The Bhils have fought valiantly
against their marginalisation by the mainstream society and their alienation
from their lands. Along with the men on many occasions women too have fought
shoulder to shoulder with them. Unfortunately there are even fewer records of
these women fighters than there are of the men fighters. The history of these
women fighters needs to be documented because they provide an inspiration to
the present generation of Bhil women not only to fight against the centralised
market and governance systems that continue to marginalise them but also
against the patriarchal oppression they face in their own society. The short
histories of three brave Bhil women are related here.
1.
Sursibai
Sursibai, a Bhil tribal of the Nayak sub
tribe, was a resident of Panchmohli village of the present day district of Barwani
in Madhya Pradesh in the nineteenth century. The two decades from 1837 to 1857
witnessed a series of dry years resulting in much lesser agricultural
production than normal years. Despite the famine like conditions prevailing due
to lesser agricultural production the British refused to waive the heavy taxes
that they levied on the farmers. When the Bhil farmers protested they were
subjected to beatings and imprisonment by the British. When this oppression
reached an extreme Sursibai organised one hundred and fifty Bhil women into a
fighting unit and gave them training in the art of warfare. These women then vowed in front of their
tribe Goddess Nagri Mata that they would not rest till they had freed their
territories from the British and began their campaign. Sursibai had a son who
was in his teens and his name was Bhima and he too was inspired by his mother’s
example. In 1837 Bhima formed a fighting unit of his own with men and women
trained in warfare. Thereafter from 1840 to 1864 Sursi and Bhima together led
their tribe in a long and attritious war in the whole of the West Nimad region
of the present day Madhya Pradesh against the British. Initially the fighting
unit was five hundred strong but at the peak of the struggle in 1857 to 1860
the strength went upto thousands.
The local Bhil Corp of the British was
not able to subdue the Nayaks and so additional reinforcements were brought in
from Gujarat by the British. The Magistrate in charge of the Khandesh area
south of the River Narmada forced the traders of Sendhwa town to deposit their
money with the British. This money amounting to Rs 7 Lakhs was being taken
secretly for safe keeping from Sendhwa when the convoy was attacked by a
raiding party led by Bhima and Sursibai and they took away all the money saying
it belonged to the poor Bhil farmers. At this time Tatya Tope the great general
who fought against the British in 1857 came to Nimad and sought Bhima’s help to
cross the River Narmada. Bhima successfully aided Tatya to ford the river and Tatya promised to
return the favour someday once the British had been removed and he left behind
two hundred of his fighters to help Bhima in his struggles.
Once the British were able to subdue the
rest of the country they turned their attention to the Bhil rebellion in Nimad.
A big force under Captain R. H. Keating raided Dholabavri village and then on
13th February 1859 a fierce battle took place in Sursibai’s village
Panchmohli. Bhima was able to escape with some of his men but many others
including Sursibai were arrested and imprisoned in Mandleshwar. The British
tortured Sursibai to get information about Bhima but she resisted all the
torture including being deprived of food and water and died on 28th
February 1859. The other Bhil inmates rose up in revolt and occupied the jail
in protest and military force had to be brought in from outside to subdue them.
Eventually many of them were executed after a summary trial and others were
deported to imprisonment in the Andaman Cellular Jail. Bhima carried on his
fight from the jungles and on 16th December 1866 launched a big
attack on the British. However on 2nd April 1867 he was apprehended
as a result of treachery and subsequently hanged.
2.
Kalibai
Kalibai was a Bhil teen aged girl
residing in Rastapal village of the present day Dungarpur village in the 1940s.
Once the Quit India Movement was announced on 9th August 1942 the
people in Rajasthan which was mostly under the rule of Indian Princes owing
allegiance to the British also came out in open opposition to colonial rule.
Gandhian activists in Dungarpur like Bhogilal Pandya, Shobhalal Gupta, Manaklal
Verma and others inspired by the Gandhian leader Thakkar Bapa established the
Dungarpur Sevak Sangh. The Sevak Sangh used to run schools for Dalits and
Adivasis in the district. Under pressure from the British the Prince of
Dungarpur forbade the Sevak Sangh from running these schools once the Quit
India Movement started. A more broad based organisation called the Praja Mandal
was formed to conduct a campaign against this unjust closing of schools and the
more general demand that colonial rule should end. The Prince took repressive
action against the workers of the Praja Mandal and had his forces beat them up
and send them to jail. This led to an intensification of the protests by the
people.
The state police went to Rastapal
village on 19th June 1947 to close the school there which was
running in the house of Nanabhai Khat. Nanabhai refused to close the school and
and lock it and give the keys to the police. The police then beat up Nanabhai
severely and rendered him unconscious and took him away with them for jailing
him. However, Nanabhai died from his injuries on the way before the police
could reach their camp. After this the police beat up the teacher Sengabhai
Bhil who had continued to teach the children despite Nanabhai’s death. After rendering
him unconscious the police tied Sengabhai to their truck and took him away
dragging him on the road. Unable to see this a student of the school Kalibai
ran towards the truck with a sickle to cut the ropes and free Sengabhai from
this torture. The police warned her not to run after the vehicle but Kalibai
did not listen and reaching her teacher cut the rope with one swish of her
sickle. The police were incensed at this and as Kalibai bent down to tend to
Sengabhai they shot her in the back. Kalibai fell down unconscious and later
died in the hospital in Dungarpur.
This unjust murder of a girl student of
the school for trying to save her teacher incensed the Bhil Adivasis and they
got together from surrounding villages and a massive twelve thousand people
fully armed with bows, arrows and swords and their traditional drums descended
on Dungarpur town. The Prince was forced to release the leaders of the Praja
Mandal from jail and they calmed down the Bhil populace and convinced them to
return. The people of the village constructed a statue of the brave thirteen
year old girl Kalibai in Rastapal and even today a fair is held there on the
occasion of her martyrdom.
3.
Dashriben
Born in a Choudhury Adivasi family in
Vedchhi village in Valod Tehsil of present day Tapi district in Gujarat on 3rd
October 1918, Dashriben grew up to be the foremost Gandhian Adivasi woman
leader of the freedom movement. She came from a family that had a history of
leadership of Adivasi struggles. Her
maternal grandfather Jeevanbhai Choudhury had been the first to organise the
Adivasis of western India against the oppression of the British who had
beginning with the promulgation of the Indian Forest Act in 1884 and the Land
Acquisition Act in 1894 severely dispossessed the Adivasis. This devastation of
the Adivasis continued with the ban on alcohol distillation and the
introduction of licenses for selling liquor and during the drought of 1890 the
British refused to reduce the taxes on Adivasi farmers and so they had to
borrow at usurious rates from moneylenders who later usurped their land.
Jeevanbhai organised a “Kali Paraj Parishad” or Black People’s Conference in
Vedchhi in 1903 in which Adivasi from as far afield as Dahanu in Maharashtra
and Dahod in Gujarat congregated to formulate a campaign for securing the
rights of Adivasis.
The Swaraj Ashram was established by
Gandhi’s son Ramdas and Vallabhbhai Patel in Bardoli in 1922 and Jeevanbhai and
other Adivasi leaders then went and met them requested them to arrange for
Gandhi to visit Vedchhi and provide guidance to the ongoing Adivasi struggles.
After this Gandhi’s wife Kasturba attended the Kali Paraj Parishad organised at
Shelpur village in Surat district in 1923 and he himself came to the Parishad
organised the next year in Vedchhi village when Dashriben was just six years
old. A Swaraj Ashram was established in Vedchhi and very soon hundred villages
nearby had people wearing khadi and spinning yarn. Gandhi came again to Vedchhi
in 1926 and then when Dashriben went to garland him with a handspun yarn he
noted the golden bangles she was wearing and asked her not to wear them as
there were many poor in the country who did not have proper clothes to wear.
Dashri immediately took off her bangles and gave them to her father to give to
Gandhi. Ever since then she never wore ornaments again.
Vallabhbhai Patel started the Bardoli
Satyagraha for non-payment of taxes to the British to protest against their
unjust policies in 1928. Patel took Dashriben with him to his meetings because
she could sing protest songs very well which inspired the people. The
Satyagraha went on for two years during which the Choudhury family along with
other protesting farmers had to bear tremendous repression as the British
confiscated their property for not paying taxes and also the police beat them
up and jailed them frequently. Ultimately the problem was resolved with
Gandhi’s intervention. Later in 1930 Dashriben took part in the famous Salt
Satyagraha with Gandhi by marching to Dandi along with thousands of other
protesters.
Dashriben used to study in the national
schools set up by Gandhi in which a new education pattern called Nai Talim was
introduced. She was studying in the national school at Maroli in 1933 when the
Swadeshi Movement began and once again she took part in this along with other
women. Women sat in Satyagraha before the traders of Surat preventing them from
selling foreign cloth. The women were arrested and a case was filed against
them. When the magistrate asked Dashriben what her name was she said “Bharat”.
When she was asked where she resided she once again said “Bharat”. On being
asked what she did she answered “ I work for India’s freedom”. Then the police
put a gun to her chest and asked her whether she knew what would happen if it
went off and she replied “ If I die then I will become a martyr in the cause of
freedom and if I am alive then Bharat will be free”. The magistrate said then
said that this girl is very dangerous and she was sentenced to a year in
prison.
Dashriben first was sent to Sabarmati
prison and later transferred to Yeravda prison in Pune. Gandhi and Kasturba
were already in prison there at the time. Gandhi and Kasturba were prevented
from meeting each other and they could only communicate through letters.
Kasturba had to ask others to write her letters as she was non-literate. One
day she asked Dashriben whether she would teach her to read and write and
Dashriben readily agreed. For four months Dashriben taught Kasturba how to read
and write and used to write her letters to Gandhi. Then she asked Kasturba to
write herself as she had learnt enough. When Gandhi received the first letter
written by Kasturba he was very pleased and wrote back to ask who had taught
her. Kasturba wrote that she had been taught by her student Dashriben. Gandhi
then wrote a letter to Dashriben commending her and saying that what he had not
been able to do in all these years she had done in just four months!!!
After coming out of prison she went to
study at the Sabarmati Ashram and there she met many leaders of the freedom
movement and also Indira Gandhi with whom she began a lifelong friendship.
Dashriben led the rally in Bardoli town on 21st August 1942 when the
Quit India Movement was declared. She led a five thousand strong mass of people
holding the tri-colour aloft with the intention of planting it in front of the
Police Station. However, when they neared the police station they were baton
charged by the Police and one baton landed on Dashriben’s hand. Nevertheless
she did not let the tri-colour fall and handed it over to another protester to
take away to safety. She was again sentenced to a year in prison for this
protest march. After her release she married another freedom fighter Kanjibhai
Choudhury in 1944 and they both began working as teachers in the Gram Shaala
established in Vedchhi. After independence Kanjibhai became a full time social
worker and Dashriben completed her higher education and took the job of a
teacher. As a teacher she has taught thousands of Adivasi children and youth
and raised awareness among them. Later after retiring in 1976 she once again
became active in the social movement as the president of the Gujarat Khadi
Gramodyog Board for ten years. Kanjibhai passed away in 1998. Thereafter
Dashriben was active as a leader of the Adivasi Ekta Parishad till her passing
away in Vedchhi on 2nd September 2013.
Conclusion
The above history shows that the Bhil
Adivasi women too have been at the forefront of struggles for justice. After
the compilation of this history a seminar was conducted in Alirajpur on
16.12.2013 where both men and women village level activists of the KMCS were
told the stories of these brave Bhil women fighters. The need for women to come
out in larger numbers and emulate these great fighters to ensure a better deal
for the Adivasis was underlined by speaker after speaker at the seminar.
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