A progressive woman ward member of the Pargaon Gram Panchayat near Pune, who hails from the Mati Vadar Samaj (a community of denotified tribes), has been facing social boycott and mental agony for refusing to donate for a community ritual.
Anita More’s ostracism began in 2013 when she refused to donate for the ‘pig sacrifice’, an important ritual for Mati Vadars performed once in three years to propitiate the souls of ancestors. Ms. More said she would rather invest it in her son’s education.
“They have threatened my life several times. Last year, an influential member of our community, Srinivas More, came down from Pune with his cohorts to browbeat me into paying the donation fee,” she told The Hindu . Despite her pleas, an inebriated Srinivas More stayed put outside her home at night, shouting obscenities .
Son faces music Her eight-year-old son, Devendra, was routinely jeered at and excluded from games with other children. To put him out of harm’s way, Ms. More was forced to send her son 12 km further to neighbouring Kedagaon village to pursue his studies.
“Fortunately, the grocery store which I frequent is owned by a Muslim. So, the spectre of boycott is absent there,” she says.
The donation per couple is Rs. 3,000. As Ms. More’s extended family, including her relatives, comprise four couples, the “collectors” have charged her Rs. 12,000 for the ritual.
Ms. More’s decision to contest the panchayat elections in 2002 breaking with patriarchal convention earned the ire of community elders. She was elected by the highest number of votes in her ward (352) in the Pargaon gram panchayat, situated in Daund Taluk, 85 km from Pune. “It is ironic that a constitutionally elected member, who attempted to don the mantle of progress within her community, has been subjected to mental harassment for protesting against superstition,” says activist Hamid Dabholkar of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS).
The MANS has been tackling over 200 cases of social boycott and ostracism unleashed by the Jat (caste) panchayats across the State.
‘Worse than khaps’ Mr. Dabholkar says the punishment meted out by the Jat panchayats is even worse than the brutal khap panchayats of Haryana as the victim is permanently condemned to a state of heightened anxiety, scared about the next form of ‘torture’.
On May 13, Ms. More was summoned to what she believed to be a regular gram panchayat meeting. Instead, to her shock, she discovered that the Jat Panchayat had taken over the gram sabha premises.
She, along with her 70-year-old mother-in law, were subjected to yet another diatribe cataloguing her alleged ‘offences’ against the Vadar community in the presence of an ineffectual Sarpanch.
“They [the Jat Panchayat] will continue to torment me until I pay the ritual donation,” she says.
Activists of the MANS, who are campaigning for Ms. More, have briefed the Superintendent of Police (Pune Rural) on the issue.
