Respected Sardar Patelji,
Namaskar! Wherever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here in the motherland whose beloved son you have always been! Your act of freeing India from the shackles of royal states and estates, and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime have been unprecedented. As the first Home Minister in the cabinet of the first government of Independent India, your role was firmly non-communal and had a social approach to the unexpected violence and relief, and you were thereafter appreciated by Mahatmaji as ‘unique’, despite the controversy that was created by some people.
You stood tall as Sardar in the historical freedom struggle of India, but you should know that you are also to be the tallest in the world with a height of 182 meters! Can you imagine who built your new avtar and given it strength? The Chinese, and some local adivasi and national labour have worked through nights on the ‘Sadhu Bet’ but you would surely ask, on whose land was this built? Whose plan was this anyway? The landholders in Gujarat who you fought for were not adivasis, but were surely ‘indigenous’ people facing the imperialists. This land, river, forest that your avtar is made to stand in the place of belongs to adivasis whom your government and then leaders – Mahatma to Pandit Nehru – recognised as villagers with rights, as republics, and offered security through Panchsheel. The forefathers of the Indian Constitution, with Babasaheb at the helm, also granted the right to peace and good governance and the spirit in the fifth schedule (you may not have heard of), was reinforced and operationalised as late as in the nineties through an act (you may not have heard of) – PESA – The Provisions Of The Panchayats Act!
You would surely watch from the highland, the scene down into the river and its banks to the basin wide and far. Your vision will find their huts and hamlets in the hills and hillocks, one of which was Varata Bawa Tekri under your feet. Do remember the days when you carried out the operation to integrate the princely states with democracy to make most of them sacrifice for unity. By the way, your avtar also claimed to be for the same goal, unity…though it came with impinging upon not just their land but also their rights. Would you ever think of using ‘force’ against them, as had to be done against the state of Junagadh or Hyderabad?
Sardarji, these adivasis too belong to the farming community you recognized as the contributors who feed and need to lead. Today, if only you knew the reasons behind their struggle, you would have taken to the same task that you did in August 1942. But the most shocking part for you would be knowing that those who acquired properties, dealt with transfers, created ‘privy purses’ are doing this to the properties of the very brethren you fought for, while receiving acclaim for the social movement you built. Non-cooperation was the non-violent tool you accepted, under the guidance of Bapu. But the same is now the weapon in the hands of the Indian rulers with neo-colonial practices. They neither have horses nor are there any sepoys; they take over, not properties but people’s life support, land, water, river, forest and fish with a paper and pen, lawfully yet disobediently.
Could you ever dream of the Indian state, the ICS, cadres who you were treated as the father of, to the cabinet members, all of whom you warned against ‘partiality and corruptibility’ and incited against a path of rectitude (remember your speech on April 21, 1947?) becoming powerful enough not only to tax farmers but also exploit and extract GST from small trades and evict the market infrastructure of the poor, the hawkers, in the name of magnanimous, gigantic infrastructure, at all costs? Please have a look to your left and you will find a six-lane highway running up to 120kms in length parallel to Narmada, which has taken a toll on thousands of trees that are more than 100 years old, within last one year. People of Rajpipla, once a princely state that has been recorded in history for having defeated Aurangazeb’s forces, are compelled to be mute watchers, having no channel to air their Mann ki Baat.
But you, once the chairman of the committees responsible for minorities, tribals and excluded areas, and fundamental rights must also know that when your avtar will be well lit and decorated, nature-based tribal communities are being repressed and oppressed, and thrown into darkness. Their lands simply taken over paying a paltry sum of money are now being diverted for luxurious hotels named even a museum with their own remnants. You, who were successful in recovering the farmlands for the farmers refusing to pay the oppressive tax, would come down to support those who have not been granted anything as per the new law of 2013, nor are gifted with alternative land but are being made to accept a mere 7 lakh rupee package. You were at the forefront of such a struggle and had even threatened to leave Congress, made your party accept the path of non-violence, yet there had been a militant battle that led you into jail in 1940 and a solid mass protest in 1942, with shutdown of none less than civil services. With your ability to organize the country and also to face the onslaught of the imperialist forces, you could certainly challenge the present powers who erect your statue vouching for unity, but divide, rule and promote or allow brutality, denying diversity of creed, culture and religion.
If only you were here or take a step into the valley of Narmada, you would surely be overwhelmed with the simplicity of these nature-based communities, of adivasis, farmers to fishermen. Many of them whose lands were acquired by the state for the dam, again in your name. And now when they too walked in your step, they are facing attacks and jail sentence; jail? You declared it as a ‘place for peace’, received orders and promises to get land for land, but the people are ultimately being cheated and evicted out of their balance land for tourism!
Sardar, you certainly can’t visualize the scale and impact of forcible encroachment upon lives and communities in this valley with a sena/army of the statesmen, if I may call them that. No one can hold your hand today, but you could and would drag them out of the villages with your ‘iron hand’ if only you witness their might against the toilers’ rights. Will you, our beloved leader, engage the powers that bring in a thorough review and reflection? Gone are the days when yourself and Gandhiji had such a discourse on the floor of the jail and evolved a vision of swaraj and self-reliance, of agriculture and village republics. Gone are the days when you valued productions by masses to ensure equity in economic and social life both. I feel ashamed to tell you that there was no need to bring in 1,500 Chinese workers here excluding local adivasis from Gujarat, your own state, many of whom are compelled to migrate and harvest sugarcane while working day and night. I feel shaken to share with you what is being planned amd publicized in your name… Shopping malls, five or seven star hotels, state-wise bhavans on the river bank with all its paraphernalia – the shops, markets, a massive food plaza, food courts, walk ways, travelators and what not. All this when thousands of families, displaced for years now, are still awaiting rehabilitation.
The common people never market-ised Narmada or its water. They are damned by the dam but are most awed and anguished to see their sacrifice being taken as a capital for the tourism industry. They are sad that the farmers of Gujarat, your movements progeny, are left high and dry for the sake of corporates. Your generation was aware of two vices – corruption and communalism, your spirit behind your sermons is needed today. Your NO to communalism reflected in your appeal to the religious leaders during communal violence following the partition that was inevitable and your letter to Golwalkar Guruji, against the Hindu fundamentalist vision of RSS were unique. Those who are hiding behind your new avtar, garlanding you and marketing you, the iron man into iron form, have never engaged themselves in an in-depth pondering over the issue of communal violence now. They are not you to visit the families of those mob lynched victims. They don’t respect the resolutions by the adivasis, nor do they value agriculture that is being sacrificed.
But they are all not out. Your tallness is what they hail, their dwarf-ness, they hide. Adivasis know this all. Evicted since 1961, they can’t take it anymore. No Jaykaras! No celebrations from them. They mourn, they protest, they condemn and challenge as they know their mother river, not just gods and goddesses but culture and nature, their life is under onslaught. Their forefathers too had fought the British, their perseverance was to hold on to their land then. They are in the new freedom struggle, asserting self-determination. They are not a part of this game, unfortunately in your name, worth 3,500 crores.
You are to be the Hero again… standing tall, in the midst of the riverbed, on the Varata Bawa Tekri with deep faith in, watch and stop all that will be injustice, against unity, equity and sustainability. Your iron hand can do it… if not today, tomorrow. We look forward to having you there when adivasis raise their voice amidst festive tourists. We know you will listen to them alone, inspiring them to fight. Narmada appeals to you, Sardar!