Sanket Jain

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_SJ-IMG_0167.jpg

medium_SJ-IMG_0167.jpg

small_SJ-IMG_0167.jpg

thumbnail_SJ-IMG_0167.jpg

SJ-IMG_0167.jpg

When the flood water began to rise, Parvati Vasudeo took along her husband’s ceremonial cap while leaving their house. “We only brought this and the chipli  [a musical instrument]. No matter what, we can never leave this cap,” she said. The headgear is adorned with peacock feathers and her husband Gopal Vasudeo wears it while singing devotional songs.On August 9 though, Gopal, who is in his late 70s, was sitting in a corner in a school room, clearly in despair. “Three of my goats have died and one that we rescued will also die because it is ill,” he said. Gopal belongs to the Vasudeo caste, a community of worshippers of Lord Krishna, who go door to door singing devotional songs to collect alms. In the monsoon months, he works as an agricultural labourer in his village, Bhendavade, in Hatkanangle taluka of Kolhapur district. “For a month, there was no work in the fields because of heavy rains and now the floods have come again,” he said, nearly in tears.Farmers in Bhendavade had pushed their kharif sowing to July this year because the rain was delayed – the first showers here usually come by early June. But when it did pour, it took just a month for water to drown the soyabean, groundnut and sugarcane crops.

Bhendavade is one of 200 to 250 villages in just Kolhapur district of Maharashtra (say Press Trust of India reports) ravaged by the floods that started on August 2 and began receding only by August 11. Kakaso Chavan, Bhendavade’s sarpanch, said that 450 families and around 2,500 people – the village has a population of 4,686 (Census 2011) – had been moved to relief camps in school buildings in and around the village, and to the sarpanch’s house on the outskirts of the village, where the water didn’t rise. Vasudeo, along with Parvati and their family, shifted to the government high school in the village on August 3. After four days, when the water started entering the school too, they had to move to a primary school on the outskirts of the village. Parvati, who is in her early 70s, told me on August 9, “We are out of our homes for a week now. We will have to stay here for a month. Today, one of the younger boys swam out and said that our house has fallen.”

Another young man who swam out was 19-year-old Somnath Pachange – to his house to rescue his cat. “The water is more than eight feet deep on the roads. It has reached 3.5 feet in my home. My cat is afraid of the water and is not coming out,” he said. “We won&#39;t let any person die. We are going to save all the animals too,&quot; said 34-year-old Asif Pakale and his friends. Asif had not anticipated how his drone – which he uses for wedding photography – could help rescue people. “We used the drone to find a farmer stuck deep inside the village,” he said.  On August 6, 2019, the people of Bhendavade village arranged a boat from Nilewadi village, around 30 kilometres away, and managed to save the farmer.

Despite the best efforts of local teams like his in Bhendavade, and of National Disaster Response Force personnel in many of the other villages, many animals died in his village. While no one in Bhendavade lost their lives, at least 40 persons were killed by the flood across Kolhapur and Sangli districts, the Pune Divisional Commissioner was quoted as saying in news reports. And over 400,000 were evacuated to transit camps.  Reliable official estimates of the acres of crops lost are yet to be calculated.

Bhendavade battles Kolhapur flood fallout

কোলহাপুরের বন্যা বিপর্যয়ের সঙ্গে লড়ছে ভেন্ডাবাডে

ભેંડાવાડે કોલ્હાપુરના પૂરના દુષ્પરિણામોથી લઢી રહ્યું છે

বানে ধোৱা ক’লহাপুৰত ভেণ্ডাৱাড়েবাসীৰ সংগ্ৰাম

பெந்தவாடே கோல்ஹாபூர் வெள்ளத்தை எதிர்த்து போராடுகிறது

भेंडवड्याचा मुकाबला कोल्हापुराच्या पुराशी

कोल्हापुर में बाढ़ की तबाही से लड़ता भेंडवडे

کولہاپور میں سیلاب کی تباہ کاریوں سے لڑتا بھینڈوڈے

କୋହ୍ଲାପୁର ବନ୍ୟା ପ୍ରଭାବରୁ ମୁକୁଳିବା ପାଇଁ ସଂଘର୍ଷ କରୁଛି ଭିଣ୍ଡେୱାଡ଼େ

Hatkanangale

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Bhendavade battles Kolhapur flood fallout

At least 40 people have been killed across Kolhapur and Sangli districts of Maharashtra, over 400,000 evacuated to transit camps, and livestock and crop losses are huge but yet to be properly estimated

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit