Around 400 metres off the Gujarat state highway near Vautha village, along the snake-like curves of the Sabarmati river, lie nearly a hundr...
Around 400 metres off the Gujarat state highway near Vautha village, along the snake-like curves of the Sabarmati river, lie nearly a hundred acres of land that government records describe as “non-useful riverside land”.
But on the ground, in early April, Baluben Makwana led me through a dirt path to an unexpected scene. On one side was a sprawling expanse of wheat fields, ripe stalks swaying gently in the wind and a lone tractor weaving through to harvest the crop. On the other side, neat rows of castor oil shrubs stretched into the horizon, their branches tall, thin and bare. The ripe fruit had been plucked the previous week, and now a group of sickle-wielding women were hacking down the shrubs in preparation for the next sowing season.
In the past 12 years, led by Baluben, this group of 51 Dalit women from Vautha, in Ahmedabad district’s Dholka block, had converted around 36 acres of the government’s “non-useful” wasteland into fertile farms that yield two crops a year. The land has become a precious source of livelihood for their families, and 72-year-old Baluben’s only dream is for her band of Dalit women to get formal ownership over it.
The farmer’s collective that the women are members...
