KENDRAPARA: The nondescript Dhumat in Kendrapara comes to life twice every year on the birth and death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi as people make a beeline for the village to pay their respects to a stone on which he sat while taking bath during his historic ‘Harijan Padyatra’ in 1934.
Spearheading the movement against untouchability, Gandhi had halted at Dhumat village on May 30, 1934.
Some villagers carried water from the nearby Govari river in buckets and he took bath while sitting on the stone.
Following the incident, the place became sacred for locals who preserved the stone. Later, a pedestal was constructed around the bathing stone (popularly called as ‘Gandhi Sila’) and busts of Gandhi and Gopabandhu Das were installed near it, said 83-year-old Mahavev Das of Dhumat village.
A large number of villagers of Dhumat, Indupur and nearby areas had participated in the freedom struggle in response to a call given by Gandhi during his visit to the district. In his memory, people had built a thatched ashram at Dhumat in 1938. But the ashram was completely damaged in the Super Cyclone of 1999.
During his visit, Gandhiji had stayed for a night in the thatched primary school of nearby Barimula village.
However, the marauding river consumed the temple around five years back and now the statue is also on the verge of being submerged.
Kendrapara Collector Samarth Verma said the district administration will stone-pack the banks of Godavari river at Barimula to protect the statue of Gandhiji from the marching river. “We will also construct a park at the place where Gandhiji addressed a public meeting in the village,” he added.
During his padayatra in Kendrapara, Gandhiji had spent five days in the district and toured different places. Among those who had accompanied him were Meera Ben, Gopabandhu Choudhury, Rajkrushna Bose, Rama Devi, a German youth K Kuto, Uma Bajaj, Binod Kanungo, Surendranath Pattnayak, Manmohan Choudhury and Jadumani Mangaraj.