Etapalli is a village and a

tehsil A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

in Gadchiroli district in the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. Etapalli is known for its rich forest and a range of mountains called Surjagarh, located at the distance of 15 km from etapalli. It can be reached by road. The Surjagarh consists of a range of 4 mountains which are straight, nearly vertical, and difficult to climb. Each year, the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

climb them in large numbers when there is a pilgrimage on an auspicious day in the first week of January. This is the only time when the mountains can be climbed due to their religious significance. As is the belief of the tribes, the "bada deo ", the greatest god resides on the mountain; women are not permitted to climb the mountain. Despite the difficult trek, men of all ages and even children climb up the mountain some with a male goat on their shoulders for sacrifice. These men first worship at the base and they are greeted with dancing. Huge crowds of women, children, and other people wait at base for the men of honour to climb up and come down safely from the dangerous place. The meaning of the name Surjagarh is the fort of the sun. The name is derived from a fort built in a single stone on one of the mountain roof. It is said to have been built by the famous Veer Baburao Sadmake, the freedom fighter. He used the fort for keeping himself and his army safe and hidden from the British army. Surjagarh is also known for its rich source of iron ore. It is said that the iron ore deposits at Surjagarh are so largethat it can fulfill whole India's iron requirements for next 120 years. Because of the iron deposits, there have been many struggles between mining companies and the villagers. There have also been many incidences of bloodshed supposedly related to this mining. Despite the disapproval of the natives of Surjagarh, thousands of mature trees were cut down; the forest of Surjagarh suffered serious loss The villagers claimed that the former state government and the mining companies deceived the villagers by taking a fake approval from dummy villagers that they presented at a general meeting which took place 45 km from Surjagarh. This matter was raised at an international indigenous peoples conference organized by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

by one of the activists, Lalsu Nogoti.

Demographics

As per the

2011 census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, the population of the tehsil was 81,713.

References

Cities and towns in Gadchiroli district Talukas in Maharashtra {{Gadchiroli-geo-stub