NBA. MAHARASHTRA
One of our most militant workers is not present in this meeting. Budhiben amidst us. We want to remember Budhiben at this sammelan. She was from Antras, Gujarat. She was a very strong woman. The Gujarat sarkar wanted to rehabilitate them, the entire village was shifted. Budhiben and her family resisted. She put aside her home and was single-minded about resisting the dam. She had said come what may, we will not shift from here. This is our janmabhoomi and we will remain here. The sarkar had decided that the people would be shifted. Budhiben said, that may be your opinion, our decision is not to shift. She had begun the struggle even before the andolan had started. When all the other villages of Gujarat had begun moving, Budhiben’s determination had held Antras firm. From the viewpoint of the sarkar, Budhiben had committed two crimes. First, she belonged to a community that had no right to raise questions i.e. she was an adivasi. And secondly, she was a woman. Which is why she was raped by 3 policeman and the police patel of Antras. The sarkar thought that being an adivasi woman was her weakness. It hardly realised that it was the foundation of her strength. She fought against it. The case did not proceed because the sarkari report said that she had not been raped…The women of Manibeli who have been resettled in Parveta had once written a letter to an organisation in connection with the problems they faced there. Among other things they had said in the letter, when we first saw the handpump being operated at Parveta, we did not know what it was. Water was for them, something that flows, it was a resource on which their lives had been built for so long. They could not comprehend that water could be controlled like this. They were not prepared even to touch handpumps. That water could be trapped and brought to them like this was a traumatic thought…Women participate in very significant ways in both farm and household activities. In adivasi areas land produce is not enough to sustain the household. Women are involved in collection of mahuva flowers, tendu patta etc. The money they get from sale of minor forest produce is used not only for household needs but also for their own individual requirements. After displacement the role of women as producers has been reduced. Not only have their skills become redundant, but their status in the household has gone down…Easy access to their natal homes gave most women a sense of security at their original villages. At resettlement sites that security has been shattered. The government says that we have given adivasis the benefits of civilisation by resettling them close to roads and bus routes. But this supposed mobility does not mean much when people do have buses at their doorsteps but have no money for the fare… Women do not commute by buses for fear of sexual harassment. No woman can sit in these buses and go to their natal homes 50 kms. away…There are many health-related problems. For example, if women have to defecate, they have to go in a group because resettlement in the plains offers very little cover. Patidars do not allow them to use their fields and so they have to go to their own fields no matter how far it may be from their houses. Here again they face the possibility of sexual harassment. Because of lack of social control, drinking and gambling has increased. No social pressure is possible because their society itself has broken up. Women suffer because of this. Domestic violence has increased. No social support is possible. Nobody is willing to give their daughters for marriage in villages in the submergence zone. Because rehabilitation is uncertain and with only 5 acres of land there is a question of how the family can sustain itself. In many areas marriages have broken up…The workload of women has increased in resettlement sites. Earlier cattle could be left to graze on their own. Here, there is a fear of cattle entering patidar fields. Shepherding cattle is now women’s task. Storage of water, collection of fuel and fodder is also women’s work…