Dear Digvijay Singhji,
We, the people of Jalsindhi village... district Jhabua, are writing this letter to you, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
We are people of the river bank; we live on the banks of the great Narmada. This year (1994), our village Jalsindhi will be the first village in Madhya Pradesh to be submerged by the sardar sarovar dam. Along with us, four or five other villages sakarja, kakarsila, Akadia and others will also be drowned.... When the water comes into our village, when our homes and fields are flooded, we will also drown this is our firm resolve.
We are writing this latter to let you know why the adivasi (tribal) peasants of Jalsindhi who are coming under submergence, are preparing to drown themselves.
You, and all those who live in cities, think that we who live in the hills are poor and backward, like apes. ''Go to the plains of Gujarat. Your condition will improve. You will develop'' this is what you advise us. but we have been fighting for eight years we have borne lathi blows, been to jail several times, in Anjanvara village the police even came and fired on us and destroyed our homes.... If it is true that our situation will improve in Gujarat, then why aren't all of us even now ready to go there?
To you officials and people of the town, our land looks hilly and inhospitable, but we are very satisfied with living in this area on the bank of the Narmada with our lands and forests. we have lived here for generations. on this land our ancestors cleared the forest, worshiped gods, improved the soil, domesticated animals and settled villages. It is that very land that we till. You think we are poor. we are not poor. We have constructed our own houses where we live. we are farmers. our agriculture prospers here. We earn by tilling the earth. Even with only the rains, we live by what we grow. Mother corn feeds us. we have some tilled land in the village and some in the forest area. On that we grow bajra, jowar, maize, boadi, bate, saunvi, kadri, chana, moth, urdi, sesame and groundnut. We have many different kinds of crops. keep varying them and eating.
What grows in Gujarat? Wheat, jowar, tuvar, red gram and some cotton. Less to eat, more to sell. We cultivate in order to eat; we sell only the excess for buying clothes etc. Whether the price in the market be high or low, we get food to eat.
We grow so many different kinds of food, but all from our own effort. We have no use for money. We use our own seeds, manure from our own livestock from that we get good crops. where will we get so much money? who will know us there? which moneylender will give us money? If we don't get a good crop and don't have any money, then we will have to mortgage our land.
Here we bring water to our fields by making channels from streams.... If we had electricity, then we could also pump up water from the Narmada and get a winter crop. But even though forty-fifty years have passed since independence, there is no electricity in the villages along the river, nor is there river irrigation.
....We have flowing water and good fodder in the forest. We don't live as much by farming as we do by our livestock. we keep hens, goats, cows and buffaloes, some have 2-4 buffaloes, some have 8-10. Almost everyone has ten- twenty-forty goats... from Gujarat people come to our hills to graze their cattle. Our fodder and water is sop plentiful.
....The forest is our moneylender and banker. In hard times we go to the forest. We build our houses from its wood from teak and bamboo. from ningodi and hiyali (types of bamboo) splints we weave screens. From the forests we make baskets and cots, ploughs and hoes.... We also eat leaves from the forest, hegva, mahia, amli, goindi, bhanjan all these leaves we eat. If there is a famine we survive by eating roots and tubers. When we fall sick, our medicine men bring us back to health by giving us leaves, roots, bark from the forest.... We know the name of each and every tree, shrub and herb; we know its uses. If we were made to live in a land without forests, then all this learning that we have cherished over the generations will be useless and slowly we will forget it all.
....We worship our gods by singing the gayana-the song of river. We sing the gayana during the naval and divasa festivals, describing how the world was made, how humans were born, from where the great river came.... We eat fish often. fish is our stand by when we have unexpected guests. The river brings us silt from upstream Which is deposited on the banks... Our children play on the river's banks, swim and bathe there. Our cattle drink there all through the year for the big river never dries up. In the belly of the river, we live contented lives. We have lived here for generation after generation; do we have a right to the mighty river Narmada and our forests or don't we? do you government people recognise that right or not?
You city people live in separate houses. you ignore each others' joys and sadness. We live with our clan, our relatives, our kin. All of us pool together our labour and construct a house in a single day, weed our fields, and perform any small or big task as it comes along. In Gujarat who will come to lend us a hand and make our work lighter? will the big farmers come to weed our fields or to construct our houses? Here in our villages, from our villages, why do we get so much support? It is because we are all alike here' we share a common understanding. Only a few are tenants; everybody owns land. No one has a lot of land, but everyone has a little bit. When we go to gujaract, The big landowener will crush us. As early as forty-fifty years ago, they took away the land of the adivasi who used to live there. Even now they are doing this. And we strangers we don't know the language or customs; It is their rule. If we can't do the kind of farming that needs a lot of money, then we'd have to mortgage our land to them, and slowly they would take it over. If they took away the land of the adivasi who lived there, then why won't they take away ours? Then who will give us other land? this is the land of our forefathers. We have a right to it. If this is lost, then we will only get spades and pickaxes, nothing else...
Our village gods are all here. Our ancestor's memorial stones are all here. we worship Kalo Rano, Raja Panto, Indi Raja. We also worship Aai Khada and Khedu Bai, Our great devi is Rani Kajol. Her's and Kumbai and Kundu Rano's mountain is in Mathvad. If we leave all of them, then where will we get new gods from? people come from all over to celebrate our festivals-indal, divasa and divali. For bhangoria, all of us go to the market where our youth choose their own spouses. Who will come to us in Gujarat?
The land in Gujarat is not acceptable to us. Your compensation is not acceptable to us. We were born from the belly of the Narmada, we are not afraid to die in her lap.
We will drown but we will not move!
Bava Mahaliya
We, the people of Jalsindhi village... district Jhabua, are writing this letter to you, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
We are people of the river bank; we live on the banks of the great Narmada. This year (1994), our village Jalsindhi will be the first village in Madhya Pradesh to be submerged by the sardar sarovar dam. Along with us, four or five other villages sakarja, kakarsila, Akadia and others will also be drowned.... When the water comes into our village, when our homes and fields are flooded, we will also drown this is our firm resolve.
We are writing this latter to let you know why the adivasi (tribal) peasants of Jalsindhi who are coming under submergence, are preparing to drown themselves.
You, and all those who live in cities, think that we who live in the hills are poor and backward, like apes. ''Go to the plains of Gujarat. Your condition will improve. You will develop'' this is what you advise us. but we have been fighting for eight years we have borne lathi blows, been to jail several times, in Anjanvara village the police even came and fired on us and destroyed our homes.... If it is true that our situation will improve in Gujarat, then why aren't all of us even now ready to go there?
To you officials and people of the town, our land looks hilly and inhospitable, but we are very satisfied with living in this area on the bank of the Narmada with our lands and forests. we have lived here for generations. on this land our ancestors cleared the forest, worshiped gods, improved the soil, domesticated animals and settled villages. It is that very land that we till. You think we are poor. we are not poor. We have constructed our own houses where we live. we are farmers. our agriculture prospers here. We earn by tilling the earth. Even with only the rains, we live by what we grow. Mother corn feeds us. we have some tilled land in the village and some in the forest area. On that we grow bajra, jowar, maize, boadi, bate, saunvi, kadri, chana, moth, urdi, sesame and groundnut. We have many different kinds of crops. keep varying them and eating.
What grows in Gujarat? Wheat, jowar, tuvar, red gram and some cotton. Less to eat, more to sell. We cultivate in order to eat; we sell only the excess for buying clothes etc. Whether the price in the market be high or low, we get food to eat.
We grow so many different kinds of food, but all from our own effort. We have no use for money. We use our own seeds, manure from our own livestock from that we get good crops. where will we get so much money? who will know us there? which moneylender will give us money? If we don't get a good crop and don't have any money, then we will have to mortgage our land.
Here we bring water to our fields by making channels from streams.... If we had electricity, then we could also pump up water from the Narmada and get a winter crop. But even though forty-fifty years have passed since independence, there is no electricity in the villages along the river, nor is there river irrigation.
....We have flowing water and good fodder in the forest. We don't live as much by farming as we do by our livestock. we keep hens, goats, cows and buffaloes, some have 2-4 buffaloes, some have 8-10. Almost everyone has ten- twenty-forty goats... from Gujarat people come to our hills to graze their cattle. Our fodder and water is sop plentiful.
....The forest is our moneylender and banker. In hard times we go to the forest. We build our houses from its wood from teak and bamboo. from ningodi and hiyali (types of bamboo) splints we weave screens. From the forests we make baskets and cots, ploughs and hoes.... We also eat leaves from the forest, hegva, mahia, amli, goindi, bhanjan all these leaves we eat. If there is a famine we survive by eating roots and tubers. When we fall sick, our medicine men bring us back to health by giving us leaves, roots, bark from the forest.... We know the name of each and every tree, shrub and herb; we know its uses. If we were made to live in a land without forests, then all this learning that we have cherished over the generations will be useless and slowly we will forget it all.
....We worship our gods by singing the gayana-the song of river. We sing the gayana during the naval and divasa festivals, describing how the world was made, how humans were born, from where the great river came.... We eat fish often. fish is our stand by when we have unexpected guests. The river brings us silt from upstream Which is deposited on the banks... Our children play on the river's banks, swim and bathe there. Our cattle drink there all through the year for the big river never dries up. In the belly of the river, we live contented lives. We have lived here for generation after generation; do we have a right to the mighty river Narmada and our forests or don't we? do you government people recognise that right or not?
You city people live in separate houses. you ignore each others' joys and sadness. We live with our clan, our relatives, our kin. All of us pool together our labour and construct a house in a single day, weed our fields, and perform any small or big task as it comes along. In Gujarat who will come to lend us a hand and make our work lighter? will the big farmers come to weed our fields or to construct our houses? Here in our villages, from our villages, why do we get so much support? It is because we are all alike here' we share a common understanding. Only a few are tenants; everybody owns land. No one has a lot of land, but everyone has a little bit. When we go to gujaract, The big landowener will crush us. As early as forty-fifty years ago, they took away the land of the adivasi who used to live there. Even now they are doing this. And we strangers we don't know the language or customs; It is their rule. If we can't do the kind of farming that needs a lot of money, then we'd have to mortgage our land to them, and slowly they would take it over. If they took away the land of the adivasi who lived there, then why won't they take away ours? Then who will give us other land? this is the land of our forefathers. We have a right to it. If this is lost, then we will only get spades and pickaxes, nothing else...
Our village gods are all here. Our ancestor's memorial stones are all here. we worship Kalo Rano, Raja Panto, Indi Raja. We also worship Aai Khada and Khedu Bai, Our great devi is Rani Kajol. Her's and Kumbai and Kundu Rano's mountain is in Mathvad. If we leave all of them, then where will we get new gods from? people come from all over to celebrate our festivals-indal, divasa and divali. For bhangoria, all of us go to the market where our youth choose their own spouses. Who will come to us in Gujarat?
The land in Gujarat is not acceptable to us. Your compensation is not acceptable to us. We were born from the belly of the Narmada, we are not afraid to die in her lap.
We will drown but we will not move!
Bava Mahaliya
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