Hold that fort, please

From reading and researching about the Mumbai’s forts from 2003 to working to maintain them from the year 2007, Santosh Hasurkar, founder of Durgveer Pratishthan, who registered the NGO Durgveer Pratishthan in 2009, has come a long way. After more than a decade, Hasurkar now has everything ranging from confidence, experience and expertise, to take this NGO’s work to another level altogether.

He shares, “There are around 550 forts in Maharashtra but people are aware of only the few popular ones like Raigad Fort, Sindhudurg Fort, Sinhagad Fort, Murud-Janjira Fort and few others. Apart from these, nobody really knows about the other 500 plus forts, and the heritage has remained hidden.”

Fort maintenance

While these hidden treasures do not really need to be taken care of, Hasurkar is of the opinion that it is important to clean and maintain the forts so that the public can visit it. The idea is to conserve these for the villagers living around it.
The NGO cleans the water tanks in the forts, which probably were not cleared for over a century now, and as a result have immense muck and filth filled in it. Such tasks involve labour and work force on a great scale. Apart from this, the NGO helps rebuild a path used to enter the fort, which is usually less accessible owing to its abandonment. He adds, “We put up signages on the roads that lead to such forts, so that the public is made aware that there exists a fort in the vicinity.”
Another very important aspect they take care about is maintaining the originality of the space. They ensure that they do not conduct any fort conservation, be it adding, repairing, moving or removing anything from there, as they are not skilled to do the same.
He shares, “So far, we have cleaned the tank in around 30 forts and even right now, work on seven forts is going on. From these, after cleaning around 20 forts, we have celebrated Dussehra, Gudi Padwa and other harvest festivals there with the villagers who live around these forts.”

Receiving accolades

The NGO’s work is recognised widely now, mostly because of the word-of-mouth publicity. About 550 people have volunteered so far for the cleaning work. As an NGO, what they need the most are funds to finance their expenses. The volunteers who participate in the work contribute for the same. They also require more equipment to conduct the cleaning of the water tanks as these tanks have loads of filth.

A boon to the neighbourhood

Villagers and adivasis living around the forts directly benefit from the tank cleaning. This is because the villages around have major water shortage. They also have no water supply at all during the two months of the hot summers, as the water sources dry up. After the water tank is cleared, the water gets collected in it post monsoons, which is used by the villagers round the year.
He concludes, “It is also interesting because we end up knowing and learning something more about each fort. One interesting thing that happened while cleaning the Mangad Fort was that we chanced upon a secret door, which was exciting. Such incidents motivate us. It is very humbling to work like this and revisit the history of the place.”