Jawhar District

The Thane district is under proposal to be divided and a separate Jawhar District be carved out of existing Thane district with the inclusion of the northern tribal talukas of Thane district which include Palghar, Vada, Vikramgad, Jawhar, Mokhada, Dahanu and Talasari talukas in the proposed Jawhar district. The last Princely Ruler of Jawhar State at Indian independence was HH Shrimant Raja Patang Shah V (Yashwant Rao) Mukne. So Jawhar was cultural capital of rural area of Thane District which was previously known as Jawhar State. Therefore all movements of development tribal in Thane District start from Jawhar Town. Demand of separate Jawhar District is also one of the movements.

History behind the Demand for Jawhar District

Up to 1980s there were no medical facilities in this Adivasi of Thane District. People used to go to "Bhagat" for treatment of disease. “Bhagat” a person who is believed to have divine power and considered he is sent by God. Rural people believes that “Bhagat” by dint of his divine strength can cure any disease. Instead of Doctor, people rely more on “Bhagat”. In Tribal society “Stain on Body” therapy is used to cure diseases. In this therapy procedure of stain by hot iron is used to treat the disease. Therefore Tribal leader Advocate Rajaram Mukne^[1] started arranging camp against this horrible custom followed illiterate Adivasi community. He started taking medical camps in this tribal area with the help of his Brother Dr. Vijay Mukne and Dr. Avanti Mukne, wife of his brother. They conducted various medical camps in the remote area and provided free medical help and medicines for poor Adivasi patients. He arranged eye treatment camp and distributed free Eyeglasses to poor needy people in this rural area. To avoid the transportation of the medicines stock was dump in his house at Jawhar. So providing medical help to malnourished woman and children became more easy. But the number of malnourished children and women was growing fast and Mukne’s efforts were not sufficient to control the malnutrition in this area. Because of insufficient means of transportation and communication due to deep forest, this area remains neglected by Government and media even after 40 years of independent. At that time Mukne felt lack of communication resources. So he decided to build road network in this deep forest area which was very essential for communication. In 1970s and 1980s Mukne has struggled lot to attract attention of Government for the development of this backward area by means of movements like Morcha, hunger strike, meeting with ministers. For gathering people for such movements and creating pressure groups Mukne used to go by walk many kilometres because there were no travelling facilities for want of roads. Many time he used to go by small boats to reach to uncivilised Adivasi people who live in deep forest. Transportation was the one of the main need of Adivasi area for communication with the outer world of the jungle. To bring the Adivasis in main flow of society communication with main cities was very essential. So Mukne decided to build bridges and road network in this jungle and brought pressure on government using his political position to build bridges & roads and start State Transport Buses in this area. When officers of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation used to come to make survey the area to see the feasibility of starting bus service many time they used to deny and reject Mr. Mukne’s proposal of starting bus service in remote jungle are stating the reason of jungle and hilly area. But Mukne did not move behind, he himself started to make his own survey of the proposed road and after planning the direction of route he used to gather people of the villages and firstly he plans cut the trees which create obstacles and made sufficient raw road space for buses. Today in this area almost all villages are connected by bus route and communication became very fast. Because of Mukane’s efforts the facilities of transportation education health are made available.

Vavar Vangani : Cycelic Death of Malnourished Children has given birth to "Demand of Jawhar District"

Mere medical help was not sufficient. Lack of good quality food and clean water was also one of the reasons for Malnutrition. Government was not able to fulfill the basic need of tribal people. Efforts of local social workers like Mukne were not sufficient. Ultimately Collective effect of all these things happened in 1992 and what had to happen has happened. More than 100 children died one by one due to malnutrition in Vavar-Vangani area which attracted the world’s attention. Chef Minister of Maharashtra visited this Inaccessible deep forest the area by Helicopter. Advocate Rajaram Mukane had taken a golden chance of chief minister's visit to this area and demanded the bifurcation of Thane District and formation of Independent Jawhar District for the easy administration of this backward area. Considering the painful facts Chief Minister Sudhakarrao Naik agreed and approved Mukne’s demand partially and declared Jawhar Tehsil as sub-district comprising seven Tehsils i.e. Jawhar, Vikramgad, Mokhada, Talasari, Dahanu, Palghar and Vada. Politicians and government officials descended on this area and rained schemes and facilities on them. ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

Demand of Bifurcation of Thane District and New District Head Quarter at Jawhar

After declaration of Jawhar as sub-district many departments including separate collector office have become functional at Jawhar since 1992. But want of basic life requirements the bureaucrats government employee did not want to stay in the backward area of Jawhar. Many offices stay in cities with their family and coming to Jawhar for office Job and it takes about 3 hours to reach at Jawhar. So Govt. officers are always in hurry to go at their home in cities. Because of this situation nothing happens and Govt. work and many schemes are shown on paper only. To overcome this problem Mukne is demanding full-fledged independent Jawhar District and recruit local educated unemployed in the Government offices. He is raising voice by writing articles in newspaper and insisting separate Jawhar District for better, quicker and co-ordinated administrative measures need for a separated Tribal District is essential. So State Government formed a committee called “Pingulkar Committee” to study and recommend modalities for the district's bifurcation. While supporting the need to separate the urbanised talukas from the tribal ones, the committee however recommended Palghar as the new district headquarters. Palghar is connected to Western Railway and is convenient for Government employees who stay in city area. so it was very clear that “Pingulacar Committee’s ” decision was taken for the convenience of Government Employee and not in fever of poor Adivasis from this area. The “Pingulkar committee's” decision has given rise to a new controversy. ^[6] However, determined to gag the administration's doublespeak, local leaders from the five tribal talukas in Thane - Jawhar, Mokhada, Dahanu, Talasari, and Wada - have organised demonstrations, hunger strikes and even tried to take the government to court. However, Mukne argues that Jawhar is already declared as sub-District with its head quarter at Jawhar comprising seven Tehsils so the bifurcation of Thane District has already taken place and only certain formalities and modalities in that respect have to be declared by the Maharashtra Govt.^[7] He says government should declare Jawhar Sub-District as a new independent District as early as possible before emerging new demands of the separate “Sahyadri State” for Adivasi which would create Naxalite movement and terrorism in tribal area.^{[8] [9]} In this regards he also submitted a memorandum to the chief minister of Maharashtra, and also Governor of Maharashta State. In this regard interview of Rajaram Mukne was taken on ETV Marathi.^{[10] [11] [12] [13] [14]}

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