Rising… village land, temple, trees

Around where the dam stands, the landscape is changing again as the water levels fall.

Large tracts of land which were previously submerged have emerged in Antras villag (Express photo by Javed Raja & Bhupendra Rana)

DULJI Rubya Bhil is frail, a thick network of veins running along his arms and legs. Dressed in shorts, and a khaki shirt held together by two buttons, Dulji says he doesn’t know his age clearly. “You guess. I was very young and strong when this dam came up and my house got drowned. But life hasn’t changed much,” he says, sitting in the makeshift tent that serves as his house, on a hilltop in the tribal village of Antras in Narmada district.

The blue tarpaulin canopy of the tent is tattered, exposing his charpoy and other possessions — bundles of firewood and a few utensils, filled with foodgrains, maize and rice, or Narmada water, which he uses to cook and to drink.
Much of Antras village was submerged in the 1990s when the dam came up. Dulji’s family was given 10 acres in Makadi village, an hour’s drive over the hills, as part of the resettlement package, and moved. But even as his three sons and two daughters grew up in Makadi, Dulji stayed put in Antras, which is now accessible only by boat from Kevadia, where the Sardar Sarovar Dam stands. He has not left the village for over two years now. Dulji says he can only remember his elder son’s name — “we used to call him Kanti”. But he doesn’t regret his decision to stay back in Antras. “I like living here. I belong here.”

Then, a month ago, came another change. For the first time since the dam was built, the water began receding. Houses and land mass that had gone under water emerged, though not Dulji’s old house.

a temple and other structures are now visible (Express photo by Javed Raja & Bhupendra Rana)

Throughout the four-hour boat journey from Kevadia to Antras, the receding Narmada reveals other such long-hidden ‘secrets’ — trees, which are now skeletons, temple domes, and forlorn mounds.

Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) records show that more than 37,000 hectares of land, 13,000 hectares of forest and 12,869 hectares of riverbed and waste land were submerged by the rising waters when the dam came up. More than 250 villages in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat were affected.

At Antras, the Forest Department has engaged around 20 people to chop the dead trees that have emerged. Khetia Nurji Padvi, 45, estimates they have cut “more than 5,000 trees since we began 10 days ago”. He is being paid Rs 200 a day. Padvi, who belongs to Donel village, which falls on the other side of the Narmada, in Maharashtra, claims to have seen these trees last when he was a teenager. “Most of these trees are mahudo (whose flowers are used to make a local tribal brew).”

In Hafeshwar, a temple now stands half-way up from the water, along with five smaller domes, and a building nearby. A new Shiva temple had been built in place of this ancient one in the village, located around 80 km Kevadia. In the nearby denuded hills, Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) has been digging for minerals like zinc.
Kamsi M Bhil, 28, remembers going to the old temple, once surrounded by neem trees, as a child. The earthmovers came when he was in Class 6 or 7, he recalls. “Gradually the temple went under.”

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Dulji Rubya Bhil’s old house is still under water ( Express photo by Javed Raja & Bhupendra Rana)

Boatman Naresh Rathva, a Dungri Bhil tribe from the same village, says the temple emerged around Shivratri, about a month ago. “When the temple top came out, we painted it and put up a flag,” he says.

Rathva recalls that when the waters had risen after the dam was built, many villagers had moved, except those who stayed on top of the hills.

Looking at the land that has emerged in his village, Dulji, however, doesn’t think those who left will return, including his family. They are used to better facilities like piped drinking water and canals for irrigation at the new places now, he says.

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