Women for sale

Fined, humiliated and sold to the highest bidder.

- Deepak Tiwari

 

In the end, it took just one voice to shatter the myth of a civilised society.

When Gulab Bamaniya, a deputy ranger with the Madhya Pradesh forest department, complained to Khandwa District Magistrate Manu Shrivastava that his wife Devaki Bai, 30, had been sold to another man for ₹5,000 at a tribal panchayat, no one believed him. However, the stunning revelation by Devaki herself, in front of an additional collector and the media, brought to light the prevailing medieval and barbaric practices of the Bhil tribe of Gowari village in Madhya Pradesh where women were auctioned in the presence of thousands during Panchganga, a panchayat held to hear matters of dispute within the community.

The women were asked to lower their pallus and stand with stones on their heads; and a few men were tonsured and beaten with shoes as punishment by their community. The incident took place at a function where state Fisheries Minister Hiralal Silawat was present as chief guest.

On January 3 (year), Vikram Mangtya More, 27, the sarpanch of Arood village, Naval Singh, 28, a teacher, and Lakhanlal Mala, a 38-year-old village kotwar, organised a panchayat called Bhil Samaj Sudhar Samiti (Bhil Community Reform Committee) in Gowari. “The declared objective was to reform the community by getting rid of age-old customs through education. But the hidden plan was to bring back Bhil girls who had married into other castes,” said Vijay Shah, a tribal legislator from Harsud constituency of Khandwa district, who headed the fact-finding committee sent by the leader of the opposition, Babulal Gaur, after the incident took place.