VIKARABAD: Holding colourful flower stacks in hand, dozens of women from across Telangana gathered at the 400-year-old Ramalingeshwara Swamy temple in Vikarabad on Sunday to sing and dance to the traditional tunes of Bathukamma. As the first song ended, the circle around the Bathukamma grew bigger with younger kids entering the circle. Soon, some men joined the dance.
Although the celebrations seemed to be going well, the atmosphere was a little tense. Police patrol cars and cops were standing not too far from those celebrating the festivity. It is with the Telangana High Court’s permission that the people could celebrate Bahujan Bathukamma near the temple this year. Maybe next year the same level of participation might not prevail, worried a few villagers.
Over 2,900 acres of the Damagundam reserved forest at Puduru in Vikarabad has been earmarked for a Very Low-Frequency Radar Station for the Indian Navy. While the foundation work for the project started sometime in 2007, the forest land was officially transferred to the Navy by the Telangana government only earlier this year.
“Many of us have come here from the neighbouring villages to express our protest against this project. We hope that they will stop the attempt to establish a radar station as we play Bathukamma here in protest,” said Parvathy, one of the villagers from Parigi mandal.
An activist from the Save Damagundam Forest movement said there are about 22 villages around the forest and the villagers depend on the groundwater resources available in the forest for their livelihood.
“Musi river starts from this forest, and people use Musi water for the purpose of drinking and irrigation. What would be the future of such natural resources without a forest?,” questioned Swarna, who lives in a village 10 km away from the temple. “We want these trees and environment to be saved for the betterment of our future generations,” she asserted.
