Shinde, has not been able to allot land to the
families shifted because it has provided land at the resettlement sites to
the natives cultivating them for years and the latter are unwilling to part
with it. The records say there are 700 hectares lying under dispute because
of this; another 836 hectares is comprised of ponds and hills and is unfit
for habitation.
Interestingly, since no land measurement has ever been done in Domkhedi --
or for that matter in the entire tehsil -- since the British left, it is
difficult for the tribals to prove land ownership. And so, how much land
they will get when they are resettled remains a mystery. ``Though we have
been tilling for ages, we have now been dubbed encroachers on these very
lands,'' says K C Padvi, an Independent MLA from Akrani.
These are problems that have been there for sometime and are likely to
remain in the future. But today is Holi, today Domkhedi is full of colour,
song and dance. Problems can wait. There will be time enough tomorrow to
worry.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.