Gujarat Dalits in Surendranagar district's rural areas deprived of Narmada water: Letter to chief minister

By A Representative
In a letter to Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, a well-known Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust’s activist, Prakashbhai Jayantibhai Parmar, has given the instance of two villages of Surendranagar district to point towards how, despite availability of Narmada waters, the Dalits are being deprived of drinking water.
Pointing out how in the two villages – Gedigam and Jambugam – the Dalits are being discriminated against in the distribution of Narmada waters, Parmar said, “While the water gathers in the village drinking water tanks, the responsibility rests with the local village panchayat to distribute it.”
He adds, “While other sections of the population do get water, the pipelines leading to the Dalit area are several years old and they do not have enough capacity to deliver water to the Dalit families, who live a segregated locality.”
“The Dalit families have to dig seven to eight feet deep holes in order to obtain water from the pipeline”, the letter says, calling the two village panchayats’ attitude as “discriminatory” and “amounting to untouchability.”
The letter says, “With the summer approaching, the Dalit families are obliged to buy water from private tankers. Sometimes, the families have to use dirty water from the nearby pond. As a result, there have been complaints of Dalit family members falling ill.”
The letter says that the Dalit families have made frequent complaints to the local officials, including the taluka mamlatdar of Limdi, under which the two villages are situated, and the government engineer looking after water supply, apart from local village officials and the village sarpanch.
“These complaints have made little difference”, the letter says, adding, “No one has cared to begin work for fresh pipelines towards the Dalit areas of the two villages.”
Demanding immediate provision of Narmada waters to the Dalit localities, the letter insists, “There should be a separate overhead tank for them under the provisions of the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP). Besides, the MLA and MP of the region should be asked to set aside their funds for the Dalits.”
The letters have been addressed to the chief minister amidst Navsarjan Trust, in a statement, insisting that the Gujarat government has not been spending funds allocated under the SCSP in the state budget.
Kirit Parmar, senior activist of Navsarjan Trust said, an analysis of the budget for the financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15 suggests that there was a provision of around Rs 600 crore for creating Narmada-based water supply mechanism for the Dalit areas during the two years.
“Despite this provision”, he says, “The Dalit families in Gujarat villages are deprived of Narmada waters, with the state government adopting an indifferent attitude towards them. Thus, in 2013-14, 62.78 per cent of the allocation (Rs 327.78 crore), and in 2014-15, 71.73 per cent of the allocation (Rs 361.47 crore) was spent for the Dalits.”

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

Gujarat government urged to introduce heat-stress safety rules for construction workers

By A Representative A representation submitted to Gujarat Labour, Skill Development and Employment Minister Kunvarji Bavaliya has urged the state government to introduce legally enforceable safety standards to protect construction workers from extreme heat and heatwaves, and to launch a financial assistance scheme for labourers affected by climate-related health risks.

Search This Blog