The Hindu Business Line : Fight to regain ownership of the `biggest lake'

For those living in Bondgaon village, a short distance from the Navegaon National Park, the Sarus crane is a precious forest heritage. The village is proud of its sizeable Shringar Bodi (water body) where six Sarus cranes reside though when we visited the place, they were absent.

While approaching the lake, set beside farmlands growing corn, a young man signalled the number six with his fingers and told us the birds had flown across to a green patch nearby. "Every one in this village today protects the Sarus cranes and the names of their clubs and bhajan mandalis carry Sarus as a prefix; for instance, there is a Sarus Sai Mandali. Initially, there was some resistance as the cranes fed on crops but that period is over," remarks 32-year-old Bhimsen Sreenarayan Dongarwar, the grandson of the famed naturalist Madhavrao Sitaram Dongarwar, who passed away last year.

In the afternoon, standing on the banks of the well-filled Shringar Bodi, we spotted a few lesser whistling teals, a couple of cotton teals, a black shouldered kite and a marsh harrier (a migrant bird). And in flew a small blue kingfisher, took its seat on the branch of a bare tree, some 10 ft away from us, looked around and flew off. "Rarely does this bird come so near to human beings," said Bhimsen and he should know being a keen birder.

Next to Shringar Bodi is the Gandhari talav (lake), with its banks dug up illegally by contractors for sand and stone. Bhimsen, Kishor Rithe and I made our way to the Gidhadi hills in the hope of sighting white-backed and long-billed vultures. They were not there as the Forest Department had knocked down some of the tall strong nesting trees for lucre.

The Bhandara and Gondia districts have some of the finest lakes or water bodies with most of them supplying free water for agriculture even while being the permanent address for local and migratory birds. They provide air-conditioned cover in the summer months when the open-air temperatures in March touch 40 degrees C and scale a steep 48 degrees C by May.

"They have never dried up," says Bhimsen who manages the family farms and can be termed a farmer with a green heart by profession.

The biggest lake in Gondia district is the 11 sq km, 400-year-old, Navegaon Bandh Lake bordering but outside the Navegaon National Park. At present, the owner of the lake, surrounded by low-lying dry hills, is the family of Bhimsen, whose forefathers seemed to have built it. And the lakes in this district have a curious past.

A research paper (2003) prepared on the Park by Kishor Rithe for the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) traces the origins of the Bhimsen family to the Kohali community brought in as settlers from Rajasthan by the Gond Rani Durgawati. This particular community is responsible for putting up the water structures with aquatic plants over centuries to green the area. However, in an interview to Hugh & Colleen Gantzer (The Hindu, May 10, 1991), Madhavrao Sitaram Dongarwar traces the family lineage to Shivaji.

In 1952, the State Government took over the Lake and even levied a water tax on farmers using its waters.

"My father, Madhavrao took the government to the courts and we got the tax scrapped. Our fight in the courts is still on to regain ownership of the Navegaon Bandh Lake. If we get it back, we plan to declare it as a bird sanctuary," says Narayanrao Dongarwar, father of Bhimsen, at his country home in Pawaini village in Navegaon.

Softly brownish, old black and white pictures in wooden frames of Madhavrao dress the walls. Two shots, one with Madhavrao riding a motorcycle with a gun in hand and another standing over the kill of a man-eating tiger, catch one's roving eyes. "The forest and wildlife conservation movement in Vidarbha started at this home of Madhavrao, " asserts Kishor Rithe, who still carries on him the wildlife lessons learnt from the naturalist.

Bhimsen and his father are not in favour of handing over the Lake (if they win the case) to the Navegaon National Park as it is not well managed by the Forest Department. The forest floor of the Park is topped with leaf litter and Kishor Rithe thinks it is a good sign as it helps regeneration of the flora and fauna. There are no tigers in the Park and one felt an emptiness, while on a short run of the place.

"Gaurs and sloth bears (one saw fresh bear claw marks on the trunk of an old jamun tree) can be seen, if you are lucky," says Bhimsen who is determined to fight for the Park.

Driving through the Park one spotted a jungle owlet at Bodrai and a 500-year-old Umbar tree (a Ficus variety), where Madhavrao sahib used to take short breaks.

Madhavrao Sitaram Dongarwar and Navegaon National Park are one and his son Narayanrao Dongarwar is upset over the life-threatening status of the Park.

"Please do something for this Park," he pleads. Scarred a bit by the Naxal menace, the 13,388-hectare Park was set up on November 22, 1975. Teak, bamboo, Arjun, jamun and mahua trees dominate the tropical dry deciduous forest with an annual rainfall of 1,200 mm.

There are four villages inside the Park — Kalimati, Zankargondi, Kawalewada and Malakaziri — and the villagers are prepared to start afresh outside the Park.

Bamboo felling is a daily affair, while Navegaon Bandh Lake is slowly but surely being turned into a tourist spot. "Most people who come to Navegaon stop at the edge of the Lake and do not make a trip into the Park," says Kishor Rithe.

The three villages around the Lake grow crops and fish in the waters affecting the lives of water birds. In today's India, it may not be much of a sin with New Delhi keen on razing down forests and doing away with wildlife.

Dr Salim Ali was a close birding friend of Madhavrao Sitaram Dongarwar and made three trips to his Navegaon home.

In the house, hangs a black and white picture of Salim Ali and Madhavrao. Many years ago, in an interview Dr Salim Ali had raised a few questions: "What world can you have without the excitement of natural life? How can you preserve your heritage without caring for it? And, without a heritage, where can man go?"

For New Delhi, tribal men and women will go and live in the forests. Forests and animals will be a "once upon a time" short story.

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