Living far from civilisation, the Pawara tribe in Ambapani hamlet of Yawal tehsil in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, got registered to vote for the first time in 1994 since then they used to go to a gram panchayat, a 13 km walk, to cast their vote.
In 2004, for the first time, a temporary polling booth was created at the village. Since 2009, polling has taken place at a Zilla Parishad school inside the village, a kutcha structure.
Pawara tribes are mostly found in the Satpura range of Jalgaon and Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. Ambapani’s Pawara community has been scattered in Satpura hills along the border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for generations. The population of 810 people feel casting their vote is one of the right things they need to do in life in the form of a ‘duty’, but they do not know its purpose clearly as it has not made any difference in their lives. There are 310 registered voters from Ambapani and their last Lok Sabha election voting percentage was around 59%.
Moharale village, the gram panchayat village for Ambapani is 13 km away and to collect ration items, people of Ambapani walk to Korpawali village, which is also 13 km away.
No political campaigns have ever reached this area and politicians have not given speeches or canvass for votes. The residents are even unaware who the candidates are for the election as most of them said they just press the ballot and get done with the voting process.
Ambapani is one of the seven network shadow areas in Yawal tehsil (Langdaamba, Usmali, Jamnya, Gadrya, Ambapani, Ruikheda and Charmali) where Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are brought to the polling centres by foot as there are no roadways for four-wheeler vehicles to ply. The steep, muddy pathway that leads to Ambapani is uneven, passes through a forest and can only accommodate a two-wheeler at a time as one side is abutted by hills and the other has a cliff, which can be precarious for travellers.
To reach the hamlet, this reporter avoided the regular route that seemed risky and chose to travel through the Yawal forest, a rocky, uneven, dry forest land crossing a few streams on the way, encompassing a six-hour drive up and down the hills.
Rupsing Bajarya Pawara, 57, said he has been voting in elections for the last 35 years but he does not understand the point of electoral franchise. “I collect dink (Marathi word for a gum collected from trees used to make loban dhoop) during summer and sell it in the market down the hills to Haripur village. Last week when I went down the hills, I learnt that the peti (ballot box) would come on May 13 this year. The peti comes to our village and goes, our only job is to press one of those buttons and the officers tell us our job is done. But I do not understand this job as there has to be some outcome, isn’t it? When I go to Yawal tehsil, people tell me about party signs such as panja (Congress party’s palm symbol) and phool (BJP’s lotus symbol) but I have never seen people representing those symbols.”
Swali Bai Pawara, a 35-year-old woman in veil laughed out while sharing her voting experience. “We do not understand these pictures (party symbols) on the box (ballot box), so we press whatever appeals to us the most. We have never seen any political rally or heard of any campaigning because no one comes here. We do not have television or smartphones with internet to know what is happening outside our village.”
In 1997, the Forest department had registered a court case against the Pawaras settled on the Satpura range for unlawfully occupying the forest. Ungya Gurja Pawara, 56, said the case went on for a decade in a local court in Yawal. “Under the Forest Rights Act, the case was filed against us. The Forest department claimed that we are living in the forest land for free and using its resources. In 2005, the court passed the order in our favour. We live in such a difficult terrain that no one wants to visit us perhaps but if we do not vote, will it make any difference? Wherever our vote goes and whoever is benefited by our votes, they must visit us as we too have a contribution to their growth.” Mr. Ungya lives with his wife, five sons and four daughters.
Some fear that if they do not cast their vote, the Forest department might ask them to vacate the land in which their ancestors settled down in.
Demand for basic necessities
In the absence of a hospital and primary health centre (PHC), the people of Ambapani mostly rely on herbs that grow in forest areas that has been followed by their ancestors for several years. Every childbirth in this village takes place at home, without the intervention and guidance of any medical staff even as ambulances have never come to the remote place. In fact, the residents do not even take up ultrasonography or take any supplements such as iron pills during pregnancy.
“When someone is extremely sick or in labour, we have tried to carry them in a makeshift carriage that we make with the support of two bamboos by tying a bedsheet to each pole, put the patient inside and carry them on our shoulder, it becomes like a jhola (bag). The nearest hospital is 25 km from our village. We must walk in difficult terrains, walk through the streams and during rains or in the night, we cannot even dare to do it and we must walk 25 km for two-and-a-half hours. There have been times when the woman in labour has delivered on the way, some have died too,” said 40-year-old Rambai Pawara who has heard from people that voting can get them roads, healthcare, homes, schools and many benefits. “I hope someday it turns out to be true for us,” she said wistfully.
Since there is zero institutional birth, none of them have birth certificates and that further becomes difficult for them to get Aadhaar cards and ration cards.
Rangya Bajare Pawara, 55, said the Zilla Parishad school does not have a regular teacher. “When there is no proper education, how can the future of the next generation change?”
On the other hand, Mr. Rupsing complained that they have to drink water from Halali river that flows through their hamlet. “We want potable drinking water because the river water is the same source of water for animals, where human waste flows, sewage also flows through it. We often fall sick and have have diarrhoea frequently.”
No PM Yojanas for the Pawaras
Last year, a solar panel was installed in the area through the gram panchayat but people here said they still live in darkness as they do not know how to use it. “No one ever came to check the solar panels or guide us on how to use them. We burn twigs collected from the forest as our source of light and to keep off the animals from the forest, but during rainy season, it becomes extremely difficult as snakes and other animals venture into our huts,” said Ungya Gurja Pawara.
They have never heard of any schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Har Ghar Jal or Ujjwala Yojana among many others. “We have heard of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) or PESA but no one guides us about it. We are not educated to understand technical jargon. We are surprised to hear that there are government schemes where people get water and pucca house,” said Mr. Rupsing.
Small steps forward
Mohanmala Nazirkar, Yawal tehsildar, said as part of election preparation, on December 17, 2023, she along with Jalgaon District Collector Ayush Prasad were examining the network shadow areas, which is where mobile signals cannot be received due to the remote terrain. Yawal tehsil has seven network shadow areas and Ambapani hamlet is one such area. “We drove for 30 minutes on the 12 km stretch from Yawal to Haripura and walked 10 km from Haripura to Ambapani because there is no concrete road. On reaching Ambapani, we saw that the polling booth put up inside a Zilla Parishad school is a kutcha structure. Yet, people in such hamlets do not need awareness about polling because they feel voting is something every person must exercise.”
On the day of election, the polling centres have to update the voting percentage every two hours. In network shadow areas, ‘runners’ are hired, who are people appointed to travel on a two-wheeler (either motorbike or bicycle) from the polling booth to the nearest area network range to inform the voting percentage to the Election Commission and then rush back to the polling booth to repeat the same. From Ambapani, the nearest network coverage spot is 1.5 km away.
The reason why government schemes do not reach the hamlet is because it is not identified as a revenue village yet. A senior government official said: “Two years ago, a fund was released for building the kutcha school into a concrete one, but it could not pass through because the village also does not have a local government directory (LGD) code. After coming back from our visit, we created a WhatsApp group in which we added forest officers, revenue officers, health care workers and other government officials to discuss and prepare a proposal to get this village the identity of a revenue village. We have submitted the proposal to the sub-divisional officer of Jalgaon.”
Mr. Prasad, the Jalgaon District Collector, said he wants to improve the status of the village and getting it the tag of a revenue village is the first step towards it. “It is the Central Indian tribal belt. We want to improve the life of people there. We are working on plans to help them with housing and public health services. After our visit, we have held health camps there.”
To ease the election process this year, Mr. Prasad said, “A full-time micro-observer and a sector officer for a single polling station will be appointed. Additional security and people with proper fitness would be appointed. The polling party along with sector officer and micro-observer would cross dried streams about 26 times. The one-way walk would be 10 km. We will also use the Forest department’s drone this time, in addition to the runner, to get updates on voter turnout every two hours.”
