Saurashtra

BJP Fails to Pacify Rajput Community Over Union Minister Rupala’s Remark

Rupala had praised the Dalit community for not bowing down to the British when even “kings and royals” had started breaking bread with them and married into their families.

New Delhi: The controversy around Union minister Parshottam Rupala’s remarks on the Rajput community’s relationship with the British refuses to die down with the latest meeting between community leaders and the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday (April 3) ending without a resolution.

Rupala, who has been named as the BJP candidate from Gujarat’s Rajkot, had praised the Dalit community for not bowing down to the British when even “kings and royals” had started breaking bread with the British and married into their families.

The BJP leader had made the remark while campaigning in Rajkot on March 22. Since then representatives of various Rajput outfits have demanded the withdrawal of his candidature from Rajkot.

Protests emerged across Saurashtra, where more than 100 large and small princely states existed at the time of independence. Members of the Rajput community, who are the decedents of these princely families, met with BJP representatives in Ahmedabad on April 3 to amicably resolve the situation.

However, the community has stuck to its demand of Rupala’s removal.

“They are firm in their demand for removal of Parshottam Rupala as a candidate,” former BJP Minister and Rajput leader Bhupendrasinh Chudasama told the Hindu after the meeting on Wednesday.

“We will not budge from our position,” a leader from Saurashtra told the paper.

Meanwhile Rupala has apologised twice for his remarks and Gujarat BJP chief C.R. Paatil also apologised on Tuesday, urging the Kshatriya community to forgive Mr. Rupala, the Hindu reported.

Former Gujarat BJP president and prominent Rajput leader Rajendrasinh Rana also broke his silence over Rupala’s remark on Tuesday and said how could he ever think of uttering such words about Rajputs, who have fought and sacrificed against Mughals and others in the past.

Gujarat BJP has so far ruled out replacing Rupala as a candidate even though it has replaced two candidates in Sabarkantha and Vadodara due to internal protests by the cadres, the Hindu report said.

How a Book of Urdu Poetry Came to be Printed in Kutch in 1860

This was a period when most princely states in Gujarat and western India did not have printing presses.

In 1860, a book of Urdu poetry was published by a printing press at Bhuj, the capital of the kingdom of Kutch. At a time when most princely states in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra did not have a printing press, how did print reach the remotest corner of western India? And why was the book printed in Urdu, a modern Indian language with no ostensible local connections in Kutch? And why did it mostly contain verses in praise of officials of the East India Company?

“I don’t even know where Baboo Saheb is right now,” complained Ghalib in a letter written on June 5, 1853 to his Agra-based friend, Munshi Hargopal. “Is he up in the hills of Mount Abu or has he come to Bharatpur? There is no reason why he may have gone to Ajmer. After enduring what seems to be a never-ending wait, I now write to you. In your reply to this letter, you should let me know what you think could be the reason for the delay in his response.”

Jani Behari Lall, alias Baboo Saheb, was a man on the move in the 1850s. And the arena of his peregrinations was Rajputana, a sprawling territory fractured into 16 princely states, big and small, all under the overlordship of the Hon’ble East India Company through its Rajputana Agency, instituted in 1832. The Agent to the Governor-General, generally a military officer, was the paramount authority. He was based in Ajmer but summered in the pleasanter climes of Mount Abu.

Munshi Hargopal had introduced Jani Behari Lall to Ghalib earlier in the year in Delhi. Though Jani was already a prolific poet, he immediately adopted Ghalib as his ustad in Urdu poetry by offering a nazrana of a hundred rupees. As a further favour, he presented the royal court of Jaipur, where the ruler Sawai Ram Singh (1833–1880) had just attained adulthood, with a compilation of Ghalib’s verses. This was in the hope that Ghalib would be granted a cash award or a monthly allowance. And Ghalib was now keen to hear the outcome of Jani’s efforts.

Ghalib had had numerous disappointing encounters with the rich and powerful and was not very hopeful of success. His panegyrics had either been ignored by the royal addressees or he had been choused out of the monetary awards by unscrupulous intermediaries. Jani Behari Lall was, however, not cast in that mould.

Jani Behari Lall alias Baboo Saheb. Photo provided by author.

Steeped in the courtly practices of Rajputana, Jani Behari Lall hailed from a family of bureaucrats who were settled in Bharatpur for a few generations. They were Gujarati Nagar Brahmins, a community whose members traditionally occupied the highest administrative posts in the princely courts of Rajputana and Saurashtra. For example, during the long twilight of the Mughal empire in Gujarat, Raja Chhabilaram (1665-1719) and his family wielded great influence on its political affairs. In the early nineteenth century, Ranchhodjee Amarjee (1768-1841), succeeded his father and brother as the dewan of Junagadh. Both of them were scholars whose Persian correspondence was compiled to serve as epistolary exemplars. Ranchhodjee, besides other works, also wrote a Persian history of western Saurashtra titled Tarikh-i-Sorath va Halar. The domination of the Nagar Brahmin community in Gujarat, whose number would never have exceeded a hundred thousand, in the higher echelons of bureaucracy, as well as other fields such as literature and academics, continued well into the 20th century.

Members of the Jani clan (the name is a corruption of Yagnik, a category of priests) had occupied positions in the administrative hierarchy in the kingdom of Bharatpur for generations. Often, these positions were hereditary, but aspirants still needed to acquire the necessary expertise. In early 1853, when Ghalib was waiting to hear from him, Jani Behari Lall was the naib-vakeel or deputy emissary of Bharatpur to the Agent to the Governor-General in Rajputana. But he had not taken the traditional route to get there.

Born around the year 1810, Jani studied at the English school in Agra, a mere fifty miles to the east of Bharatpur. Jani was among the first generation of north Indians to receive a formal education in English. He later moved to Benares where he studied at the Sanskrit College. By the time he completed his education, Jani, like many other educated young men of that time, was well-versed in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and English. But he developed a special affinity for a language which had coalesced into definitive shape only in the late eighteenth century: Urdu.

The details of Jani Behari Lall’s early career are hazy and conflicting. He may have started his career as a teacher in the 1830s at the school established by Baboo Fateh Narain, a scion of the ruling house of Benares. In 1843, he was teaching at the Victoria College, Benares. When a newly appointed principal attempted to restructure the educational system in Benares and unify the Sanskrit and English sections, Jani was among the teachers who were at the receiving end of these reforms. Eventually, Jani decided to explore other career options.

In the mid-1840s, Jani Behari Lall joined the sixty-second regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry. He was the regimental schoolmaster. Jani travelled to many places in Bengal with his regiment going as far east as Dhaka. This was the period when the East India Company vigorously followed a policy of expansion through wars and conquered Punjab and a large part of Burma. The Doctrine of Lapse was also used to annex Indian royal states. Its army was always on standby, ready to march at short notice. Jani must have had the opportunity to observe these political machinations at close quarters for the eight years that he was with the Native Infantry. This stint also gave him the opportunity to develop relationships with European officials in the military and administrative cadres.

When his elder brother, Jani Bankey Lall, who was the vakeel of the state of Bharatpur at the Rajputana Agency, died in the early 1850s, Jani Behari Lall was requisitioned by the Bharatpur Maharaja to act in his stead as naib-vakeel. After the ruler, Balwant Singh, died in 1853 leaving behind an infant son, Bharatpur entered a period of uncertainty. Jani Behari Lall might have played a crucial role in ensuring a successful transition until Jaswant Singh (1851–1893) was placed on the gaddi.

From 1854, Jani Behari Lall had a new role in the same setting. Instead of being a vakeel of an Indian state, he was now munshi or secretary at the Rajputana Agency. Working closely with the Agent, he might have managed diplomatic correspondence with its sixteen ward states. This role required a command over both Persian and English, besides local languages.

In May 1857, most regiments of the Bengal Native Infantry, including the sixty-second in which Jani had served, mutinied. It was a turbulent period for the East India Company as its officers tried to ensure that the mutiny did not spread to Rajputana. Though they could not thwart it, they were, through a combination of fortuitous circumstances, able to quell it at short notice. Unlike the ruling nobility in the environs of Delhi, none of the Rajput states, especially Bharatpur, supported the mutineers and this proved to be the decisive factor. The rebellion in the kingdom of Kutch, adjoining Rajputana, was also subjugated in a similar manner.

The East India Company, as part of its policy to exert better control in the aftermath of the rebellion, decided to depute Indians who had worked in its establishment to oversee the administration of its client states. And so it was that Jani Behari Lall found himself designated the dewan or chief minister of Kutch in 1858.

Sandwiched between the two large provinces of Sindh and Gujarat and bounded by inhospitable salt-caked deserts, Kutch might seem a place where nothing significant transpired. But that was far from the reality. Kutch had its fair share of action: border skirmishes, assassinations, fratricides, and, once, in 1741, a Kutchi prince named Lakhpat, emulating the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, usurped his father’s kingdom and imprisoned him until he died. Its long coastline facilitated a thriving maritime economy and Kutchi ships called at Indian Ocean ports from Zanzibar and Muscat in the west to Sumatra and Java in the east. Besides a brisk trade in salt and agricultural produce, Kutch was the entrepôt for African slaves and Malwa opium. Its importance in 18th century trade networks of western India can be gauged by the fact that Tipu Sultan of Mysore had established a “factory” in Bhuj to further his international trading interests.

An 1878 map of Kutch.

After Tipu Sultan’s death in 1799, this investment provided the East India Company with an excuse to establish direct contact with the kingdom of Kutch as they sought to claim his assets. They soon deputed a Political Resident to Kutch, and within two decades, in 1819, manoeuvred to depose the reigning king. His five-year-old son was installed on the throne with the titular name of Maharao Deshalji II. When Jani arrived in Bhuj in 1858, Deshalji, now in his forties and unwell, still occupied the gaddi.

Jani Behari Lall, as a dewan who had been imposed on the state, might have faced a hostile reception from the numerous power centres in the Kutchi court. But by deftly defusing a succession crisis which had been precipitated by Deshalji who wanted his younger son to succeed him rather than the crown prince, Jani seems to have established his clout. As a means of exercising effective administrative control, Jani compiled and codified all the extant local laws. And perhaps, it was to print this Kutchi law code that Jani Behari Lall requisitioned a printing press.

Having spent his youth in Agra, Jani Behari Lall would have been very familiar with the printing press and its products. The Agra Akhbar, the first Urdu newspaper from the city, began its career in 1831. Agra’s first Persian weekly newspaper, Zubdatul Akhbar, came into existence in 1833 and was long-lived. The Agra Mission Press and the Secundra Orphanage Press, both established in the late thirties, printed prolifically in many languages. By the 1850s, the cities of Lucknow, Delhi and Allahabad had also emerged as major print centres. One can imagine Jani as a diligent peruser of newspapers and a buyer of printed books in Urdu and Persian. One of his verses goes thus: “I am in love with books, say Raazi; because a book is a man’s best friend.”

The printing press at Bhuj was known as the Kutch Durbar Press. It was the first to be established in a princely state of Rajputana or Saurashtra. No further details are forthcoming about the press which Jani set up but it seems to have become operational in 1859. The lithographic press, could have been sourced from either Bombay or Ahmedabad and a trained printer might have accompanied it.

It was from the Kutch Durbar Press that the aforementioned Urdu book was published in Hijri 1277 (October 1860). And it was a book of poetry composed by Jani Behari Lall who wrote Urdu verse under the pen name (takhallus) of ‘Raazi’. Titled Muntakhab Qasaid va Ghazaliyat [Selected Qasidas and Ghazals], the book runs 175 pages. Lithographed on cream-coloured locally made paper, the text is neatly laid out in two columns with generous margins. The scribe who copied the lithographed text was Miyanji Abdulla bin Miyanji Ibrahim, a native of Mandvi, the largest port in Kutch. Abdulla wrote in a steady but slightly cramped style. The floral embellishments are, however, ineptly done. The print quality of the book is mediocre as might be expected in a newly set up lithographic press, perhaps operated by an inexperienced lithographer. The inking is uneven in most pages rendering the text illegible at places. The text does not contain a dibacha (foreword) or taqriz (laudatory blurbs), standard features of contemporary Urdu poetry books.

The first third of the book comprises the qasidas or laudatory poems. The recipients of praise from Jani’s pen are mostly European military officials ranging from lowly lieutenants to colonels commanding his regiment. Jani would have worked with them during his stint in the Bengal Native Infantry. He also includes an application for redress, written in the form of a long poem, addressed to the principal of Benares College in 1844. His ghazals, which account for more than half the book, were judged as competent by his contemporaries, even if he verged on prurience occasionally.

The highlight of the book is a biography of Jani Behari Lall himself, composed in Persian verse by a Kutchi poet named Munshi Amin Ahmed Sahba. Though it is composed in the highfalutin’ style characteristic of such encomiums, the qasida traces Jani’s career from his early days in Agra and Benares to his exploits in the Rajputana Agency at Ajmer and Mount Abu before he arrived in Kutch. He then mentions the high regard with which he was held by senior officials of the East India Company. At Kutch, he credits Jani with establishing the rule of law. Some of the biographical details in this article account are based on this qasida.

As a prominent Urdu poet, Jani Behari Lall features in many tazkiras (biographical dictionaries of poets), but their authors, such as Lala Sri Ram who wrote Khumkhana-e Javed, do not seem to have seen this book. Nor has Malik Ram, who profiled Jani in his account of Ghalib’s contemporaries, Talamiza-e Ghalib.

After the death of Maharao Deshalji in 1860, Jani Behari Lall could not long survive the change in regime at Kutch. He returned to Bharatpur in 1861 where he enjoyed a long tenure as the vakeel. In the mid-1870s, he was appointed guardian of a teenage Sajjan Singh, who had just become the ruler of Mewar. He seems to have been associated with the Bharatpur court even in the 1890s and was in receipt of a pension until his death in 1897.

Mirza Ghalib. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Whether the relationship between Mirza Ghalib and Jani Behari Lall endured after 1853 is not known, but Ghalib did get a cash award of three hundred rupees from the Jaipur court thanks to Jani’s intercession.

Jani continued his literary activities and published numerous books, most of them printed at the Matba Mufeed-e-Aam, an Agra printery which also published a few of Ghalib’s works. His works, available in a few libraries, include a grammar of the Arabic language, a handbook of the Persian and English languages, and Urdu translations of Persian classical texts such as Gulistan, Bostan and Anwar-i Suhayli. He is also known to have written an autobiography which is lost.

Not much has survived of Jani’s legacy, including his papers and correspondence. A dharamshala built in Samvat 1941 (1884/85) by Jani Behari Lall and his nephew Jani Ganapati Lall in memory of Jani Bankey Lall is all that survives in Bharatpur.

The Kutch Durbar Press established by Jani Behari Lall was the sole printing press in all of Kutch for the next ninety years. The Kutchi court clamped down on printing activities to the extent that even newspapers printed elsewhere could not be imported into the kingdom. It was only after Indian independence that private printing presses could be established in Kutch.

Murali Ranganathan is a writer and historian researching the 19th century with a special focus on print history and culture.

Gujarat: In Phase 1 Areas, Both BJP and Congress Are Contending With AAP’s Entry

The BJP is hoping its ‘Gujarat pride’ campaign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal will ensure it wins another term.

Rajkot (Gujarat): As 89 of a total of Gujarat’s 182 assembly seats in Saurashtra, South Gujarat and Kachchh go to polls on Thursday, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress will have a new but energetic political player to tackle in the 2022 assembly polls. The rise of Aam Aadmi Party as a credible third force has queered the bi-polar electoral polity in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat, much to the dislike of not only the Congress but also the BJP.

Take the instance of the high-profile Botad assembly seat in Saurashtra. Here, Congress’s senior leader Manhar Patel is pitched against BJP’s newbie Ghanshyam Virani. In 2017, the grand old party lost the seat by only 905 votes and hopes to gain the seat in 2022. To beat anti-incumbency, the BJP replaced its sitting legislator Saurabh Patel with Virani. Both the Congress and BJP candidates belong to the influential Leuva Patel community. But AAP has fielded Umesh Makwana, a former BJP worker who belongs to the numerically stronger Koli Patel community.

In one of the constituency’s biggest villages, Sarva, voters belonging to OBC Koli Patel community appeared to prefer Makwana, while those from the Patel community seemed undecided. Koli Patels are the biggest voting block in the constituency, with numbers estimated to be around 85,000. Patels are the second biggest block with around 60,000 voters, while smaller communities like Bharwad, Parajapati, Dalits and others lag behind with around 50,000 voters.

The presence of the only Koli leader in the fray has made the road difficult for both the BJP and Congress. “I want to vote AAP this time. It is time for change. I don’t miss even a single episode of Mahamanthan,” said Shailesh, adding that as a Koli Patel, he will prefer Makwana to be his MLA.

Shailesh was referring to AAP’s chief ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi’s popular television show Mahamanthan, which discusses agrarian concerns and farmers’ issues. Across the predominantly agrarian Saurashtra, Gadhvi is a popular face despite having ventured into electoral politics only recently, particularly among smaller OBC communities like Charan, Koli Patels, Bharwad, Rabari and Gadhvi groups.

Manhar Patel of the Congress. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

Congress’s Manhar Patel understands the AAP predicament but is assured that it will not hurt the Congress alone but also the BJP in the urban pockets of the seat. “Surely, some of the traditional Congress votes may shift towards AAP. But in urban pockets of the seat, a good section of BJP votes will also go to AAP,” Patel, who was visiting Sarva with around 10 people on the last day of campaign, told The Wire.

Patel, however, is rest assured that his door-to-door campaign for over a year and strategy to pick up local issues like poor sewerage, lack of drinking water, agrarian concerns or traffic congestion and invoke unfulfilled promises of the sitting BJP legislator will give him an edge over others. Yet it is AAP which has captured the voters’ imagination in the constituency. “BJP will form the government but I want to try AAP this time. Only AAP is addressing the real concerns of people of Gujarat. It is not indulging in making fake and unreal promises,” said Paresh Patel, a recent MBBS graduate in the village.

At a public meeting held at a temple in Sarva, the BJP candidate Ghanshyam Virani, however, exhorted people not to be dissuaded by the Congress or AAP and said that each vote for him will be strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hands. “When you vote on December 1, remember that your vote is for a strong India. Our Prime Minister Narendrabhai singlehandedly took on China, rescued Indian students from Ukraine by forcing a ceasefire. When his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan could not help his country’s students, Narendrabhai helped them too,” he said as he addressed a meeting.

“Remember that Gujaratis are walking with confidence in the world today only because of Narendrabhai Modi. Everyone in the world knows India today because of Modi,” he said.

Also read: A Green Lotus in Gujarat? Why AIMIM’s Own Leaders Are Questioning Owaisi’s Decisions

Both the Congress and BJP are nervous about AAP’s prospects and are unsure how their traditional voters will swing in 2022. AAP may not be in a position to win a large number of seats but is surely positioned to secure a respectable vote share. A large section of voters who want change or are even fatigued with BJP’s 27 years of unbroken rule believe that AAP may raise people’s concerns better than the Congress even as an opposition party. However, it still remains a fledgling party and a much weaker organisational force compared to the traditional parties of the state.

According to senior AAP leader in Gujarat Sagar Rabari, who is also contesting from Bechraj seat in central Gujarat, AAP is likely to damage the BJP as much as the Congress. “We are truly a third force. People are looking up to us as a political alternative, not merely as a player that may upset the BJP or Congress’s applecart. Those who feel that we will only hurt the Congress by dividing the opposition votes are mistaken,” Rabari told The Wire.

Voters in Sarva. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

Another AAP leader who did not want to be named believes that AAP will cut into the BJP’s traditional votes in at least 48 urban seats. In such a scenario, the Congress may increase its urban presence if AAP takes away a substantial number from the saffron party, provided the Congress retains its own vote share.

Rabari believes that AAP’s presence in the state has pivoted the electoral campaign in a positive direction. “The elections moved invariably towards Hindu-Muslim polarisation earlier, because of which BJP benefitted. But AAP has successfully pivoted the 2022 election campaign towards people’s issues like health, education, inflation, unemployment and welfare talk,” he said.

The BJP had to respond to the new electoral field. Most of their leaders have devoted parts of their speeches on the BJP government’s achievements in the state. Yet, it has relied heavily on Modi’s appeal among voters to superceed the opposition’s focus on material issues of the state.

Also read: Planned Zinc Smelter Plant Has Turned Adivasis in This Corner of Gujarat Against the BJP

“Years of BJP presence in Gujarat has led to a strong Hindutvaisation of urban middle classes. Almost 46% of the state live in urban areas. Sects like Swaminarayan and Swadhyaya have contributed to this process greatly. BJP’s consistent performance in the state, irrespective of what its campaign is, stems from the Hindutvaisation of the state. For BJP voters, candidates don’t matter much. They would anyway vote for the Lotus,” Achyut Yagnik, founder of the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, told The Wire.

“The fact that two Gujaratis – Narendra Modi and Amit Shah – are currently the top two leaders of India also has a wide appeal among the state’s voters. Electing the BJP is also a prestige issue for a substantial section of Gujaratis,” he added.

A BJP meeting in Sarva. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

Ahmedabad-based political analyst Hari Desai concurs. “BJP’s campaign about Gujarati pride or even muscular nationalism is a tried-and-tested strategy to consolidate the Hindus who have traditionally been saffron voters. The last-minute orchestrated electoral campaign about how India is shining under Modi-Shah is to divert attention of disenchanted Hindus from their daily issues towards Hindu nationalistic sentiments,” he said.

Yet, the BJP is not taking the elections lightly. It understands people’s exhaustion with the saffron party at the state level and has been making amends over the last few months. It rescinded some of the development projects that would have entailed large-scale displacement from the tribal belt. The prime minister himself will complete 36 rallies by the end of the campaign. By appointing Bhupendra Patel as the chief minister, giving tickets to as many as 44 Patel leaders, and promulgating 10% EWS reservation, it has attempted to placate the financially and socially influential Patidar community which had led an agitation demanding reservation a few years ago.

Patidar voters in Saurashtra. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

Congress, on the other hand, has evidently changed its strategy. It may be a lack of resources or the poor appeal of its top leadership among Gujarati voters, but the Congress leaders haven’t had many big rallies or roadshows. Instead, its candidates have led a silent campaign, raised local issues in their respective constituencies, and stayed away from making any statement that may help the BJP polarise the electorate along religious lines or blow up into a controversy. The party has also chosen its candidates based on its electoral formula to consolidate OBCs, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims in the state. However, its biggest weakness has been its poor performance as an opposition party during the last five years – a factor that prevents many swing voters from allying with the Congress.

The first phase of elections is particularly crucial for the opposition parties. The BJP suffered heavy losses in the 54 seats of Saurashtra last time. Congress has secured 30 of these seats. It will hope to repeat its performance. For the AAP too, South Gujarat, especially Surat, Amreli and Rajkot, and Saurashtra, are the most important. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party has focused its attention primarily on these regions. The BJP will look to control its losses in these regions as much as it will hope to consolidate its strongholds in north and central Gujarat where polling is on December 5.

Gujarat: Prashant Kishor’s Plan for Congress Hinges on Naresh and Hardik Patel

Even as speculation is rife that the poll strategist may join the grand old party ahead of the 2024 general election, the immediate focus appears to be the assembly election in Gujarat.

Even as it appears imminent that political strategist Prashant Kishor is expected to associate with the Congress party as a key planner for the Gujarat polls, it is public knowledge that he wishes powerful Leuva Patel leader Naresh Patel to play a major role, while ensuring that the young Hardik Patel, a Kadva Patidar, remains integral to the system.

Speculations are also rife that Prashant Kishor may even join the Congress party ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Three meetings took place between national Congress leaders with Naresh Patel, who heads the Khodaldham Temple Trust. The Leuva Patel leader has considerable influence in his sub-sect in the politically significant Saurashtra region.

Nares Patel’s first meeting on Friday was with the national general secretary and a close Gandhi family aide K.C. Venugopal, before a separate meeting with Kishor. This was followed by another conference with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Kishor and Venugopal. A final call would be taken once Rahul Gandhi returns from abroad around May 15.

According to reliable AICC sources in Delhi, the key point that Kishor and Naresh Patel insisted on at the meetings was that it was crucial not to let Hardik Patel leave the party in view of the recent noises he has made about being given short shrift in the party, while simultaneously praising the BJP leadership. Hardik’s Patidar agitation played a stellar role during the run-up to the December 2015 civic bodies elections as well as the 2017 assembly polls when the Congress gave its best performance in three decades.

After returning to Rajkot from Delhi, Naresh Patel, who had all along kept his cards close to his chest as to which party he would eventually join, told reporters at the Rajkot airport, “I had met Prasant Kishor. I will announce my decision by May 15.” That is when Rahul Gandhi returns from abroad and the Congress leadership would have one final meeting with Naresh Patel.

Both the warring sects of the Patidars — the Leuvas and Kadvas — are estimated to constitute around 1.5 crore people of Gujarat’s 6.5 crore population. Patidars or Patels claim to be the descendants of Lord Ram; the Leuvas and Kadvas claim to have descended from Ram’s twin sons, Luv and Kush respectively. The Leuvas worship Khodal Ma as their clan deity, while the Kadvas worship Umiya Mata.

Even the Gujarat Congress sources reveal to Vibes of India that the anti-BJP tone the agitation gave birth to is still alive.

“We need Patidars to fight and win the elections against BJP, especially the Leuvas and Kadvas who constitute around 15 per cent of the state’s electorate,” a newly appointed AICC state in-charge secretary of Gujarat Congress said.

In Central, North and South Gujarat, the BJP had maintained its presence with a total of 76 seats in the 2017 elections.

A senior Indian-Political Action Committee (I-PAC) member told VOI that it’s evident that Patidars have a strong influence on around 50 seats in Gujarat, the majority of which are in the Saurashtra region.

“If Congress can give the right electoral candidature to Naresh Patel and keep a hold on Hardik Patel, then the chances are higher that the other Patidar community organisations such as Umiyadham Sidsar in Saurashtra; Umiyadham and in North Gujarat; Vishva Umiya Foundation and Sardardham in Central Gujarat; Surat-based Samast Patidar Samaj in South Gujarat and Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) will align as pro-Congress”.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also trying hard to fish in the troubled waters by keeping its door wide to welcome influential leaders.

Notably, in the recent 2021 Surat Municipal Elections, AAP has won 8 seats out of 27 in Patidar-dominated areas where quota agitation led by the community leaders in 2015 had taken place. The Patidars had supported the Congress after 2015 but preferred the AAP over the grand-old-party this time around.

“Patidar community leaders had proposed a specific number of tickets in the Surat civic polls which the Congress had denied. Then the AAP won 27 seats with a vote share of 28.58 per cent, while the Congress which did not win a single seat saw its vote share go down by 9.23 per cent”, the I-PAC source told VOI.

This article was first published on Vibes of India.

‘Yes, We Are Andolanjeevi, You Have Forced Us’: Medha Patkar

‘Today’s centralised policies are pushing the marginalised communities further to the margins, squeezing all options for the poor but to take to the streets.’

“Yes, we are andolanjeevi,” declared firebrand human rights activist Medha Patkar in a rebuff to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s andolanjeevi taunt at those leading people’s movements in the country. She asserted, “Today’s centralised policies are pushing the marginalised communities further to the margins, squeezing all options for the poor but to take to the streets.”

Medha Patkar, who fought a relentless 36-year battle against big dams represented by the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project, on Sunday pointed to the “lopsided distribution” of the dam waters in favour of the cities while several regions of Saurashtra and Kutch still face water crisis.

Activists from the Narmada Bachao Andolan protesting against the Sardar Sarovar project and the displacement it caused. Credit: PTI/Files

Patkar was delivering the Chunibhai Vaidya Memorial Lecture on the late land rights activist’s death anniversary on December 19. Chunibhai, more known as Chunikaka, used to be called the new Gandhi of Gujarat for his non-violent struggles. His people’s movements through Gujarat Lok Samiti had forced every large corporate house to withdraw or tamper with their plans.

Citing the instance of the farmers’ agitation, which forced the BJP government to withdraw controversial farm laws, the internationally acclaimed rights activist asserted that “this would not have been possible without a pitched public agitation.”

She asserted, “We have seen some good judges who could withstand political pressures until a point, before succumbing and looking for middle-paths. We have seen it from Ayodhya to Kashmir, and also seen them taking up Rajya Sabha memberships.”

Stressing on the need for public agitations, Patkar said, “We may fight legal battles or may find stray supporters among the bureaucrats and judges, but few changes would come about without people’s movements in the field.”

She said the need of the hour was to fight real political battles from outside party politics by those who become the first victims of so-called welfare policies framed, ironically, in their very name.

Patkar said the time had also come to fight at the level of international funding agencies like those of the UN, World Bank and Asian Development Bank, who “appreciate and understand the concerns of Adivasis, the Dalits, but also fund government agencies implementing policies against them.”

Medha went on, “They allege we receive foreign funding for our agitations while I had returned even my award money, but there is huge money coming into the country to implement the so-called PPP model policies.”

“How much foreign funds came into the PM Cares Fund and for disaster management? Where is it?” she asked. And wondered that the government claimed it had no money for the tribals, the landless, the poor, the farmers, “but it has money for Central Vista, for Sardar Patel Statue; they have Rs 68,000 crore to waive corporate NPAs.”

She recalled how her Narmada Bachao Andolan had forced the World Bank to withdraw funding to the Sardar Sarovar Project. Patkar pointed out, “The World Bank’s internal document on Narmada stated that they would get an entry into the tribal regions!”

Patkar said all micro-level struggles are key to building a macro-level agitation that questions the very paradigm of development at all levels. “Chunikaka said gaon ki zamin, gaon ki hai — but is it happening now? Do the villagers have control over the jal, jungle, zameen being given away to the corporate sector, the mining mafia? Where is the three-tier Panchayati Raj system?” Patkar said, and added there “is no alternative to people’s movements.”

This article was originally published on Vibes of India.

Saurashtra Player Avi Barot Dies at 29 After Suffering Cardiac Arrest

The player, who also represented Haryana and Gujarat in his career, died on Friday while being taken to a hospital after he felt unwell at his home.

Rajkot: Saurashtra batter Avi Barot, a former India Under-19 captain and a member of the Ranji Trophy-winning team in the 2019-20 season, has died after suffering a cardiac arrest at the young age of 29.

The player, who also represented Haryana and Gujarat in his career, died on Friday while being taken to a hospital after he felt unwell at his home. He is survived by his mother and wife, who is expecting the couple’s first child.

“Avi was at home when he felt unwell. He was being rushed to the hospital and breathed his last inside the ambulance. He was a very lively boy and seeing his talent, I brought him to Saurashtra from Haryana where he started his first class career,” Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) president Jaydev Shah told PTI.

“Avi’s father passed away at 42. He is now survived by his mother and wife who is four months pregnant. It will take a lot of time for me to accept this tragedy,” Shah said.

The young cricketer was competing only last week in a local tournament. He was a right-handed batter, who could also bowl off-breaks.

“I am still in a state of shock. He was just 29 and last week we had a state-level tournament Jeevan Trophy where he came and played. I in fact told him you are scoring runs, you can take it easy but he said ‘Jaydev bhai we need to win it‘,” Shah recalled.

Barot played 38 first-class matches, 38 List A matches and 20 Domestic T20 games. He was a wicket-keeper-batsman and scored 1,547 runs in first-class matches, 1,030 runs in list-A games and 717 runs in T20s.

Barot was a part of the Ranji Trophy-winning Saurashtra team, which had defeated Bengal in the summit clash. He had scored a half-century in that match.

The Saurashtra Cricket Association issued a statement to express its condolences.

“Everyone at Saurashtra Cricket Association (is) deeply shocked and saddened on (the) very shocking, untimely and extremely sad demise of Avi Barot, remarkable and notable cricketer of Saurashtra,” the SCA stated in a media release issued here.

For Saurashtra, he played 21 Ranji Trophy matches, 17 List A matches and 11 domestic T20 games.

Barot was India U-19 captain in 2011 and earlier this year, he grabbed attention with his stupendous 122-run knock in just 53 balls during a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match against Goa.

“This is absolutely shocking and painful to learn about Avi’s sad demise. He was a great teammate and had great cricketing skills. In all recent domestic matches, he had performed remarkably well,” Shah said.

“He was a very friendly and noble human being. We all at Saurashtra Cricket Association are in deep shock,” added the former Saurashtra captain.

As Gulab Impacts Western States, It Could Generate Another Cyclonic Storm

Jayant Sarkar, head of the Regional Meteorological Department of the IMD, said such a phenomenon does not happen very frequently, “though it is known among our fraternity.”

Mumbai: After remnants of cyclone Gulab that hit the eastern coast of the country brought torrential rains to central Maharashtra, a senior Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) official said on Wednesday that the country is witnessing a “rare occurrence” as the weather system might generate another cyclonic storm.

Jayant Sarkar, head of the Regional Meteorological Department of the IMD, said such a phenomenon does not happen very frequently, “though it is known among our fraternity.”

“It did bring excess showers over Maharashtra and put most of the regions such as Konkan, Madhya Maharashtra and Marathwada into surplus precipitation category,” he told PTI.

Also Read: Odisha, Andhra Pradesh Brace as Cyclone Gulab Advances; Landfall Likely at Midnight

A cyclone begins with a ‘depression’. Generally, a cyclonic system loses its severity once it makes landfall because the supply of moisture reduces. Cyclone Gulab made landfall between Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam on the eastern coast. However, despite losing moisture supply, the system kept moving on westwards and brought intense showers over Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and later Gujarat in the last three days, said Sarkar.

“The weather system received some moisture and it accelerated towards the Arabian Sea. It is expected to leave the land from the Saurashtra region. With more moisture, it would get intensified from depression to deep depression to cyclone,” he said.

“At the same time, it will take away moisture from the coastal areas and reduce the rainfall over Gujarat’s Saurashtra region as well as north Madhya Maharashtra and Konkan region,” he said.

If it transforms into a new cyclone, it will be named ‘Shaheen’, he said.

What Decides Where Big Cats Live in India – Conservation Policies or Politics?

The most popular rationalisation for why Gujarat doesn’t want to share its lions seems to be pride – a tack that also allows it to hide the influence of the tourism lobby.

During his Independence Day address this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that in the coming days, the government would launch a ‘Project Lion’ to help conserve Asiatic lions.

According to former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh, former prime minister Indira Gandhi launched Project Lion in 1972 “as India’s first species conservation programme”. Ramesh is currently the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology, environment and forests, and a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka.

As such, Project Lion joins a list of projects advanced by previous governments that the Modi government has rehashed.

On August 16, an unnamed ministry official reportedly said Project Lion won’t be involved in translocating lions. He was referring to the process of moving some Asiatic lions from Gir in Gujarat to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh, like the Supreme Court had ordered in April 2013.

The court noted that the translocation is “of utmost importance … to preserve the Asiatic lion, an endangered species” and called for it to happen within six months.

In 1994, a canine distemper virus outbreak in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park had killed around a thousand lions. An epidemic of similar magnitude in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region could wipe out the local population of Asiatic lions there. So the court wanted the population to split up – to not have all eggs in the same basket.

However, seven years later, the translocation is still pending.

According to Ramesh, “the reason is only one. One man” – alluding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his oft-expressed reluctance to allow his home state to part with its lions. This argument is strengthened by forest officials in Gujarat being open to translocations within the state.

Bharon Ghati, clean energy, Clean Ganga Mission, dams, energy sufficiency, Ganga river, Ganga river basin, GD agarwal, hydroelectric project, IIT Kanpur, India Rivers Week, Jairam Ramesh, Loharinag Pala, Manmohan Singh, Namami Gange, National Ganga River Basin Authority, National Thermal Power Corporation, Nitin Gadkari, Pala Maneri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sand Mining

Jairam Ramesh. Photo: PTI

The first plan to establish a second home for India’s lions was born in 1995. The government drew up a 20-year-vision to be deployed in three phases. The first major problems crept up in the second phase: between 2000 and 2005, even though 24 villages in Kuno with more than 1,500 families had given up their ancestral land to make way for the lions, the Gujarat government, under the chief ministership of Modi, refused to move the cats.

This dispute went to the Supreme Court and culminated with the order to set up a second lion population in Kuno. But while Gujarat hasn’t complied, multiple disease outbreaks and inbreeding have only strengthened the case for a second home.

Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and the forest departments of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have yet to explain why they haven’t followed through.

Lion conservation and politics

The most popular rationalisation for why Gujarat doesn’t want to share its lions seems to be Gujarati asmita – or pride. This tack gives the state an excuse to claim it is doing the right thing, and hide the influence of, among others, the tourism lobby.

India’s Asiatic lions all live in the Saurashtra region. This localisation has created opportunities for ‘lion tourism’ that “bureaucrats, politicians and local communities” have exploited “to gain mileage and economic privileges, often at the cost of the long-term conservation interests of Asiatic lions,” according to a paper published in August 2019.

While the efforts of local people have helped conserve lions in the region, the paper continues, the state monopolised the lions and used them “as an instrument of political and bureaucratic gain”, which influenced “the public psyche” and kept the Gujarat government reluctant to move lions to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

As if mirroring this reality, the local sentiment in Kuno is in favour of reintroducing lions to Madhya Pradesh.

“Politicians from Sheopur district,” where Kuno is located, “sometimes ask the [state] government about lion introduction… They have seen how Ranthambore’s tourism industry has developed,” Dharmendra Khandal, a conservation biologist who works out of Ranthambore National Park, told The Wire Science.

According to him, the politicians have made up their minds about the benefits of translocation to the extent that they have already relocated 24 villages and the underlying land converted from revenue to forest land to host the big cats.

Khandal also said the local forest department hopes to reintroduce cheetahs as well, again to improve tourism revenue, and has accordingly been “prepping” the landscape.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) previously identified the scrub habitat of Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh as one of a few areas to relocate African cheetahs. (The others include the grasslands of Velavadar in Gujarat and Tal Chhapar in Rajasthan.)

The Kuno landscape consists of dry deciduous forests. “It might look like a grassland in some areas but this is because, when villages were relocated [to make way for the lions], agricultural fields that were left behind became grasslands in the first stage of succession,” Khandal said.

In the next stage, these grasslands become scrub forests and, in the third, forests with bigger trees. “But [the forest department] is uprooting shrubs and trees and making false grasslands because they want to introduce cheetahs [in Kuno National Park].”

When he asked forest department officials why they wanted cheetahs and lions, he said they told him that Madhya Pradesh already has six tiger reserves and many sanctuaries and national parks that have both tigers and leopards. With cheetahs and lions in the mix, the state will have all four big cats for tourists.

But Khandal isn’t convinced. “The area is a natural woodland and is not suitable for cheetahs, and the leopards here can also kill cheetahs,” he said.

A male Asiatic cheetah in Iran. Photo: Erfan Kouchari/Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0

A story in reverse

India has thus far undertaken two major translocations: when tigers were reintroduced to Sariska in Rajasthan and Panna in Madhya Pradesh, after both these reserves had been ravaged by poachers.

Jairam Ramesh oversaw both these exercises, in 2008 and 2009, as the country’s environment minister at the time – and he went “purely by the advice of the NTCA and Wildlife Institute of India.”

He added that while some local-level politicians tied to mining interests were opposed to translocation, some others supported it to revive tourism. And “the existence of local-level political leaders who supported translocation actually helped me substantially.”

There is a well-known nexus between politicians and businesspeople engaged in marble-mining, stone-quarrying, etc. in and around the Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan.

Ghazala Shahabuddin, a senior scientist at the Centre for Ecology, Development and Research, Dehradun, said the mining lobby in the Aravalli mountains, which run from Delhi to Gujarat, is “very strong” – and they seemed to be keen to “denotify the [Sariska] tiger reserve” once it had lost all its tigers.

However, a Rajasthani asmita – rooted in the shame of having a tiger reserve with no tigers – eventually moved the needle, with a dash of politics.

“Rajasthan’s [Ranthambore and Sariska reserves] were among the first ten tiger reserves in the country under Project Tiger,” Shahabuddin said. These lands previously belonged to Maharaja Jaisingh of Alwar.

A tiger in Ranthambore, Rajasthan. Credit: Christopher Kray/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

A tiger in Ranthambore, Rajasthan. Photo: Christopher Kray/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

A similar story played out in reverse at the Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Odisha.

In 2018, two tigers – a male from Kanha and a female from Bandhavgarh (both in Madhya Pradesh) – were brought to Satkosia, as the first two of a planned six. However, the project was suspended last year after the male was killed by a snare that villagers had set for wild pigs. The female tiger now lives in an enclosure.

“She was forced into the human dominated, prey-depleted parts of the park because the only undisturbed and prey-rich portion of the core area was the territory of the last remaining resident tigress of Satkosia,” Aditya Panda, an Odisha-based conservationist, told The Wire Science.

According to him, Satkosia’s management hadn’t planned the reintroduction well enough, and rushed it even before they had the requisite number of trained staff and other resources.

“Local politicians never wanted tigers here because they wanted votes from people living inside these forests,” Panda said. So the politicians dissuade the people from relocating to accommodate the tigers because the politicians don’t want their electoral constituencies to move.

The local forest department has also failed to gain the trust of the same people. So all said, it doesn’t look like tigers are returning to Satkosia anytime soon.

Featured image credits (clockwise from top-left): lion – Shanthanu Bhardwaj/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; cheetah – icameronbps/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; leopard – Srikaanth Sekar/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; and tigers – Brian Gratwicke/Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bengaluru.

The Undercurrents of the Water Crisis in Gujarat

Although the ruling BJP has decided to focus on the national security question in this parliamentary election, the local issue of inadequate drinking and irrigation water weighed heavily as Gujarat went to vote.

On April 23 2019, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi accompanied by his most trusted lieutenant Amit Shah went to cast his vote in Ahmedabad in the 2019 general election, his supporters erupted in uncontrollable cheers. While travelling to his voting booth in the state of Gujarat, where he served as the Chief Minister for nearly 13 years, Modi repeatedly makes it a point to organise a road show – at the cost of election commission’s model code of conduct. In an unusual remark post voting, Modi exhorted nationalist sentiments among Indian voters by asserting that voter ID is more powerful than IEDs used by terrorists.

Away from this celebratory hustle and bustle on voting day, in Kutch district of Gujarat, an entire village hit by water scarcity decided to boycott the election. Coupled with the mass migration of shepherd communities, Kutch witnessed a 4% drop in voter turnout in comparison to 58% in 2014’s parliamentary election – even as Gujarat experienced an all-time high voter’s turnout at just above 64%.

Similar scenes of election boycott played out in Amreli and Jamnagar district in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. The residents of a few villages in these two districts are at a tussle with mostly private insurance companies, mandated via the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Programme, who have refused to pay adequate compensation for their crop failure claims caused by an acute water crisis. Whereas in Ahmedabad, the city where Modi voted, a roughly 15-kilometre long stretch of Sabarmati Riverfront passing through the city is filled with water to accommodate tourist-friendly boat services inter alia. The water stored to add charm to the Sabarmati Riverfront is diverted from the giant Sardar Sarovar Dam over Narmada river as this beautification project has led to the death of the Sabarmati river’s original source. Narmada river’s water is originally reserved for drinking water and irrigation purposes.

In early 2018, the government of Gujarat issued a notification advising farmers not to sow their summer season’s crop. In the previous year, the state had experienced a rain deficit of over 10%, although the Kutch, Saurashtra, and northern Gujarat belt suffered more. Continuous rain deficits forced the state government in mid-2018 to launch a programme to revive 32 monsoon rivers.

Also Read: In Model Gujarat, These Hamlets Still Wait for Bijli, Sadak, Pani

This crisis situation only intensified in the following monsoon (June to August/September 2018) as Gujarat received just above 75% of its average rainfall of the last 30 years. Kutch district had less than 30% of its average rainfall while northern Gujarat received only half of its average rainfall. Saurashtra region suffered a 35% monsoon deficit in 2018. In December 2018, three months after the end of monsoon season in 2018, over 50 talukas across 15 districts of Gujarat were declared as drought affected with a provision of relief package for farmers and shepherds. At that point, ill management of water reservoirs meant that over 200 dams were about to completely dry. This situation has only exacerbated since then: Saurashtra region’s 138 small and large dams had only 11% water in their reservoirs as of April 2019.

Vipul Kaderiya, a second-generation farmer in Devda village of Porbandar district in Saurashtra region, is a farmer with less than 4 acres (10 bigha) of land. Drinking water arrives once every 15 days in his village. For the rabi (winter) crop, water sometimes arrives at 3 am at night for a few hours – farmers have no option but to irrigate their land in the cold wind of winter.

The lack of water affects the entire rural economy. For the two hours that I sat in Kaderiya’s shop selling hardware tools not a single customer arrived. Earlier making up to 12 thousand rupees a month through his store, for the last three years, he has earned less than 4 thousand rupees a month. A commerce graduate, Kaderiya is planning to follow the course that his fellow villagers have taken: to leave the village selling his land to move to a nearby small town. Roughly 35% of the houses, mainly belonging to the upwardly mobile, agrarian Patel community, have left the village to either work in factories or to start a small store in big cities of Gujarat such as Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat.

The problems only begin with water scarcity. Non-payment of crop insurance or lower claims’ approval apart from the selling of live stocks follow. For instance, in Bagsara taluka of Amreli district in Gujarat, only 19% was paid to farmers of their claims for failure to cultivate cotton. Its neighbouring Vitthalpur taluka’s farmers were paid only 0.92% in case of crop failure in some cases.

The Patels (also known as Patidars), the caste group that Kaderiya comes from, have organised themselves in the last few years to demand the reserved quota in public jobs and education from the government led by the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS; Patidar Reservation Movement Council). In early 2019, the government of India granted a 10% quota to the poor among the unreserved communities of India. Although this move has somewhat suppressed the Patel quota movement, their original demand to be declared an Other Backward Class (OBC) community guaranteed a 27% seats in public jobs and education remains unfulfilled.

Regardless of this pending demand, the Patels have realised that the roots of youth unemployment and lack of education in their community hark back to the agrarian crisis suffered pan-caste. Accordingly, they are rallying the farmers from all communities to seek justice. For instance, in December 2018, PAAS organised a 125-kilometre long farmers’ march in the Saurashtra region. Through this march, the farmers demanded higher minimum support prices for crops, better supply of water for irrigation, and fair compensation in case of crop failure. Hardik Patel, the 25-year-old head of PAAS, has recently joined the Congress Party and is vocal on the ongoing agrarian distress.

Despite these visible fault-lines in Gujarat’s politics, the BJP has decided to focus, with a renewed vigour post the recent escalation of tensions with Pakistan, on the national security question. Some of the party workers that I interacted with during my fieldwork insist that local issues such as the water crisis should not matter during a national election. In fact, in Gujarat, where the BJP is ruling for more than 2 decades, the state government’s Water Supply minister, Kunvarji Bavaliya when questioned by women about the drinking water crisis in a village in Rajkot district of Gujarat, complained that the particular village did not vote in his favour.

In this electoral discourse divided between the issue of national security and a growing farmers’ distress, the result’s day, 23^rd May – scheduled exactly a month after the day Gujarat voted – will tell which side found more favour among the voters.

Sharik Laliwala is a researcher on the history and politics of Gujarat based in Ahmedabad. His writings have appeared in Indian Express, BBC, Wire, Asia Dialogue, Mirror. He tweets @sharik19.

This article was originally published on LSE Blogs.

With Narmada Supply Stopped, Gujarat Farmers Try to Keep Their Heads Above Water

According to a few, it is ironical that the Gujarat government has stopped supplying water when the project was claimed to have been built to resolve farmers’ issues.

Every day, Vijay Kantibhai Dabhi, a 31-year-old farmer of Patna Bhal village, Vallabhipur taluka in Bhavnagar district tries to sell the cotton that he could salvage from the last crop cultivated before the Gujarat government stopped supplying irrigation water to farmers from Sardar Sarovar Dam on March 16 this year. His attempts to sell, however, have been in vain as there are too many farmers who are no desperate to sell their salvaged crops.

“In desperation, to earn whatever they can, farmers have begun selling cotton at just Rs 250 per 20 kilograms. Ideally, it fetches around Rs 750 to Rs 1,000,” says Vijay Dabhi.

“For at least six months now, we have not been able to grow crops because of lack of irrigation water. Most farmers have loans to pay back. Some farmers who have taken money from village loan sharks have no other option but to pay anyhow. I am at a fix too. I have a family to feed for six months and March 25 is the last date for the loan payment. The last crop I grew is lying in the field that I have been unable to sell so far,” he adds.

Vijay Dabhi is in a fix about how to provide for his family in such a situation. Credit: Damayantee Dhar

The Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd. (SSNNL) had issued a notification in January this year stating that it will not provide irrigation water in the Narmada command area for summer crops post March 15. The notification stated that such a decision was being taken by SSNNL due to scanty water reserves in Sardar Sarovar dam owing to less rain in the catchment area. SSNNL had then appealed and informed the farmers to not grow summer crop unless they have their own means of local water resource for irrigation.

On January 22 this year, Gujarat chief secretary J.N. Singh had called a press on the issue and stated that Sardar Sarovar Reservoir Regulatory Committee (SSRRC), a part of Narmada Control Authority has decided to allot 4.71 MAF water to Gujarat in 2017-18 as against 9 MAF that is ideally always allotted to Gujarat.

“The Gujarat government usually supplies water for irrigation until the onset of monsoon. However as per SSRRC norms the Gujarat government is not bound to supply water for summer crops. We have been giving water in past for we had surplus, this year we will not supply for summer crops,” S.S. Rathore, the chairman and managing director of SSNNL, had stated in the press conference.

From March 16, SSNNL has deployed more than 100 personnel of the Narmada battalion near and around Kevadiya Colony, at the foot the Sardar Sarovar dam in Vadodara. They, apart more than 700 personnel of State Reserve Police, have been deployed along the main canal. Reportedly, local police of each district along Saurashtra has also been instructed to be active to prevent farmers from drawing water illegally from the canals.

“It’s an irony the Gujarat government has decided to stop supplying water to the farmers when the project was claimed to be built to resolve farmers’ issues. In accordance with the order of Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal, 18.45 hectares of land is to be irrigated by Narmada water between rabi and kharif crop. Has that much area been irrigated before government decided to stop supplying water?” questions Sagar Rabari, the leader of Khedut Samaj, a farmers’ rights organisation based in Gujarat.

The pile of cotton Dhabi is trying to sell. Credit: Damayantee Dhar

“As per our reports government has been diverting more than 1.06 MAF water to industries and that is the reason SSNNL never releases break-up of water provided to the industries,” Rabari added.

Reiterating Rabari’s claim, Vijay Dabhi, who resides about 18 kilometres from Navada Pumping station in Barwala taluka, Botad, from where water is supplied to 2000 villages in nine districts and 300 industries, said, “A week back I visited the pumping station pretending to inquire about a new water connection. A junior office staff told me that only water supply for agriculture has been stopped. The 300 industries continue to get water. He said there has been no orders to cut off water supply to these industries. However, applications for new industry connections have been put on hold.”

“There is no force deployed around the Navada pumping station yet. However, villagers of the area told me that local police who had made a round earlier may be deployed there soon, lest farmers try to steal water,” added Dabhi.

Farmers from rural Gujarat have meanwhile begun moving to cities like Surat, Ahmedabad and Mumbai in search of work to sustain until monsoon sets in and they can return to farming. While some who manage a job in textile or diamond industry in Surat earn up to Rs 12,000 a month, for some who end up working as a labourer the earning is between Rs 100-200 a day.

“Almost all young men of our village have left to seek jobs in cities. I have two sons, one of them managed to get a job in textile industry in Surat but other one wasn’t so lucky. He is in Ahmedabad working as a labourer in some construction company,” Mansukbhai of Nana Munjiasar village of Bagasara taluka, Amreli told The Wire.

“Some rich farmers can sustain through this situation and still harvest the last crop sowed in months of November-December. They can dig a bore well. But the water level has gone so down in Amreli over the years and even digging 1000 feet doesn’t get you water. For farmers like us, there is no option than to let last crop go a waste,” adds Mansukhbhai, who has 12 acres of land and a family of seven to feed.

Naresh Virani says there will be a shortage of even drinking water very soon. Credit: Damayantee Dhar

“The government claims that they are supplying water in Saurashtra region under Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation yojna,” says Naresh Virani, President of Khedut Samaj, Amreli district.

The SAUNI project was launched by Narendra Modi during his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat. It is meant to fill up 115 major dams in parched Saurashtra region by diverting overflow of water from Sardar Sarovar dam on Namada river. The project is meant to fulfil both irrigation and drinking water shortage.

“The government has claimed since inception that ten of these dams supplies water to Amreli district. However, five of those ten dams don’t exist as far we know,” Virani continues.

“In a month’s time, there will be shortage of drinking water in Saurashtra region. Initially, drinking water is supplied every week, then it is supplied every fortnight. They don’t have to supply much though, most villagers leave in search of jobs. Those who have relatives in other cities move with family. Only a handful, mostly old and women of poor farmers are left behind. They store water for daily use. But until monsoon nobody can do farming for the lack of irrigation water. It is only due the water crisis that every year this time the farmers have to leave their village and migrate,” Virani says, who has migrated to Surat with his family until the monsoon.

Damayantee Dhar is a freelance reporter.