Wheels of power
Besides the chattering of Kalashnikovs, rhythmic sounds of the centuries-old wooden turbines of the numerous gharats echo in the hills of Kashmir. The guns may one day fall silent in the valley, but not the gharats . Since the seventh century, it has been in use for grinding and oil expelling works. The hill areas in Kashmir still depend solely on these gharats as there are no electric or diesel mills. During the Chipko Andolon, women in the hills of Uttaranchal used to gather around these gharats to chalk out their strategy.
Though its origin is traced to the northeast, gharats are used widely in Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and Uttaranchal. It is estimated that there are half a million watermills: 70,000 in Uttaranchal, 40,000 in Himachal Pradesh, 60,000 in Kashmir and rest in the northeast. Used primarily for grinding and dehusking, watermills are also used for oil expelling in the Kashmir hills. Gharats are installed on banks of perennial streams.
The Britishers recognised the importance of gharats and they levied an annual tax on it. According to laws formulated during that time, if any gharat is closed down, the owner has to give away a part of his/her land as penalty.
" Gharats were the first rural-based technology to be given an industry status,' says Suryamani Hatwal, a geography teacher of Gopeswar College, Chamoli, and owner of a 180-year-old gharat. Even today, gharat owners pay Rs 36 every year as tax to district authorities. "The same amount was paid by my forefathers to the Britishers,' says Hatwal. The tax collected during the Raj were used for road construction and water channel building.
The same mechanical principle that runs big hydroelectricity projects is used to operate gharats. A channel diverts water from the stream to the mill and a wooden flume again diverts it from the channel into the mill. The gushing water from the wooden flume propels the vertical wooden shaft around a tri-union axis. The cyclindrical waterwheel is usually fitted with 11-21 flat blades at an angle of 65