This Betul village is insanely caught in a time warp

BETUL: Fifty kilometres from the district headquarters and situated on National Highway 47A (which incidentally is India’s shortest NH) lies the nondescript village of Guraria in Chikhli panchayat.

The tribal village , which houses some 150 families is surrounded by hillocks and is picturesque. Children run around on a hot summer afternoon, some naked, playing with friends and catching birds.

Mahua dries on the roof of hutments and bullock carts lazily travel to fetch drums of water from a well situated a kilometre away.

Though Guraria looks idyllic, the village is surely stuck in a time warp. When an infant gets a stomach ache , the most common treatment is ‘damah’ — branding the child with the point of a red-hot iron sickle . It is affordable and convenient, because the nearest healthcare centre is 20 kilometres away in Bhimpur and the nearest hospital is in Betul. When distances are a killer, a three-month-old baby to an elderly suffering from terminal illness, the best treatment lies in ‘damah’.

Standing on the doorway of her clay hut is Soni, the wife of Shyambabu with her 10- month-old daughter Aishwarya. The child has little white burn marks on her stomach. “Her stomach was bloating daily and we know ‘damah’ will help to reduce the bloating,” she said.

Anyone in the village can be a ‘damah’ doctor, heating an iron sickle and repeatedly branding the patient with it. “It hurts with the burning of flesh, but it sure treats the disease,” Soni said.

Newborns are branded with the red-hot sickle and they scream in pain, while the whole village thinks it is for their good. Almost every man, woman and child has undergone ‘damah’ treatment because the hospital is miles far away. Asha worker Sushila Selukar says, “We have asked villagers not to do ‘damah’. But they believe it is the right treatment for their illnesses. We need hospitals.”

Betul CMHO Dr GC Chaurasia said, “Damah is an old tribal tradition and it is even done at home. We know awareness is essential in tribal villages. Health centres are present in villages where the population is more than 5,000. But Asha workers are present in all villages and they can be contacted during medical emergencies. With the help of the administration, we are trying to identify quacks and put pressure on them to stop such activities.”

Guraria is still a ‘privileged’ village because BJP MP Jyoti Dhurve adopted it as her ‘adarsh gaon’. But, the MP never visited the village, claim residents. “We have only seen her photographs in posters,” they said.

Being an ‘adarsh gaon’, the village was also on the Swacchh Bharat priority list. Small toilets measuring 4X4 ft were constructed but their utility seem to be nil. “The village does not have enough water to drink. There is no water to spare for these toilets,” said Babita, a village resident.

Most tribals migrate to Gujarat and Maharashtra for work because there are no means of earning a livelihood here. “We have a two-acre plot of agricultural land but that cannot feed the entire family. My father is forced to go to Gujarat in search of employment,” Babita said.