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Cut off by recent floods, Banaskantha village to be lost forever

Today, after being battered by floods in 2015 and last month, the village in the northern Gujarat district of Banaskantha is inaccessible, with accumulated silt forming dune-like structures, some as high as 10 feet, across its alleys and streets.

Banaskantha village , Kuda village, Banaskantha village floods, kuda floods, Gujarat floods Kuda village in Banaskantha where silt has covered every nook and corner. (Source: Salman Raja)

FOR YEARS, its residents say, Kuda village was the focal point for villagers from eight nearby hamlets looking to stock up on household needs. Today, after being battered by floods in 2015 and last month, the village in the northern Gujarat district of Banaskantha is inaccessible, with accumulated silt forming dune-like structures, some as high as 10 feet, across its alleys and streets. Its last two remaining shops have bare minimum items to sell and are, much like the centuries-old village, on the verge of shutting down, forever.

That, Kuda’s residents say, could mean the end for a village that traces its lineage to centuries ago, when four Thakur families first settled here. The Thakurs were followed by two Marwadi families from Rajasthan’s Jhalod region, bordering Gujarat’s eastern district of Dhahod, and in the centuries that followed, the residents say, the village attracted Kapadi, Thakur, Thakore (in majority now), Dalits and Jains.

“Kuda was like a city. We were so proud of its development that our relatives from Rajasthan would come here. We had even served senior officers who would visit this area before Independence. But it’s been two years since I have visited my village,” says a forlorn Kalaji Ashaji Chaudhary (96), the oldest person in the village.

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Kalaji’s family is among the 650 – there were nearly 800 families in the village with 2,400 registered voters – that left their ancestral houses in the village after the 2015 floods and chose to settle in their farmland, nearly two kilometres away.

“The 2015 floods left only 35 houses in the village. The rest all shifted into their farms, scattered two to three kilometres in all directions from the village’s periphery. We had no other option,” says Kalaji’s eldest son Anandbhai (65), with whom Kalaji and his wife, Gauriben (92) live. Kalaji’s combined land holding of around 100 bigha is now divided among his five sons and all have built houses in respective properties.

Festive offer

The two instances of flooding, however, claimed no lives. “Around 35-40 persons were rescued from the village in the 2015 floods. The destruction to the village was immense. This time, we were informed well on time and with our 2015 experience, all of us from the village shifted to higher areas before the flash floods came. There was no one stuck on the roofs like the previous time,” says Chatraji Thakur (55) another of the villagers who has moved out.

Longing to go ‘home’, Jamna Rabari, a Class VI student of the government primary school, recalls the time she spent with her friends in the village’s ‘Rabarivas’ (a colony of Rabari or the pastoralist community who usually stays together in the village). “I miss my friends and cousins. I really want to go back and play with my friend Varsha, the way we would do for hours. Now I do not have any of my friends around me and my mother does not let me go inside the village on my own,” says Jamna, eating her mid day meal of dal-dhokli.

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Jamna’s father Mashrubhai, who apart from rearing cattle, runs one of the two remaining shops. “Spared in 2015, I could not let floods claim my family members next time, so I decided to relocate in a makeshift house on higher ground,” he says. The front steps of his shop have been washed away.

Before the deluge of 2015, Kuda was traditionally a water scarce area, located around 60 km from the district administrative headquarters in Palanpur and around 95 km from the international border with Pakistan. The road leading to the village, from the Deesa-Tharad highway, is lined with pomegranate and groundnut fields.

Kalaji, the 96-year-old village elder, says that while mostly with little water through the year, the village has had its share of floods. “I myself has seen floods six times in my life but elders would say they had seen several before that too,” he says. The younger generation too recalls at least three major floods in the last 40 years. “Two of these I have witnessed myself and the third, I heard my parents recalling was around 1978 or 79,” adds Dineshbhai Kapadi (27) who too has shifted into his farms.

But Gauriben (92), Kalaji’s wife, says the recent floods have been unprecedented. “Water (floods) would come once in 10 or 20 years and that too not in such a quantum. But for last two years, it seems the rain Gods are displeased with us,” says Gauriben.

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Kuda sarpanch Jodhaji Jamnaji Chaudhary says villagers are now longing to come back together and live together like they used to. “With all our existence and death being associated with this village, we hardly have any identity without it. With our ancestors cremated at the common cremation ground inside the village we have memories and association beyond words,” he says.

Plans are already afoot for relocation of the entire village – Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani met villagers (WHEN EXACTLY??) regarding compensation and moving residents to higher ground – but villagers are sceptical of the government proposal. “In 2015 too, we were promised relocation. After surveys, 5 hectares of land was allotted to us against a demand of 15 hectares. On this land, against 420 registered houses, only 62 could be relocated. Where will our other family members go? We cannot leave them behind,” says Kesrabhai Chaudhary.

Villagers routinely turn up at the village but that is to claim compensation, announced by the state government, for their cattle, farms and household expenses. “Nearly 40 per cent of us have not received compensation. We are still waiting. So we come here every morning and sit through evening hoping that officials would come and distribute aid,” says Ranchodbhai Kapadi (56).

Banaskantha collector Dilip Rana says the villagers were offered enough land but have refused the proposal. “After the 2015 floods, some 5 acres was allotted for Kuda village. But the villagers have refused to shift on this land. Every family would have got 100 sqm plots, which by all standards should be sufficient,” he says.

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He is hopeful that the villagers will accept a renewed offer. “After the relief work is completed, we will soon try to convince them again under a comprehensive programme. The district administration has identified 25 such villages that were destroyed in 2015 and in 2017. For these, higher land will be identified where they will be persuaded to relocate against their ‘gamtal’ (village land in government records).”

First uploaded on: 21-08-2017 at 16:36 IST
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