After decades of darkness, Jamdar pada in Gorai dances into light

The 250 villagers broke into song and dance to celebrate the long-awaited arrival of electricity into Jamdar Pada. Pisc/Satej Shinde

At 5 pm on Friday, Jamdar Pada in Gorai, located about 20 kilometres from Mumbai, was wrapped in a spirit of festivity. With a dhol-tasha troupe in tow, its 250 residents had assembled on a ground that otherwise hosts religious festivals. Soon, former local Congress corporator Shivanand Shetty signalled the villagers, and the band dropped a beat, to which middle-aged tribal women began their folk dance. All of this was to celebrate the hamlet getting access to electricity after spending generations in darkness.

The merriment continued for the next half an hour. Sushma Dawade, a social worker, was seen getting teary-eyed as she put a garland around an electricity meter set up by employees of Adani Electricity. "For the past two years, I have been fighting to get a power connection in this village. There is no minister in the state I haven't met during this period; everyone made tall promises. But we continued to run from pillar to post [to get this done]," she said.

Ecstatic Jamdar Pada villagers conduct a puja at the newly installed electricity meter

"I reside in Mothi Dongri, which is some 10 kilometres from here. Gorai has five closely connected padas - Jamdar, Munda, Babar, Mothi Dongri and Choti Dongri. While the others had got access to electricity in 2003, Jamdar remained neglected. So I decided to put in all of my efforts into bringing power supply here."

All the 52 families in Jamdar Pada have been staying here for five generations. For about 60 years, their small huts were lit with solar lamps and candles. "Residents of other padas were willing to give money for laying cables. But in Jamdar, none had the capacity to shell out Rs 2,000 for it. Over a decade later, they agreed, and we started convincing government officials to set up a transformer here," Dawade added.

Villager Sunita Baban's home is one of the 44 in the village that has gotten access to electricity. Pic/Satej Shinde

Across party lines

While Congress's Shetty had been fighting to get them power supply since 2012, MNS's Mahesh Nar joined forces in 2017. Nar informed, "Sanjay Nirupam, among many other leaders, came to this village after the media highlighted their issue. But the land belongs to the collector and an approval from them was needed to set up a transformer here. Once that was sorted out, the papers were stuck at the revenue department. Finally, they gave a nod last month and we immediately called Adani Power Limited."

Shetty said it didn't matter which party they belonged to because they were fighting a common battle. "We went to the government offices together every single day hoping that they would address our problems. The government wants these Adivasis to vote for them every election, but denies them basic facilities," he added.

Dawade, who regularly accompanied the duo, does not have her roots in Jamdar. She was born in Borivli and married to Sunil, who has never known a world outside of Gorai. "I was only 18 then. I didn't even know the village suffered from a power crisis. But when I began settling here, I realised something needed to be done for the villagers. They first thought I would never fit in, as I looked like an outsider and dressed in a certain way. But I proved all of them wrong today by delivering justice," recalled the Class 9 dropout, adding, "I remember visiting Vinod Tawde a couple of months back. He asked me not to enter his house. I told him I would keep coming back till my village got power supply."

Of the 52 families in the village, 44 currently have electricity meters set up outside their pucca homes. The remaining eight are yet to see the light of day. Villager Manda Vasu Bhadale, 42, said her kachcha house did not get power supply as it does not have a proper roof.

"They cannot put a meter yet as we cannot afford to give Rs 2,000 for it, neither can we afford to build a pucca house. The officials said that during rains, there are chances of us getting electrocuted in the absence of a roof. Someday, one of my four sons will make this wish come true," said the homemaker.

An octogenarian's hope

As the evening celebrations drew to a close, three octogenarians sitting under a tree were seen heaving a sigh of relief. Rama Raoji, Shinvari Kisannam and Maithi Lakshanam were unable to contain their happiness seeing their grandchildren enjoy what they had not been able to.

Raoji says, "We have lived in Gorai all our lives. Our children grew up doing odd jobs, catching and selling fish, going door-to-door looking for cleaning jobs. But today, we can hope for a better life for them. They can study more, find better jobs and live a normal life."

But the frail tribal woman does not forget to mention a new dream of hers, "I want to sit in front of a TV and watch IPL. I don't know what that is, but the craze seems to have gripped our village for a long time now."

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