On a wooden elevated bedlike structure constructed by joining bamboo sticks together, sits an elderly Govind Rajaram Pawar, right under the open sky in a place that once was his home and which now lies dismantled, although destroyed would be a word more apt. Accompanied by his daughter Poonam and granddaughter in the roofless shelter, Govind’s silence is deafening. In a state of shock, agony and dismay, Govind is unable to speak properly. Agony is written all over his face and he fumbles for words, managing to gather his thoughts and talk about the recent ‘atrocity’ committed by people from the neighbouring village. “Kay sangu? Aami saamaki ughadi padlov (What to tell you? We are completely homeless).” When asked who the other two persons with him were, he replies, “Hi mhazhi chedu, ti techi chedu. Techo ghov kaam shoduk gela (This is my daughter, that’s her daughter. Her husband is out in search of work),” Govind says, attempting to explain in a mixture of Konkani, Marathi and an unknown dialect which is hard to follow. His less-than-a-year old granddaughter is listless, hungry and half-clad “ just like most of kids loitering around, wearing soiled, torn clothes that hardly cover their sunburnt, bare bodies.
Existence destroyed
Govind’s family is one among the many tribal families whose hutments in Bethora-Nirankal, near Ponda, were destroyed, pulled down or burned by unknown culprits. The blue sheets of plastic that covered the palm leaf roofs of the huts, which stood upright with the help of wooden branches “ lay torn on the ground. Their belongings, utensils, clothes and food grains scattered all over. In the absence of food, most stone chulhas are fireless and cold. Only a few of the chulhas are burning with rice cooking in small aluminium vessels. It’s yet another day when half of them have to skip their meals. Since last Sunday, when their hutments were destroyed by some locals, approximately 80 people who lived in them, among whom 40-odd are children and the rest adults “ all are spending hot days and cold nights “ in the open. “Teni aamchi ghara modli, sagala sapavan takla (They broke our huts. Our lives are shattered),” complains another woman. Shalan Tukaram Pawar holds her year-old grandson Krishna and feeds some ‘sev-gathia’ to him. She works in the fields whenever the villagers give a call. Illiterate as the rest of her clan, she holds a ration card that has been issued to her less than a year ago. “I go to work in the ‘kulagars’ in the nearby area and do paddy harvesting as well,” she states.
Working on daily wages the women are paid anything between Rs 100-150 for an eight-hour job. Few other women also go out to earn, provided they get work from the local villagers. Some stay back to take care of the smaller kids who don’t go to school. Nearly two-dozen of the children go to a nearby school, all with uniforms white and blue, but most of them are bare foot. They climb the uphill route one after the other, in a systematic row. Walking back from school in the hot, dusty afternoons, a girl among them carries in a plastic bag some leftover vegetable, supposedly from the midday meal distributed in the school. For her family and her neighbours, it’s a feast. Thanks to this gravy, they don’t have to eat the rice dry.
Kalu Bholi Pawar, Shiva Govind Pawar, Santosh Govind Pawar, Deepak Vishnu Nikam, Vimli Ankush Pawar “ most of them share common surname “ Pawar, while a few call themselves Nikam. “But we are family,” declares Gopal Vasant Pawar who has managed to keep all together. He explains, “We originate from the same family of Pawars. My forefathers came to settle here a few decades ago. He had seven sons. We all have derived from the same patriarchal head “ Pawar.”
An unskilled (and cheap) workforce
Gopal, 42, is the self-declared leader among them all. Though he never saw the face of school and so cannot read or write, he can only recognise the numbers in Devnagari script and is privileged to own a mobile. “I keep in touch with the outside world and bring work for our people “ men and women,” he explains. Those who are into agriculture and horticulture across Goa are in touch with Gopal who streamlines their needs by providing unskilled labour to them. Gopal asserts that the community was offered cards under the National Food Security Scheme and Adhar cards after Diwali last year and 17 of them have these documents. “Whoever needs workforce calls me on my mobile. I assign work to these people according to the requirements of bhatkars and shetkars,” shares Gopal. He too works in the paddy and sugarcane fields.
Now with all the solar panels broken, Gopal laments that he cannot charge his mobile. The villagers who have electricity charge him Rs 10 to get his mobile charged in their homes. “But I have to keep my mobile on, as otherwise I will be missing the work order calls. If we don’t work, we have to starve to death or beg, which we unwillingly do in the absence of work,” he admits. He doesn’t forget to add that though the Pawars are poor, they may beg but never steal. “We have decided we would not steal or rob in any circumstances,” he says, his voice backing up his resolve.
The men from the 21 families living in the settlement go to work as far as Valpoi, Pernem, Sanguem, Molle, Collem, Netravali, Bicholim, Vade etc for as long as three months, returning only on weekly holidays or Sundays to buy groceries for the family. “This happens mostly in the sugarcane cutting season, soon after Diwali. When there’s no work in the locality, we go out to other parts of Goa and work there,” says Gopal.
There is no facility for drinking water. The women fetch water from a faraway stream during the monsoon but during the summers the water dries up and they face hardships. “The solar panels donated by someone used to provide electricity at night but now that they all are broken, our children are left in darkness, right in the middle of exam time,” complains one mother. Asked if the men drink and are a nuisance (an accusation by the marauding villagers) she replies, “We live from hand-to-mouth. If we don’t have money to pay for our medicines, how would we have money for vices?”
No shelter from the storms
Harish alias Rajiv Narayan Naik, represented by Advocate Satish Sonak filed a complaint before Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) demanding justice for the tribals (known in the locality as Makadmare or Wanarmare). Taking note of the inhuman act of the unruly mob who illegally demolished their hutments making them homeless, GHRC chairperson A D Salkar called for an urgent report from the chief secretary and the director general of the police on November 1. The GHRC team visited the site and observed the situation. “We will be filing our report soon,” said Kiran Paudwal, currently on deputation at GHRC.
Article 21 of the Constitution of India grants right to live life with dignity but just 13 km from the city of Ponda, the cries of these tribals have fallen on deaf ears. “We are living peacefully on this land where our forefathers lived and died. Why should we be denied the right to live?” asks Gopal. The locals give them jobs in their fields, prominent residents of the town let them work in their sugarcane fields, but when it comes to acting humane and helping these tribals acclamatise themselves with the rigours of modern day society, no one comes forward.
For the rest of the world, things may return to normalcy soon but living amidst hatred, fear and dejection “ for the Pawars and the Nikams “ life will never be the same again.
