In the last week of December, when the world was celebrating Christmas and New Year, Kusum Kisan Babar, 50, was petrified that her tenement in Babar Pada tribal hamlet in Gorai, a Mumbai suburban village, would be torn down. “Since the Shivaji museum project was announced [in mid-2023], there have been several visits by Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) staff along with police,” said Ms. Babar, who belongs to the 300-strong Warli population that lives in the hamlet, of about 1,300 Warlis in Gorai.
She adds that she feels extremely insecure: “There is the constant fear of losing the land my ancestors left us.” Her three sons and two daughters, with their families, have houses on the forested land that she said the tribe had populated with fruit trees. Ms. Babar, who lives with another daughter, grows vegetables and catches crabs to sell them in Borivali market in Mumbai.
On June 5, 2023, the Maharashtra Department of Tourism announced the construction of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj War Art Museum across 136 acres of land in Gorai with a budget of Rs. 50 crore. The boundary wall of the museum is being constructed, and a few houses have been demolished.
At the entrance to Babar Pada is a tall gate with a board describing the history of the tribe living here. The external walls of the homes are covered with Warli art, a form of line drawing done in white on a brick-coloured background, depicting the life and culture of the tribe that lives in the coastal region. The beautification work was carried out by MTDC two years ago.
The Warlis say the land sanctioned for the museum is their land that they have been dependent on for generations. Asmita Kolekar from Birsa Munda Pada, said the Adivasi community is against all kinds of urban projects built to bring tourists at the cost of the tribals. “We have no objection to the museum, but it should not be built on our land,” said Ms. Kolekar.
In 2011, the Bombay High Court had rejected MTDC’s tourism proposal to construct hotels and resorts in and around Gorai and Manori villages. The court had declared in the judgment that these places were ecologically sensitive, and had disallowed construction, said Gayatri Singh, senior advocate, Bombay HC, who had filed a public interest litigation then. “Now, the Warli tribe and fisherfolk are in the process of filing an interim application against this project,” she said.
The museum will affect six tribal hamlets: Babar Pada (3 acres), Jamazad Pada (6 acres), Mothadongari Pada (5 acres), Chotadongari Pada, Birsa Munda Pada, and Borkhal Pada (all 3-4 acres). On January 28, 2023, the Minister of Tribal Development, District Collector, local MLA, and the Revenue Department had attended a meeting at Babar Pada and announced the hamlet as a gaothan, an area protected by the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code that disallows any development without the consent of those who reside on it. However, that has not been updated in the land records. Babar Pada is Gorai’s only government-declared gaothan.
On December 24, about 6,000 tribal people from across Mumbai gathered at Babar Pada, to mark the Tribal Community Festival 2023 to celebrate their traditions and discuss the crisis. Sanjiv Valsan, director, Waghoba Habitat Foundation, an NGO documenting and conserving traditional eco-cultural practices among Mumbai’s indigenous people, said, “They are the original Mumbaikars who have been preserving the forest and living a sustainable life.”
Rajendra Bhosale, Collector, Mumbai Suburban said, “If tribal communities are practising agriculture on sanctioned land, they will not be displaced or affected by such projects.”
He doesn’t think the tribes needed to worry. “Even if that particular place is affected, they will be rehabilitated safely.”
From Chotadongari Pada, Vanita Kottal said that they have protested for their rights in the past and they will stage protests again to save the forest that the museum project is going to raze. “The city has only got closer to our hamlets and now the government is trying to construct buildings in the name of Shivaji to occupy our land illegally. This is our home and we will not leave,” stresses Ms. Kottal.
Mumbai has 222 Adivasi padas (tribal hamlets) of which eight are in Gorai. The rest are scattered across portions of the Aarey forest, Film City, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Madh Island, and along the north and western coast.
