Gujarat's 10,000 Rann of Kutch saltpan families' voting right hangs fire as state assembly polls approach

The Rann of Kutch, Gujarat: A community gathering

By Pankti Jog*
Would Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch agariyas, or saltpan workers, who migrate, live and work on what has now come to be popularly known as Survey No Zero for six months starting with September, exercise their voting rights this December, when the state goes to polls?
While agariyas, a denotified tribe, have become more conscious and aware of the power of their vote, their livelihood option of working deep inside the Rann of Kutch forces them not to return to their villages, which are tens of kilometres way, to actually exercise the voting right. Not without reason, very few percentage of agariya population actually vote.
Two well-known NGOs, Agariya Heet Rakshak Manch (AHRM) and Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) recently made written representation to the chief electoral officer (CEO), Election Commission of India, Gujarat, requesting him to make some arrangements for the agariyas so that they could vote this time.

The CEO, however, has sent letter to the district electoral officer (DEO) of only one district, Surendranagar, asking the mapping of agariyas in the Rann, though they belong to three other districts – Patan, Morbi and Kutch. Yet, this was for the first time that electoral rolls were read out to mark agariyas in the Rann.
A virtual desert, from September onwards till April, over 50,000 people (8,000 to 10,000 families) reside in the Rann. They are involved in their traditional occupation – of farming crystal salt by extracting water from 40 to 110 ft depth, and spreading it in different pans. Salt pans are known as “agars”. On an average there are three voters per family.
The issue is: With the polls approaching, would similar circulars be expected for Patan, Morbi and Kutch districts? Agariya community leaders, associated with AHRM, have requested the election machinery to provide either transport facility or mobile polling booth in the Rann, especially for agariya women voters, to vote in a fair manner. Will it oblige?

Pankti Jog examining electoral list with agariya women

The families who migrate to the Survey No Zero (which is an un-surveyed triangular mud desert bearing 4992.53 sq km area lying between Surendrangar, Patan, Morbi and Kutch districts) are residents of over 107 villages of six blocks of the four districts. They migrate into the Rann of Kutch and reside at a distance that ranges from 20 to 70 km.

Following efforts by the two NGOs and local activists, the government has started Rann-shalas, began supplying drinking water through tankers, and sending mobile health vans to this population. Male member of the family return to their villages once a month to buy grocery, but female members hardly get to visit their villages unless in case of health emergency. Bicycle is the only means of transport here.

Saltpan workers identify their names in electoral roll

Life in Survey No Zero is hard. The Rann, which is also Wild Ass Sanctuary, gets flooded during monsoon with waters from rivers like Banas, Rupenand Saraswati. On the other hand, saline water from the sea enters from the Maliya area, which is called as mouth of the Rann, turning this into a brackish water body, famous for prawn fishing. During this period, fishing activity is carried out by a denotified tribe called Miyana.
The planning of polling booths has begun for all the villages, towns and cities, yet most of the Survey No Zero remains out of reach. Should one expect that the agariyas would travel from up to 70 km distance to their respective villages on the polling day on their own, or allow some political party take advantage of the situation to send vehicles?
---
*With Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

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.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

'Restructuring' Sahitya Akademi: Is the ‘Gujarat model’ reaching Delhi?

By Prakash N. Shah* A fortnight and a few days have slipped past that grim event. It was as if the wedding preparations were complete and the groom’s face was about to be unveiled behind the ceremonial tinsel. At 3 PM on December 18, a press conference was poised to announce the Sahitya Akademi Awards .

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Search This Blog