“We finish our work early, before evening,” says Kalpana Umbersade of Navsachapada, a tiny Adivasi hamlet. The pada has no electricity, so children study in the evenings by the light of candles or lanterns. Sometimes it’s breezy, and flames flicker and die, so the kids can’t study. Men walk with torches at night, because street illumination isn’t functional. There are leopards on the prowl: poultry, goats, even dogs have been killed by the big cats. Anand Umbersade, a relative and fellow resident, says, “The moment we hear our dogs barking differently, we grab the kids and hide inside.” Electricity isn’t the only amenity they lack: water supply is a problem, and they don’t even have shared sanitation facilities.
All this would perhaps not be unusual in a tribal settlement in the remote hinterland.
What makes it remarkable is that Navsachapada is about a 10-minute drive from Goregaon station, and within sight of the countless brightly-lit windows of multi-storey apartment and office buildings which have sprung up over the past decade. The 60-odd huts — housing around 300 loosely-related people of the Warli tribe, descendants of the original inhabitants of the forest area — are in the middle of the Aarey Milk Colony.
There are 27 other such hamlets in the colony, but Navsachapada’s situation is worse than that of the others, because it falls into the area allotted to the Aarey campus of the Bombay Veterinary College (BVC), which has been hostile, stymying any attempt to get basic needs.
‘The land of our ancestors’
“Our people lived here, farmed here,” says Laxmi Nimle, 50. “We are the original inhabitants. But our ancestors were uneducated, and did not realise the importance of documents.” Previous generations would stick government papers in the spaces between the bamboo frames and the roof thatch, where the elements would destroy them, she says. “Now, when [officials] ask for documentation, we have none.”
Tribals from Aarey's Navsacha Pada successfully agitated to get the right to use their own toilet blocks. The Bombay Veterinary College, which allegedly owns the land where they stay, had been refusing them permissions to build or get their own toilets.
Navsachapada’s residents have lived off the land all their lives, growing paddy in the monsoon and vegetables the rest of the year — selling the surplus, and fruits from jackfruit and mango trees, for extra income — and they also keep some livestock, mostly poultry and goats. Now, though, their agrarian activities are under threat, because they are not given access to water. Ironically, the mushrooming concrete structures offer a sort of lifeline: during the dry months, many of the young people get jobs in housekeeping departments of offices, or doing manual labour.
In the non-monsoon months, even drinking water is scarce. They all depend on one half-inch tap from a BVC pipe, and the flow is usually a trickle. (The college has refused to let the municipality supply drinking water.) The result is long lines of cans, which are used to carry the water to plastic drums in each house. This water is kept mainly for drinking and cooking. The women of the pada wash clothes at a pond, but, they say, the BVC is chasing them away even from there, because that’s where the buffaloes kept by the college’s farm are washed. “The buffaloes are luckier than us,” says Prakash Bhoir, an activist from the Shram Jeevi Sanghatana and a resident of a nearby pada. “They get a bath twice a day while we often can’t even have one. All our water sources have been taken away from us. Futka talao, a pond [which is fed by spill-off from a British-era dam] in the land allotted to the State Reserve Police Force, was fenced off by the SRPF. They deny us entry for fishing or washing, but allowed a commercial boating service there till five years ago.”
Sanitation is another issue. The BVC has prevented the residents from building toilets. Recently, an NGO, Emkay Foundation, tried to give Navsachapada bio toilet blocks paid for by CSR funds. Residents say BVC staff seized the cubicles, moved them near the college gates, and refused to let them access the toilets. Cassandra Nazareth, a volunteer with We Will Help Foundation, says that the removal was despite the toilets complying with all the parameters BVC had set. “How can women be forced to defecate in the open?” she asks. “This is inhuman.” An agitation by residents on February 28 (reported in The Hindu, March 1) saw the college permitting them to carry the toilets back to their hamlet. However, P.L. Dhande, associate dean of the BVC, said, “They can start using the toilets only after the university gives an approval, which might take at least three days. The senior officials may ratify or reject this decision.”
Though a well-maintained road runs close by, the village only has pathways, some parts paved. Dharma Umbersare says, “Some local politicians tried to provide us with cement paths. But the BVC refused permission and even seized the concrete brought for our work.”
Residents allege that the BVC has also played a part in ensuring that the street lights in the pada are disconnected from power supply. (They have also attempted to use illegal connections, they admit, asking not to be named; the BVC has found and shut those down too.)
BVC authorities do not deny that they are depriving Navsachapada of amenities.
‘The land the government gave us’
BVC authorities do not deny that they are depriving Navsachapada of amenities. In fact, they insist they are in the right, as the college’s land was allotted by the State government; it is the Adivasis who are trespassers, they say, and who are in the way of the institute’s expansion.
“We have been allotted the land in 1978,” says Mr. Dhande. “The people can live here, but they cannot do their farming there. Our executive council has decided not to provide them water or electricity. We want the people to be redeveloped in a corner of our plot, but they are refusing and are insisting on farming right here.” Mr. Dhande says the BVC’s plans are on hold because the Adivasis are occupying 4.5 acres [of the 110 acres allotted to the college]. “Our problem is that we cannot do their redevelopment unless the people agree to be part of the process. And they are refusing to agree to be redeveloped.”
When Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Housing (and MLA for the constituency) Ravindra Waikar was told of this stand, he said, “Why should [BVC] redevelop? We will be doing that.”
Mr. Waikar told this reporter that Maharashtra was committed to ensuring housing for all Adivasis. “We will rehabilitate the tribals with 465-sq.ft. houses in one-plus-one structures. These are bigger than the standard Slum Redevelopment Authority 265-sq.ft. houses. We want them to live in good living conditions with access to basic facilities like water, electricity and sanitation. Both the SRA and the Forest Department are coordinating on this.” He added, “Allowing people to do farming may not be possible, but we will ensure them priority in jobs.”
Navsachapada’s people want no part of enforced redevelopment with tiny flats and loss of their livelihood. “We cannot be away from our farms,” says Mr. Bhoir. “We also have our goats and hens. How can we farm and keep animals in one-room kitchen homes? We are the original residents. How can we trespass on our own land? We want to live here and continue with our lifestyle.”
Vanashakti, an NGO, has been working to save Aarey’s ecosystem, taking the case to the National Green Tribunal. Founder Stalin D. says Aarey is a big land parcel, and lucrative for developers. “But people cannot be pushed towards redevelopment. The government cannot escape its responsibility here.” Nayana Pai, a member of the Aarey Conservation Group, which wants to save the land from rapid environment-degrading development, says, “The idea is to torture the people, to arm-twist them to agree with their terms.” Instead of supporting the tribals’ right to their traditional lifestyle, she says, the authorities are crushing them. “So many lies are being told to seize the land from the people.”
