INDIA: 95-Year-Old’s Fight For Rights

MATHERAN, Maharashtra (Hindustan Times), January 3, 2008: Sixty-five years ago Hutatma Bhai Kotawal died a martyr’s death, fighting the British. Today, his wife Indutai (95) is fighting to get back the Matheran chawl where he was born. “I want to breathe my last in these rooms and build a memorial for my husband.” Ten rooms in Matheran bazaar’s Plot 84 belonged to the Kotawal family, she said. “Of these, five belonged to my husband. After my son Bharat died I left Matheran in 1959 and came to stay with my mother at Khadki, Pune.” And the five rooms were given on rent to three people – Arvind Shinde, Krishna Nayak, Vasant Choudhary. The remaining rooms, also on rent, belong to Kotawal’s relatives. Indutai has asked the tenants to leave and complained to the authorities many times in the last six years, but in vain. Now, she plans to step up her efforts to get back what she considers her husband’s legacy. A few months ago, she wrote to the Superintendent of Matheran, but there was no reply. She wrote again on December 14, adding that if the government was unable to help then on January 2 – her husband’s death anniversary — she would agitate outside the chawl. Bhai Kotawal, who died in Sidhagad, Murbad, fighting the British Army, on January 2, 1943, also worked for the rights of the poor. Inspector G.C. Hiremath said they had requested Indutai and her supporters, members of the Krantiveer Bhagat Master Pratisthan, to cancel the agitation. “No one is opposed to constructing the memorial of Bhai Kotawal in Matheran. Even tenants have given in writing that they are ready to vacate if the government gave them similar plots in Matheran.” However, one of the tenants, Rajesh Choudhary, said they were staying in these rooms since 50 years and the state government’s rehabilitation policy for slum dwellers should apply to them too. By Kiran Sonawane, Hindustan Times Copyright 2007 HT Media Ltd