MAHESH SHARMA

“When people came in their bullock carts to our village to take a dip in the Narmada River, we used to collect cow dung droppings from their bullocks. We used to sell this collected dung (cattle dung is a good manure as well as cakes of dung when dried make good fuel). We had earned some 150-200 Rupees by collecting dung and we bought a new bicycle with that money. We used to go to school on that bicycle. We used to go and bathe three times in a day in the river and would dive into the river in search of coins (offered in reverence to the Narmada River by people while crossing the river), and with those coins, we used to buy books and notebooks or watch some films…”

Mahesh Sharma

Mahesh, a dedicated full time activist of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), was active when the movement was at its peak and was at the receiving end of state repression. Mahesh lived with the people of Manibeli, the first village in Maharashtra to be submerged in the waters of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and the main centre of the NBA for several years. Later when NBA’s satyagraha centre shifted further up, he was stationed in  the upstream adivasi village, Domkhedi, which had become the new centre.  As a result, Mahesh faced police repression and was jailed a number of times. He remained a pillar of support for the adivasis of the submergence villages in Maharashtra, the backbone of the NBA in the struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Mahesh is an oustee himself and his village Chikhalda, was one of the strongholds of the NBA. Chikhalda, a bastion of the NBA was culturally a very diverse village. Chikhalda, which is now submerged and destroyed by the Sardar Sarovar Dam, had beautiful temples, a mosque and even a very old Jain temple. None of these religious places were relocated by the government when they were submerged by the dam waters. Worse still, there is no documentation of these significant places of worship. In his emotional short clip here, Mahesh talks about his family who was assigned the duty of  temple priests at Village Chikhalda from the time of the Holkar state. This short clip makes us clearly understand the bond that the people shared with their lands and the Narmada River.

The photos in the clip are those of the gradual submergence of the historical Rajghat bridge near his village which Mahesh talks about. The other photos are those of the temples in Chikhalda that were submerged due to the dam and re-emerged out of the reservoir when there was a drastic reduction in the water levels in the dam in 2020.

Some of the photos in the clip are taken by Golu Sen and Rehmat, also residents of Chikhalda.  

The quality of the voice in this clip is not very clear as this interview was recorded on a mini-disk recorder as a digital recorder was still not available with me. This was also a transition period from tape recorders to mini disk recorders.

Interview Duration:
0:08:52

Language:
Hindi , Subtitles in English

Subtitles can be switched on and off by clicking ‘CC’ button at the bottom right of the video