The heart of darkness in Mumbai: Adivasis live without electricity or water

The heart of darkness in Mumbai: Adivasis live without electricity or water

It’s a just a little past 6pm, but a village less than a 30-minute drive away from the Mumbai international airport, is plunged into darkness. Priyanka Pawar’s children — Sachin, 13, Sevanti, 12, and Jay, 7 — rush into their house. Nobody will step out till daybreak. The Pawars are among the 84 families in Vanicha Pada, an adivasi village in unit 5 of Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon (E), whose homes have never seen power supply. The village isn’t an anomaly. Six others among the 27 in the dairy development department-owned Aarey Milk Colony — Devicha Pada, Nava Pada, Parzapur Pada, Jitunicha Pada, Navashacha Pada and Khambacha Pada — also live in darkness. They find themselves at the fringes, repeatedly, even though there is a flurry of developmental activities around them. It was only four years ago that the residents of Vanicha Pada decided to replace their mud houses with brick structures. The Pawars’ house is one of the last mud houses, covered only in a sheet of plastic during the monsoon. Last month marked a milestone of sorts for the village. The 350 people got their first water supply — but only in the form of a single tap — on the outskirts. “It supplies water only for a few hours a day, but it’s a start,” smiles Chandu Navsha Jadhav, the village head. Jadhav’s optimism is a little unnerving, given that he retired in March last year from the Aarey Milk Colony water supply department, which supplies fresh water to the 32 cattle farms on 1,287-hectare plot of land. He was one of the two men in the village with full-time jobs; the other works as a security guard in Aarey Milk Colony. The rest used to work as farmers, raising urad, tur and ragi. The harsh weather conditions, however, have forced the community out of the forest in search of work. Men work as daily wage labourers or gather mangoes and cashews to sell in Jogeshwari’s markets, while women work as domestic help in Goregaon. “We earn about Rs300 per day, of which Rs200 is spent on feeding the family,” says Pawar. Jadhav, who has been fighting for the rights of adivasis in Maharashtra, says the villagers are not squatters. Many, he explains, possess receipts of cultivation tax levied on farmers dating back to 1920. And it is this sense of ownership of land that has stopped the villagers from pilfering electric supply. “We are nothing like the slums that have mushroomed on the peripheries of Aarey Milk Colony and Film City who are tapping electrical lines,” argues Jadhav, referring to the settlements that have sprung up in the last 20 years when labour opportunities opened up at the adjoining Film City. Last year, an NGO fitted four solar-powered lamps around the village. But the residents’ patience, hoping to be noticed has begun to wear thin. “Watching everyone around us move forward is frustrating,” says Jadhav. Mayor Sunil Prabhu agrees. “Their progress been long overdue. The adivasi community has been living there much before the land was transferred to the dairy cooperative. They have not been allowed to develop because of the state government’s apathy.”