Adopted publicly, abandoned silently: The story of an ‘Adarsh Gram’

Slowly, the magnitude of tragedy and the force with which it had struck this village—tucked away deep inside Shiwalik Himalayas, began to sink in. In front of me was the mountain village Saddal, located at a distance of nearly 50 km from Northern Command headquarters of the Indian Army at Udhampur town in Jammu.

A massive mudslide triggered by torrential rains had turned the village into a mass grave. I had reached the ravaged site—nestled amid forested mountain ridges—after a four-hour trek on a trail that snaked through a rugged terrain. The mixture of rocks, boulders and mud had devoured most of the mud houses, leaving few signs that this hilly slope once housed a small hamlet.

This was four years ago in September 2014. Nearly 134 families were displaced and 40 people, including children, crushed by the landslide.

Union Minister of State and local MP from Udhampur-Kathua, Dr Jitendra Singh, immediately after the landslide hit the village, told media that he has “adopted” the village under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. Singh promised to develop the village as first “smart village” of Jammu and Kashmir with all the amenities which are available in a smart village or a smart town including beauty salons and beauty parlours.

But after a whirlwind tour of the area, he seems to have forgotten his promises. One half of the survivors were taken to Sui Chakhar camp on the outskirts of Udhampur town. Those left behind either made their homes elsewhere with the help of relatives or eventually returned to Saadal—which has been declared unsafe for human habitation by the experts.

Notably, about two dozen hutments were set up by an NGO at Panjar as part of the first phase of the “smart village” project which was promised to be completed by mid-2016.

The Sui Chakhar camp—which is house to at least 50 displaced Dalit families—resembles a big metal-roofed building. Inside the building, each family has been allotted a cubicle partitioned with plywood in the absence of basic amenities. Most families subsist on manual work. Many rue that government didn’t even provide them with “migrant cards” stating that they were shifted from Saadal. As a result of which they are often harassed by the Army that demands to see resident permits.

“The disaster has turned us into paupers,” remarks, Kunj Lal (56), who used to run a small flour mill, a grocery shop and a traditional blanket weaving unit before the landslide hit the village. “We not only lost our homes, farms and cattle. We lost our roots and dignity as well.”

Lal claims that most of the survivors are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder: “Not everyone has the time and resources to visit a doctor in Jammu for the treatment.”

In the absence of official assistance, displaced villagers find it hard to cope with the trauma. Panjabu Ram, 70, who became psychologically disturbed after the incident, died in January. The illness caused his body to swell. He had no money for treatment. He lost his entire family – 1o members in the landslide.

Some villagers have developed speech problems or have started experiencing what villagers term “attacks of insanity” after losing their family members, homes and livelihoods.

Then there are people like Madhu Ram (40), who lost his daughter and three grandchildren; and Mansha Ram (42), who lost a brother. They are getting treatment at a government psychiatric hospital in Jammu. But others, according to villagers, consult local faith healers as they believe that the spirits of dead family members are haunting them.

At the haunted village, the survivors have set up moray—stones engraved with symbolic figures of the dead—in the hope of escaping aatya, the wrath of family's angry souls.

Girdhari Lal (50), according to some villagers, never left the village. He lost his entire family of seven. After the district authorities called off the rescue operation, he continued digging the earth, hoping to retrieve their bodies. Neither has he found any corpse or given up.

“Since the survivors could not perform last rites of their dead family members, they had requested the district authorities to build a samadi at the disaster site,” says Shankar, a local journalist. The government had agreed to the demand. They also promised agricultural land, livestock and all the basic amenities besides a school for their children at a new site.

The official plan, however, remains on paper as the administration is yet to identify a suitable site.

“We don’t know whether the government will rehabilitate us or not. Instead, it should allot us the land at camp site only. All we need is small plots for construction of separate shelters—so that our children can at least study well and become self-dependent when they grow up,” assert the campers, reminding me how their struggles and dreams for a better tomorrow were swallowed by the natural disaster. The government apathy is now endangering the future of their children.