Called witch, left homeless: In Gujarat, Tribal women fight for land and inheritance rights against all odds

Geetaben Gamit, the sarpanch of Bhatpur, a village of Tribal dominated Tapi district in South Gujarat, is a busy person with women flocking her office all day.

Geetaben stood for the Panchayat elections in 2016 with a clear aim of helping women of her village in getting their land rights. Eight years later, Geetaben’s tenure as a sarpanch has seen an increase in the number of women who have successfully added their names on to family land records under the Hindu Succession Act 2005.

Her time in office is now divided between performing her civic duties as the local body head and hearing requests of women about their widow pensions and ownership to ancestral land. She has also trained multiple Tribal women to help others of their ilk in the neighbouring villages.

The journey, however, has not been an easy one for Geetaben.

Geetaben Gamit, the sarpanch of Bhatpur, a village of Tribal dominated Tapi district in South Gujarat.

“My husband used to be the sarpanch of the village from 2012 to 2013. But in 2014, Bhatpur village was declared reserved for women which meant that my husband had to vacate his seat for a re-election with all women candidates. But he was not ready to relinquish his post yet. So, he made me contest the local poll. I won the poll and my husband became the pati sarpanch (an informal system where a female sarpanch is just a stamp head and her husband runs the panchayat office instead),” recalls Geetaben, the 45-year-old woman leader of the village whose initiative gave birth to a Tribal womens’ collective in Tapi.

“Back then, I never questioned my husband about the running of the sarpanch office that I was elected to. My husband’s family also discouraged me from getting involved in the matter. I was leading the life of an average woman revolving around my family and kids. But problems began when husband died after suddenly falling ill in 2015,” she recounted.

“My husband’s family blamed me for his death and shunned me out of the home with my daughter who was about four years old back then. I stayed in my parent’s home for a few months but then I returned to Bhatpur to talk about property rights of my daughter. I was thrown out of the house forcefully, thrashed in front of my daughter and told to never return again. But I was determined to get my daughter her inheritance so I started to visit the panchayat office in the hope of some information about the process. That’s when my brother-in-law roped in a bhua (tantrik) who claimed he had sensed that my husband had died because of my kala saya (black shadow). The bhua branded me a witch and entire family and neighbours supported him. I was thrashed again by a group of men who threatened to burn me alive,” she shares.

“I was admitted in the hospital for about three months with multiple fractures and serious injuries. My daughter stayed with my parents during this time. After I got home, I filed a police complaint against my husband’s family. Local police supported me and ensured that my in-laws did not harass me again. I was able to visit the patwari office (district revenue office) to enquire about the process of property inheritance. That’s where I met Fooliben, who was also branded a witch after her husband died. She was childless, uneducated and had no one to stand by her. I had studied till Class 10 so I helped her with documents. As I helped Fooliben, I realised how many women like us were in need of help,” Geetaben tells The Federal.

For Geetaben and Fooliben, it was the Swa Bhoomi Kendras (SBK) formed by the Working Group on Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO), an informal and unregistered network of 35 NGO of paralegals in Gujarat, that helped her in understanding the law and organise the necessary documents.

“But now, we have full grasp over the law and know the way around the revenue office,” says Fooliben.

Fooliben Nayak, now 50 years old was married at the age of 13 to a man 15 years older in Sagtala, a village neighbouring Bhatpur in Tapi. Her parents received Rs 900 as ‘bride price’.

“For years, I was beaten, starved and made to believe it was all part of married life by my husband. Before marriage, we were told that once the family takes the money, girls had to do everything that the family of in-laws says. Like many girls, I too had accepted it to be my life,” Fooliben says.

“When my husband died in 2013, my father-in-law accused me of taking his son’s life. He alleged that I had been always practicing black magic that ended in my husband’s death. The next day, I was forced to sit through a cleansing ritual done by bhua who confirmed at the end of the ritual that I was a dakaan (witch). I was tied to a tree in the village compound by the bhua who shaved my head and threw hot ashes of burnt wood at me while the whole village stood and watched. After that I was banished from the village,” Fooliben says describing her ordeal.

“Later, I knew that my husband who worked in the post office had some money saved under provident fund and I was the legal nominee to the money that amounted to around Rs 2.5 lakh,” she adds.

Noticeably, the Hindu Succession Act was amended in 2005 making both sons and daughters entitled to equal rights of inheritance to ancestral property. Despite the law, women in Gujarat own only 16% of the land or property they inherit.

“In the rural areas, the sarpanch at village level and the patwari at block level play a crucial role in a women’s access to land rights. The panchayat office is responsible for registering the death of the male member, who in most cases is the primary owner of land. That document is to be submitted at the village-level revenue office where talati (revenue officer) prepares a family tree document or Varsai including name of women of the family as well. Thereafter, Varsai is submitted with patwari who does a local background check and then it is submitted to the Mamlatdar at the district level revenue office. This is the first step of asserting women’s land rights,” tells Geetaben.

“In most cases situations worsen after the Varsai is submitted. A notice is issued to all the people listed in the Varsai, who have to agree in writing to the addition of the woman’s name into the document. It is only after this that the woman’s name is reflected in the land records. In almost every case, the inclusion is vehemently opposed by male members of the family. It takes months to convince them until then the process is on hold,” adds Geetaben.

“The entire process of registering women’s names in the land records can take anywhere between three months to a year. Even if a woman manages to resist her own family, the administrative process is a tedious one. Women have to travel long distances to the block and district level offices to find out the survey number of their land which is a daunting task. Several women we have helped have told us that often the talatis demand bribe to complete their paperwork that they cannot afford,” tells says 42-year-old Ushaben Gajjar, another member of Geeta Gamit’s women’s collective.

“Besides a woman demanding her land rights is often met with ridicule and hostility in male dominated government system,” she adds.

Ushaben Gajjar a resident of Sagwada, another village in Tapi, has been fighting a long battle for years to get her land rights.

“Twenty-six years ago, my father was murdered by his sisters’ husbands in order to take over 4.5 acres of farming land that was in my father’s name. They struck an axe into my father’s neck. After his death, my mother was branded a witch and denied land rights. To escape the situation, my mother and I moved to Surat. But the stigma of being branded a witch never left my mother. After she passed away in 2021, I couldn’t brush off the thought that it is my father’s land and my mother and I were the rightful heir. So, I came back to Sagwada, my home village to reclaim my land,” she tells.

After being back, Gajjar met Ushaben Gamit a member of Geetaben’s team of women and with her help Gajjar put all important land-related documents together withing a month.

However, she was met with hostility at the panchayat office of Sagwada village where she went to file her paperwork.

“They asked me why I had returned and made lewd comments like asking me what time I would go to their home at night,” recalls Gajjar.

“Twenty-six years ago, when my mother and I went to claim our land rights after my father’s death, these men did not allow us to speak. Years later, little has changed,” shares Gajjar, adding that she was even slapped by a panchayat member for asking why her paper couldn’t be submitted.

The process of registering a property under a woman’s name can take anything between 3 to 6 months and is not an easy task.

Sumitraben Gavit, a widow from the same village, has had a similar experience when she approached the male sarpanch to claim her property rights.

“When we go to male leaders for more information about schemes or the law, people in the village gossip about our character instead of helping us,” tells Sumitraben who successfully added her name to her husband’s land in 2018 after his death with support from Geetaben and WGWLO.

“Women in rural Gujarat face the problem in land inheritance just as in other parts of the country. The women own only 16% of the land holdings and only 2% of it comprises of widows who own land. The number goes down in tribal areas. ANANDI did a survey in 23 villages across 15 talukas in tribal dominated districts in south Gujarat and found that 88% of the land was owned by men and only 11% by women. Despite Union and state laws, women’s land rights are still questioned and often met with violence,” says Neeta Hardikar, a founding member of ANANDI, an NGO working with tribal women in Gujarat.

“We work on empowering women across the state over land laws and their inheritance rights. Many women are now coming forward to claim their land rights as they understand that it is important for financial independence. Talking to men about women’s land rights is difficult in rural areas. Our volunteers were met with threats many a times while approaching men,” she adds.

Clearly, a lot of ground remains to be covered in ensuring women benefit from laws meant for them.