Just off National Highway 66, about 22 kilometers from Mahad, is Dasgaon, a village of about 3,000 people in Maharashtra’s coastal Raigad district. There is no board indicating its importance in the history of India and the local people do not remember the contribution of their people to the Dalit movement. He remembers the shooting of the film starring Mammootty Dr. Babasaheb AmbedkarDirected by Jabbar Patel. That was in 2000, and in the film Crawford Lake was called Chavdar Tail, a reference to a lake in Mahad.
On the banks of the lake, the Government Guest House, Dak Bungalow as the British called it, is being renovated. Here too there is no board commemorating an important part of India’s history. This is the place where Dalit icon Dr. Ambedkar stayed during what is known as the Mahad Satyagraha.
The ground burns the head and feet, but the green waters of Crawford Lake are soothing to the eyes. Scores of laborers work along its shores, laying a web of wires to hold together the rocks that will define the lake’s boundary. “This embankment has pushed the lake in. Earlier it was wider,” says a local resident.
Amrita and Arun Waghmare who live near the Kranti Stambh of Mahad Satyagraha in Mahad district of Maharashtra. | Photo Credit: Emmanuel Yogini
A jogging track and a lawn will soon be built on the banks of the lake. “It will be beautified so that we can use it,” says Ataullah Deshmukh at his ancestral home right next to the lake. There is a well of historical importance outside his house, but Deshmukh is unaware of its significance. He is the third generation to live in this house.
He narrates stories of his grandfather Dawood Khan Deshmukh, who started an Urdu school in the nearby Tudil village and spread awareness in his community to send their children to school. His father, Dr. Abdur Rauf Deshmukh, had assisted renowned physician, Padmashree awardee Dr. Himmatrao Bawaskar, in his research on the treatment of scorpion stings and snakebites.
“Nobody has ever talked about the well and the lake in the context of Satyagraha,” he says. His wife, a pharmacist, brings cool sherbet to cool the afternoon heat.
His neighbor Faizar Shekhnag says that his grandfather YB Shekhnag was the sarpanch of the village. He says his family once owned the land on which the post office stands. “It was given on lease to the government for 99 years. The lease has now ended. We are fighting to get the land back.” Even Shekhnag does not know about the Satyagraha or Dalit mobilization here. He says, “Our grandfather died before we were born. No one talked about it.”
A few buildings away lives Vasant Dalvi, a retired school teacher. His daughter-in-law Vishakha Dalvi says that she has never heard any story about Dalit mobilization here.
An awakening and a movement
“It’s a legacy we fear being lost,” says civil rights activist Subodh More. Subodh’s grandfather, Ramchandra Babaji More, was a Dalit leader who led a satyagraha in 1926 to drink water from the well that now stands on Deshmukh’s property.
Subodh More, grandson of Ramchandra Babaji More, who led the protests in Dasgaon, stands near the remains of his ancestral home. | Photo Credit: Emmanuel Yogini
Satyagraha was inspired by the resolution passed by the Bombay Legislative Council in 1923, which “allowed the untouchable classes to use all public water places”. In 1924, Mahad municipal body also passed a resolution reiterating this point. Although this was an important initial step against caste-based exclusion in India, it was not implemented.
Babaji was then 23 years old. He united the people in Dasgaon and held a public meeting for the implementation of the Bole resolution. On December 4, 1926, about 300 people, considered untouchable by the upper castes, gathered to go to Crawford Lake and Crawford Well to draw water. Until then, Dalits were not allowed to drink water from public tanks, as upper caste people believed it would pollute the water.
The protest was local and went unnoticed. But its success strengthened Babaji’s resolve to organize a massive protest in Mahad under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. On 20 March 1927, a large number of protesters led by Dr. Ambedkar marched to the public tank at Chavdar Tala in Mahad. “This struggle is not just for water, but for basic human rights… We have to go to Chavdar Tail not only to drink the water there, but also to prove that we are human beings like others,” Dr. Ambedkar had said in Mahad during the Chavdar Tail Satyagraha.
Babaji was the main organizer of Mahad Satyagraha. Deeply inspired by Dr. Ambedkar, he was one of the leaders who started referring to him as Babasaheb.
His awakening to injustice was early and personal. When he was 11, a local school did not admit him despite passing the scholarship examination. Babaji later wrote in an article, “There were no concessions for students up to the age of 11. I passed the scholarship examination held at Alibaug. The government gave me a scholarship of ₹5 and asked me to enroll in an English medium school.” This is about 1913-14. The local school had refused him admission because of his caste.
It said Dalits were not allowed to sit with upper caste children and the school did not want to risk closure due to one admission. Guided by social reformers, he wrote a letter demanding that the government grant for the school be withdrawn as it had refused to admit a meritorious student despite government instruction. This letter was published in his name in the local newspaper enlightenmentForced the school to admit him. But he was made to sit on a stool in a corner outside the classroom.
foundation of a house
From 1931 to 1941, Babaji was exiled by the British from 1931-1933 and went underground. Subodh, who now lives in Mumbai, remembers playing in the house where his grandfather was hiding. It was the house of Babaji’s uncle, and was one of the few houses built up to the first floor at that time. In fact, his uncle was called Madiwale Joshi, or Joshi whose house had a madi (First Floor, in Marathi), a rarity at that time. The ruins now consist only of black basalt rock blocks and stairs. This was the first permanent house built by a Dalit.
“The Brahmins who did this bhoomi pujan They were then ostracized by the upper castes,” says Rajendra Hate, a school clerk who lives near the ruins. He says that unfortunately it had become so dilapidated that it had to be demolished.
Subodh talks about personal stories of conflict based around the intense caste battles fought in the region at that time. Het remembers how the village elders used to tell stories of the time Babaji came out of hiding. “When he came out of hiding after years, he had to be made to sit in a separate cattle pond to wash off the dead skin from his body,” he says.
Last week, Communist Party of India (M) general secretary MA Baby visited the school established by Babaji as well as the lake and well. “This is the place where the seeds of the historic Mahad Satyagraha were sown. It is a historically important site,” says Dr Ashok Dhawale, CPI(M) Politburo member who accompanied MA Baby.
Dhawale says, “Caste-based discrimination is still not over from India. Be it the Chavdaar Katha protest or the burning of Manusmriti, which was the source of India’s anti-caste struggle, Comrade RB More played an important role. He has a special place in our history.” He further said that Babaji was a prominent leader of the communist movement.
Lakes and their symbolism
While Dasgaon has been largely forgotten, Mahad remains the center of attention of the Dalit community. Every year, lakhs of people march on 25 December and 20 March to mark Manusmriti. combustion (Burning) and Chavdar Katha Satyagraha, respectively. Manusmriti is an ancient text which codified the caste system.
Kranti Stambh is a memorial to the Mahad Satyagraha led by Babasaheb Ambedkar. | Photo Credit: Emmanuel Yogini
Konkan Republican Samajik Sanstha, a grassroots non-profit organisation, has written to the Raigad district authorities, appealing to them to declare the entire area as a national monument. Deepak Pawar, secretary of the organization, says, “We have written a letter to the District Collector that Crawford Well, Crawford Lake, Dak Bungalow, the temple where Manusmriti was burnt, the landing dock where Baba Saheb landed and other such places should be declared national monuments. Every year lakhs of people march here. We have not yet received any response to our pleas.” Despite repeated attempts, Raigarh District Collector Kisan Jawale did not respond to queries. The Hindu.
Maharashtra Social Justice Minister Sanjay Shirsat says the government will now try to preserve the history of the region where Dalits broke the social order. “We don’t have information about it yet. But our officials will go to the spot and see. At Dasgaon, we will not only install a plaque to inform about the importance of the place, but will also do other work to bring the history alive.”
Shobha Dhone, a daily wage laborer from Latur, is one of the hundreds of women who reach Mahad every year to drink the water of Chavdar Tail, most of them from Marathwada and Vidarbha. They talk to their children about Ambedkar, pay respect to the statue in the middle of the lake and then drink water from taps located nearby. She says, “We are here because of him. We were treated worse than cattle. We had no rights. Only our hearts know what Baba Saheb has done for us.”
Amrita Waghmare lives in Mahad and runs Mahila Utkarsh Social Organization, which works to organize unorganized labourers. He believes, “There is no doubt that things have changed from what they were a century ago, but casteism still exists; Brahminism still exists. Nobody is concerned about the community. They are only concerned about their individual material development. The Ambedkarite movement has become weak.”
vinaya.deshpande@thehindu.co.in
