Kotra, Udaipur
Kotda is one of the largest tehsils of Udaipur district in India. It has 31 panchayats and a total of 262 revenue villages. The block is located 120 km south of the city Udaipur, bordered in the north by Pali and Sirohi districts of Rajasthan. In the south, it shares a border with Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts of Gujarat state. Per the 2011 census, Kotra is spread over 1110.9315 sq.km with a total population of 230,532.
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Demographics
As of the 2011 India census, Kotda had a population of 230,532 (116,764 males and 113,768 females). The total number of households was 41,790. Males constitute 50.65 percent of the population and females make up 49.35 percent. Kotra has an average literacy rate of 24.52 percent, lower than the national average of 59.5 percent (2001 census); male literacy is 37.55 percent, and female literacy is 11.14 percent. In Kotra, for every 1,000 males there are 980 females. This sex ratio is favorable against the state’s sex ratio of 922. Kotda is a tribal-dominant block with 220,905 persons belonging to Scheduled Tribes. This constitutes 95.82 percent of the total population. Kotda, therefore, is listed under the Tribal Sub-Plan.[2][3]
History
Kotda is commonly known as the ‘Kalapani’ – extremely remote and inaccessible – where government officials who are sent there are regarded as having been given a ‘punishment posting’. In 1975, during the decline of the Congress and the rise of the BJP, the VKA (Vanvashi Kalyan Ashram), the tribal welfare wing of the RSS that was confined only to Madhya Pradesh, became an All-India organisation and its Rajasthan branch was opened on August 25, 1978 in the Kotra Block of Udaipur district.
The tribals of Rajasthan first encountered an organised form of Hindu nationalism on August 25, 1978 when the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Tribal Welfare Association, or VKA) opened its Rajasthan branch, known as the Rajasthan Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (RVKP), in the tribal-dominated Kotra region of Udaipur district. Although the objective of the RVKP was to promote tribal development and welfare, its latent agenda has always been to stop religious conversion in the tribal regions. The Christian missionaries first came to Rajasthan following the establishment of Mewar Bhil Corps by the British in 1841 and began working among the Bhil tribes of the Kherwada and Kotra region. Missionaries have since then been very active in the region and, as a result of their social service, many tribals had been converted to Christianity.
This worried the Hindu nationalists. The Janata government at the centre and B.S. Shekhawat’s government in Rajasthan in the late 1970s facilitated the entry of Hindu nationalists into the tribal regions of Rajasthan. Some other reasons for which the VKA decided to establish its branch in Kotra were: (1) this region provided a series of historical narratives that reflected the strong bonding between the Bhils and the caste Hindus; (2) the tribals of this region had a long history of fighting against the so-called ‘alien’ or foreign forces such as the Mughals and the British; and (3) besides active Missionary work, this region has also been dominated by the other so-called ‘disruptive’ force – the Muslims – who were largely brought to the region by the British.
Kotda thus provided a fitting space and the Hindu nationalists have exploited the historical context to strengthen their position in the region.[4]