No neta has ever visited this ‘special’ villageAfter trekking through a 14-km mountainous path, The Tribune team reaches a village where more than half the inhabitants are hearing and speech impaired
Residents of Dhadkayi village, all Gujjars, have voiced their anger by deciding to boycott the polls. Tribune photo: Anand Sharma
Jupinderjit Singh writes from Dhadkayi (Kishtwar)
Democracy, at times, gives voice to speechless. And the 15th Lok Sabha elections have vocalised the sufferings of this unique village in a remote part of the Kishtwar district, where half the population has hearing and speech impairment.
The village, located over 250 km from Jammu, with last 60 km drive on an ‘unmotorable’ road, followed by 14 km of trekking on slippery mountainous terrain, is ‘special’ for another reason. No politician has ever reached this village.
An estimated over 50 per cent of residents and nearly 70 per cent of children of this village are hearing and speech impaired. This is apparently due to a genetic default arising out of inbreeding. The villagers, all Gujjars, have voiced their anger by deciding to boycott the elections.
“When a woman becomes pregnant, the entire village does not pray the baby should be a boy or a girl. We only pray all the five senses of the child should function normally,” says Shamshad Begum, clutching her beautiful yet special teenaged daughter.
“After the issue first came into the limelight five years ago, the government promised a special school for the children. It never fulfilled the vow,” rues Mohammad Haneef, sarpanch of the village. Six of the eight children of his and brother’s family are deaf and dumb. “See these kids. They are so cute but God has not given them the sense of hearing and speech. And the humans (read those running the government) have ignored them,” he said.
In 1950, there was only one hearing and speech impaired child, but the figure has now touched almost 100, “There is hardly any family in the village which do not have such a “challenged” child” said Mohd Ayub, an electrician who is a resident of the village.
“We are not going to vote this time. We have resolved this,” said Haneef.” No civil government has helped us. Only the Army, especially the 26 Rashtriya Rifles, has come to our aid. They have sent two such children to Hyderabad for studying. Hopefuly, the two would be able to teach children here,” he said.
The Department of Biotechnology, along with the Jawahar Lal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientifc Research, Banglore are conducting a research on the problem.
Prof Khursheed Andrabi, head of the Biotechnology Department, said the research so far has established a genetic defect behind the problem, “The defect has been passed from generation to generation due to families marrying among themselves. But it is just one factor that can be attributed to the problem. Our research is on.”
Tabassum, of Kashmir University, who is doing a PhD on the unique problem said doctors took blood samples and conducted other tests, “the victims who are other wise mentally alert and aptly intelligent have pinned their hopes on experts and scientists from reputed national and international institutes to get rid of this mysterious disorder with which they have learnt to live with as a “curse of God” she said.
Against doctors’ advice, villagers do not have any alternative to marrying among themselves, “Yeh Khuda ki marzi hai,” said Mohammed Haneef, a village elder, “No one takes a deaf and dumb spouse. We have to marry them to each other only,” he argued.
In the past, the villagers thought there was a curse on the land where they lived, “Many families migrated to Batala and Kangra in Punjab and Himachal. But the problem followed them”, Haneef said.
“Elections have given a new voice to the villagers. Politicians visit a Muslim shrine situated on a peak just opposite to the village regularly but no one comes here,” said a bitter Jaan Mohammad. The Tribune team which reached the village after travelling and trekking for over 10 hours, saw a cavalcade of a politician from Kashmir going towards the shrine but not the village. “I haven’t seen a politician in my entire life”, said Haneef, who is over 50, thus summing up the neglect of the village.
(story printed in The Tribune page one anchor on April 22, 2009. )
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