Tale of a memorial: Now here, nowhere

About 1,200 villagers are believed to have been killed when soldiers of the Mewad Bhil Corps (MBC) opened fire at a public meeting of the tribals. The bodies were believed to have been dumped in a well.

This much is known: Motilal Tejawat, venerated as the Mahatma Gandhi of the Bhils, had called the meeting to press for their demands. One version has it that a tribesman excited by Tejawat’s speech shot a round in the air, provoking indiscriminate firing by MBC soldiers.

Another has it that the soldiers, who had come from Kherwada in Rajasthan, were enraged by the roadblocks put up by the tribals.

The British suppressed news of the massacre. History books make only a passing reference to it and hardly any serious research has been done. People like Pahadaji Damor, who says he was 20 when the massacre took place, recall seeing people running away from the meeting. He says the Bhil soldiers took away the jewellery from bodies before dumping them in the well.

‘‘It was all over in an hour,’’ he says. ‘‘That year, we celebrated a simple Holi in fear of the British. And a Christian priest adviced us not to discuss the massacre.’’

But now that a memorial has been erected, the massacre — and the memorial — have become the subject of competitive patriotism. Ironically, it was the Congress that brought the massacre to light more than five years ago. But the BJP pipped it to the post by erecting the memorial.

If Sabarkantha MP Madhusudan Mistry and Khedbrahma MLA Amarsinh Chaudhary, in whose constituency the village is located, have their way, they would raise money and build another memorial at what they say is the exact site where the bodies were dumped.

The two Congress leaders see politics behind the erection of the memorial. ‘‘The BJP isn’t serious about the monument, which was put up only with an eye on the next Lok Sabha election,’’ he says. ‘‘The tribals never voted for them. How can the state commit such a blunder?’’

But then, why didn’t he point out the mistake before?

‘‘They wanted to do it first, and made the mistake. With the state machinery at their disposal they could easily have located the exact spot,’’ Mistry says, demanding pension for relatives of the survivors. He says he didn’t attend the unveiling ceremony because he was informed at the last moment, and because his presence would ‘‘have led to some kind of scuffle.’’

On its part, the BJP readily agrees the memorial is at the wrong spot. ‘‘This was because land-owners refused to part with a plot for the memorial,’’ says Ramilaben Bara, the BJP candidate who lost to Chaudhary in the last Assembly election. ‘‘The Congress ruled Gujarat for decades, and Amarsinh Chaudhary was chief minister for years, but still they did not recognise the sacrifice.’’

Some villagers say the memorial is done with, so why bother with a controversy. They take visitors to a mound said to be covering the well in which the bodies were dumped. They point to the fields where the corpses were strewn for days, saying skeletons will surely be found if the mound is dug up.

But there are others, like sarpanch Bhimji Patel, who say it isn’t politics, but a matter ‘‘dear to our hearts.’’

‘‘We want the memorial to be built at the exact place,’’ he says. ‘‘Everyone knows where it took place. Now, we are collecting money for another memorial — to be build at the exact spot.’’

The site is not spread over a large area, but the land is owned by seven partners. Now, with the controversy having broken out, the land-owners say will hand over the plot for free. ‘‘I’ll become famous (for donating the land),’’ says Chandubhai Damor, 40, one of the owners, who claims he found cartridges when he built a room last year.

But Pahadji Damor, who has a first-hand memory of the massacre, says it doesn’t matter at all where the memorial — which has anyway been a long time in coming up — stands.