Even in death Peace remains elusive for the Nomadic communities

We hope that the villagers realize that their demand is extremely  unreasonable and at least allow Bhavesh to experience peace in his death….. “Why have you buried your child in our cemetery?? Take out the body within two days or the consequences wont be good!!”    “Where would we take the body for burial, we do not have any other village, we have been saying here for so long now!!”   “We do not care…do what you have been told!!”   

The living conditions of the Vansvadi families

This disturbing dialogue was between the family members  of Bhavesh, a 6 year old who had died following a brief illness. The family is part of the Vansvadi settlement in Khoda village of Banaskantha’s Tharad block. When the question of Bhavesh’s burial came up  the community called up VSSM’s Shardaben, who advised them to bury the child in the cemetery of Maajirana (Bhil) community. The family followed Shardaben’s guidance and performed the burial rites.      

2 days later when the Bhil community got to know of the burial they and some  villagers came over to the Vansvadi settlement and asked the family to exhume the body from its current resting place  and bury it some place else and if the nomads did not follow the instructions they were dared of some serious consequences.     
The developments have shaken these families who are now deeply worried. The pain they are experiencing was very visible in their eyes when they were narrating the incident to VSSM’s Naran.  The community has visited the Mamlatdar’s office and have given in writing the recent developments. 

We also feel dejected and disheartened to witness  these extremely poor and powerless families experience such discrimination and inhumane attitude of the society. This is a very barbaric face of the society that these families are experiencing. We have always failed to comprehend  the reasons when the families aren't allowed to settle in villages but this development now has just dazed  us!!   It is time the society realizes that these communities are too offended and all the ceaseless discrimination that they undergo on regular basis is soon going to  explode them. Please STOP and correct your ways before it is too late!!!