Skip to main content

Gujarat Dalits' long wait for alternative land site for continuing hereditary occupation of tanning

 
Six families belonging to the Rohit community, a Dalit sub-caste, making their living by removing dead animals and tanning leather retrieved from them, have been forced to approach Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel following official indifference to provide them with alternative piece of land, despite official nod, in order to continue with their hereditary occupation. Living in Wadhwan, a town 94 km west of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s business capital, these families do their current tanning job on 300 sq metres plot under tremendous stress.
Subject to harassment and threats by the local, here they must not only “clean up” dead animals, but also extract bones and leathers, selling them cheap to the state’s big tanning factories and ceramic units. Worse, the land has already been officially “taken away” from them on influential persons’ insistence, which is what makes their demand for an alternative site even more legitimate, a representation to Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel said.
Representing the families, Hirabhai Ramabhai Chavda has complained that, originally, they were allocated 166.4 hectares of land by the Thakore Saheb of Wadhwan in 1943 at the place where the town’s state transport bus stand is now situated. Accusing them of causing nuisance, in 1976, they were allocated 300 sq metres of land, next to river Bhogavo. “However, pressure from the local people, who complained of nuisance from dead animals, led the district collector cancelled the order in 2012, and instead decided to give us two acres of land outside the township”, Chavda said.
“Ever since the order to return the 300 sq metres of land – 50 sq metres each to the six families – we have been constantly under stress”, Chavda said, adding, “Despite repeated representations at different levels, including in Sachivalaya, Gandhinagar, we have not been able to get a viable location to continue with our occupation. Every time a plot of land is allocated, the local people oppose it, and say that our occupation requires using dead animals, leading to bad smell and filth littered around all around, hence the land should not be allocated in their neighbourhood.”
At least thrice the allocation of land to the Rohit families has been cancelled. “In one case, the mahant of the local Swaminarayan temple in the town opposed the allocation, citing filth in the neighbourhood as the reason, even though the land was allocated outside the town, on a fallow land”, Chavda said, adding, “The allocation was cancelled after we set up infrastructure, a wall was built, and a few sheds were set up. All this caused us immense hardship and loss. We have approached Sachivalaya officials in Gandhinagar thrice to bring about a solution to our problem, but to no avail.”
“The latest argument we hear from the officialdom”, said Chavda, “is that common grazing land cannot be allocated for our work. One can come and examine the spot where the land was allocated last. It is of no use for cattle grazing. It is wasteland. We fail to understand what is coming in the way in physically handing over the land to us. Recently, grazing land was allocated in Deesa in Banskantha district, to Dalits from Dhada village They were allocated from common land in Sodapur village. How can there be two different standards for allocation of land?”
“The spot where the Rohits currently do their work, on the 300 sq metres land next to the river, a Kanti Cotton Mills used to operate in the neighbourhood”, Chavda said, adding, “Currently, the mill compound has been occupied by influential persons, who harass us, do not allow us to continue with our occupation, often stop us on road and tell us not to use the plot for tanning and making powder out of the bones of dead animals as raw material for bigger units. We are threatened. We request you to allocate the two acres land set aside for us, so that we could shift there and continue our occupation peacefully, without causing trouble to anyone.”

Comments

TRENDING

Punishing senior citizens? Flipkart, Shopsy stop Cash on Delivery in Ahmedabad!

The other day, someone close to me attempted to order some goodies on Flipkart and its subsidiary Shopsy. After preparing a long list of items, this person, as usual, opted for the Cash on Delivery (popularly known as COD) option, as this senior citizen isn't very familiar with online prepaid payment methods like UPI, credit or debit cards, or online bank transfers through websites. In fact, she is hesitant to make online payments, fearing, "I may make a mistake," she explained, adding, "I read a lot about online frauds, so I always choose COD as it's safe. I have no knowledge of how to prepay online."

Gujarat slips in India Justice Report 2025: From model state to mid-table performer

Overall ranking in IJR reports The latest India Justice Report (IJR), prepared by legal experts with the backing of several civil society organisations and aimed at ranking the capacity of states to deliver justice, has found Gujarat—considered by India's rulers as a model state for others to follow—slipping to the 11th position from fourth in 2022.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Of lingering shadow of Haren Pandya's murder during Modi's Gujarat days

Sunita Williams’ return to Earth has, ironically, reopened an old wound: the mysterious murder of her first cousin, the popular BJP leader Haren Pandya, in 2003. Initially a supporter of Narendra Modi, Haren turned against him, not sparing any opportunity to do things that would embarrass Modi. Social media and some online news portals, including The Wire , are abuzz with how Modi’s recent invitation to Sunita to visit India comes against the backdrop of how he, as Gujarat’s chief minister, didn’t care to offer any official protocol support during her 2007 visit to Gujarat.  

Area set aside in Ahmedabad for PM's affordable housing scheme 'has gone to big builders'

Following my article on affordable housing in Counterview, which quoted a top real estate consultant, I was informed that affordable housing—a scheme introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi—has deviated from its original intent. A former senior bureaucrat, whom I used to meet during my Sachivalaya days, told me that an entire area in Ahmedabad, designated for the scheme, has been used to construct costly houses instead. 

Just 5% Gujarat Dalit households 'recognise' social reformers who inspired Ambedkar

An interesting survey conducted across 22 districts and 32 villages in Gujarat sheds light on the representation of key social reformers in Dalit households. It suggests that while Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's photo was displayed in a majority of homes, images of Lord Buddha and the 19th-century reformist couple, Savitribai Phule and Jyotiba Phule, were not as commonly represented.

Not just Haren Pandya, even Dhirubhai Shah, youngest assembly speaker, wanted to be Gujarat CM

Dhirubhai Shah with Keshubhai Patel  When Keshubhai Patel was sought to be replaced by the BJP high command in 2001, everyone knows that Narendra Modi became the final choice. However, someone who was part of the top circles those days now tells me something I had no knowledge of—that the choice was between Modi and a Kutch MLA, Dhirubhai Shah, who served as the 16th Speaker from March 1998 to December 2002 during the 10th Assembly, the youngest to take the office.

Whither PMAY? Affordable housing in decline as Indian real estate shifts focus to premium segments

A leading property consultant that seeks to provide comprehensive real estate services to developers, corporates, financial institutions, and the government has reported that, while housing prices have risen between 10–34% across India's top seven cities over the past year, the once-robust supply of affordable housing has "tottered and dwindled."

How AI mistook Chhattisgarh truce move as religious leaders' appeal for Israel-Palestine peace!

Today, I realized why one shouldn't fully depend on AI, which can, at times, be extremely misleading. What happened was, I uploaded a PDF on one of the AI apps that claims to be the best among those publicly available. The PDF had been emailed to me by Kavita Shrivastava, a senior activist associated with the People's Union for Civil Liberties and the National Alliance of People's Movements, both well-known human rights organizations.