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Gender | How Women in This Maharashtra Region Are Silently Campaigning for Their Share of Water

How Women in This Maharashtra Region Are Silently Campaigning for Their Share of Water

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published Published on Apr 12, 2016   modified Modified on Apr 12, 2016
-TheBetterIndia.com/ Women's Feature Service

Maharashtra: Many women in Mokhada tehsil of Maharashtra have donned the role of social workers and they are visiting one village after the other, silently campaigning for their rightful share of water.

As one starts trekking the mountainous countryside with Sangeeta, Heera, Savita, Gangu and Pushpa, one can clearly discern the heady union of life and a strong sense of purpose among these energetic adivasi (tribal) women. For them, equitable access to water is a burning issue and their most cherished mission.

As the group makes its way towards the block office, women from different, some even far-off padas (villages), stop them to share their problems.

The group from Chikan Pada has come to them with a plan to charge the wells in their vicinity with water from the Waghnai River, around three kilometres from their village. Presently, they are all bone dry, compelling the women to trudge 12 kilometres daily to the river to fetch four pots of water to drink, bathe and wash clothes with.

After promising to pitch their proposal to block officials, Heera, Gangu and the others move on, taking stock of the water situation in the padas that fall in their way. Like Chikan Pada, Sangeeta, who is all of 20, talks about another pada that is facing tough times. The residents of Pada Shendyachi Meth just have access to a small well to meet all their water needs. This pada is situated uphill. There’s a dead river downstream and beyond the riverbed is the well. The route is tortuous and rocky. There have been cases of women tripping over the rocks and seriously injuring themselves and one even succumbed to her injuries recently. Despite that, no one really discussed the possibility of repairing the trail until this group sprung into action. “This is Mokhada. Nothing makes sense here,” she remarks. Speaking to Sangeeta, who is a Katkari (an aboriginal tribe), a myth is broken: that the adivasi society is more egalitarian than the rest. Among the adivasis, the Mahadev Kolis are the dominant group while the Katkaris are lower down the social ladder. In Shendyachi Meth, it’s the Mahadev Kolis who own the path.

Heera recalls how they had got a repair project sanctioned at the block office that couldn’t take off because of the hierarchical tussle within the hamlet.

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TheBetterIndia.com/ Women's Feature Service, 9 April, 2016
 

TheBetterIndia.com/ Women's Feature Service, 9 April, 2016, http://www.thebetterindia.com/50928/women-campaign-for-water-in-maharashtra/


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