Bundelkhand women’s protest focuses on river health
On June 1, over 12 women and a few men with masked faces in Khapatiya Kala village in Pailani tehsil of Banda district waded into the river Ken. Maintaining social distance, they began their ‘Jal Satyagraha’-- standing waist-deep in the water to protest illegal sand mining and environmental hazard in the village.
The protest sent the district administration into a tizzy and within hours, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Pailani reached the spot with police. After an hour of negotiations, the officials took a memorandum of demands from the protestors, assured them of probe and immediately ordered stopping of sand mining. The women walked out of the water and went home.
Suman Singh, a farmer and Usha Nishad, another villager led the protest.
Suman Singh alleged that the miners had begun straying out of the area that the district administration had leased them for mining and started digging sand from villagers’ and Gram Sabha land.
Suman said: “The two mining companies operating here have over-exploited the land leased to them. Now they have started digging sand out of our land. They neither informed us nor asked us. When we attempted to confront them, their men issued us life threats and said they would implicate us in cases. They also threatened sexual harassment cases against the men in the village.”
Suman wrote all this in an application and gave it to the SDM, Pailani, Ramkumar. He said he had asked the circle officer, Banda, the mining officer, Banda and the tehsildar, Pailani, to investigate the allegations and send the report to district magistrate Amit Singh Bansal. The DM’s phone was unresponsive for his comment on the issue.
SDM Ramkumar said: “The report has gone to the DM. Prima facie the allegations of illegal mining appear true, but villagers’ or village land doesn’t seem to be involved.”
Two companies--one each from Agra and Etawah have five-year licence--valid till 2024--to mine sand from the land leased to them in the village. Villagers are moving the high court this week over the illegal mining and environment issues.
“It is the red sand which is commonly called ‘moram’ and figuratively called ‘red gold’. The four districts of Bundelkhand--Banda, Hamirpur, Mahoba and Chitrakoot are a hub and sand is mined indiscriminately here from the Ken, Betwa, Yamuna, Baghe and Mandakini rivers. The use of machines--according to the RTI application reply that I got sometime back--is prohibited for sand-mining. But the miners use heavy earthmovers in the river beds as a norm than the exception,” said Ashish Dixit ‘Sagar’, an RTI and Bundelkhand rights activist based in Banda. The Jal Satyagrah by the women once again brought into focus the issue of illegal sand mining and environment hazard to Bundelkhand region’s rivers. The people and some activists here have started demanding the replacement of machines by people for manual mining--all the more since a large number of migrants have returned to the region under Covid-19 lockdown.
