Tension prevails over village wall in Satara

PUNE: It is a tale of two gram-panchayats and two communities. But for a government decision going back to the late 1950s, they would not have had to re-locate to a new place, on the outskirts of Satara.

Last week, after three Dalit youth attempted to immolate themselves in front of Collector office at Satara, both communities are now back in the news.

For the moment, the situation which was tense has been brought under control thanks to the deployment of armed police. It is believed that even though a solution has been thrashed out by the administration and sent to the authorities including chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy, the situation appears fragile.

Observers say that when the current assembly session ends, the conflict between the upper-caste Savarna and the Nav-Baudhas who are Dalits over a controversial  wall may surface.

Way back in 1959, when the Maharashtra government began work on the Koyna dam, it re-settled those displaced on an eight-acre plot, 15 km from Satara.

Today, this colony of displaced people is located near Aasgaon, the model village which was awarded a Rs25 lakh prize for being the state’s cleanest village.

In 1989, when the Nav-Bauddhas got together and formed Bhimnagar near Aasgaon, part of the then Padali gram panchayat, villagers from Dare who were part of the same  gram-panchayat decided to set up a separate one; and in 1992, a notification to this effect was made in the Government Gazette. However, the Bhimnagar gram-panchayat objected to this bifurcation and filed a case in 2002. Five year later, in July 2007, their application objecting to this notification and distribution of land between the two gram-panchayats was rejected by civil court. The case is now with the Sessions Court at Satara

While the Civil Judge Senior Division ruled against the contention of Bhimnagar gram-panchayat in its verdict dated July 27, 2007, the judge Varsha Mohite has stated categorically that there was no provisions in the Mumbai Gram panchayat Act to divide the land on the basis on population.

In its ruling, the court said that neither party presented evidence about exact population of the two villages before the Gazette Notification was issued. It has also made it clear that as per the Gram panchayat Act, there was no need to issue public notice before issuing notification. It also stated that no evidence waspresented by either party showing the exact division of land between two villages.

Bhimnagar’s residents  say that the administration was hand in gloves with the Dare gram-panchayat and now want the notification declared null and void.  Bhimnagar’s sarpanch, Sanjana Suresh Kambale, her husband Suresh and gram-panchayat member Uttam Kambale told DNA that the samaj mandir, a community hall  which belonged to Bhimnagar since its construction in 1972-73 had been included in Dare gram-panchayat limits by the Gazette notification.

Kambale said, “We were not aware of this notification and used our samaj mandir regularly to celebrate Dr  Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. But after last year’s court ruling, villagers of Dare with the help from MLA Shalinitai Patil’s fund built a boundary wall preventing us from going to Samaj Mandir which we objected to”.

Dare gram-panchayat deputy Sarpanch Babaji R. Sapkal maintains that this is not a caste-related issue as both communities have been staying in harmony  for about 50 years together.

Sakpal says, “We have the Gazette Notification and site map which we have presented to the court and wish to protect school children from cattle. That’s why we built the wall.  With the matter in court, we cannot build a toilet block and Aanganwadi which have been sanctioned.

This boundary wall is the bone of contention as Bhimnagar residents want the land cordoned  off by the wall to build a gym and  shops. They want to retain a part of land that  five Bhimnagar families use to dump garbage.

In response, the Dare gram-panchayat claims that Bhimnagar residents were not using dilapidated Samaj mandir and never celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti there. More over, while the upper caste population is about half of the Nav-budddas, the latter claim that 8 hectares and 61 H was divided equally. Dare’s villages say they got fewer  plots after the division.

Both communities now want to exist independently but want a larger share of the land and that too, at the centre of the two villages.