MADHYA PRADESH MAHILA MANCH HOSHANGABAD, M.P.
Hoshangabad district in M.P. is rich in natural resources. The Tawa dam in the Kesla block caused large scale displacement. 25-30 villages were uprooted there and they were shifted to different places, the community was fragmented. They were given some land and a tin house each, under the Indira Awas Yojana. Their condition has gradually worsened…In addition a proof range has been set up in Kesla near Itarsi. This has caused some more displacement. Many villages were displaced to be resettled in the same fragmented way as the others. There is a factory where bombs are tested. It covers about 20-25 kms and this is the route people use to come to Itarsi. There are no fixed timings for bomb testing and people often get killed if they happen to pass by while testing is going on. People have lost their lands; forests have been destroyed. With loss of means of livelihood, people began collecting the brass shells blown off the bombs at testing, to sell them later. Often, they stand too close to the place where testing is going on, after which they collect the pieces of metal. Many-a-times as they are gathering the shells, another bomb goes off. This has led to a very bad situation. Chindpani, a village in this area is called the village of widows as all the men here have been killed by the bombs. Some of the villages near the Tawa dam are waterlogged during monsoon and the lands have been submerged. Crops can be grown only after the waters have receded. If it rains heavily after that, the crops are destroyed. Unemployment is a big problem. Adivasis are gradually migrating for mazdoori.
Rape, sexual harassment of women is another problem. Women labourers tell us that contractors have come up with a new rule – only women between 18–22 years will be taken out for mazdoori. This means that women whose bodies are strong will be taken.
The third cause of displacement here is the Tiger Project: the Kesla block has been ruthlessly plundered. The Tiger Project will uproot 17 villages. The Boni sanctuary falls in the area near proof range. An andolan has begun against the project.
A child of about 15–16 years was raped by goondas in Madhiko village on the banks of the Tawa. Three of the criminals have been caught, the others are still free. These girls had gone to Itarsi for mazdoori and were returning back when one of them was caught. They raped her all night. She was left the next day.
The girl and her family were brave, they filed an FIR. A delegation of women’s groups had gone there. We spoke to all three girls who had been present then and wrote a report. We also met the Collector and the thanedar who refused to give us the medical report. The girl had not been given a copy of the FIR so we asked for it.
We met the SP who shouted at us saying that the girl must have suffered only a scratch or two. He was reducing rape to a scratch! “Why are you creating such an uproar,” he said, “is this the only work left for women’s groups? To go around finding out where rape has occurred and then blowing up the issue?”
Rape is very commonplace, he said, look at international statistics. And then, all this okay for adivasis, they don’t bother too much about rape…
This is the kind of contempt they hold adivasis in. A brouhaha has been created in the name of literacy these days in Hoshangabad. In this context, the Collector had gone to Kesla and had sent word through Batibai, the woman sarpanch there, that he wanted to see women do the Gondi dance. Batibai is a simple woman and has been elected for the first time. It was only the presence of women’s organisations that prevented such a thing from happening. She would not have been able to desist on her own. She is, after all, under his authority. The attitude of the administration is extremely patriarchal and disgusting in the extreme.
In villages in the Kesla block, the problem of rape is very severe. On the one hand, the CM has acknowledged that the highest number of rapes have occurred in MP this year. On the other hand, is the SP who maintains that this is anyway happening at an international scale!
A 65-year-old woman in Betul district was elected in the Panchayat. The savarnas of the village harassed her. 20 days after election she was raped, stripped and paraded in the village. This is not an isolated incident. It only attracted attention because she is a sarpanch…