Lahane kept his word. In a memorandum dated September 1, 1998, to Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, he had vowed to immolate himself on October 5 if potable water was not made available to the hamlet. ``Now that Diwali is near and our children will be back home, supply us with some water to at least dough the flour,'' he wrote in the memorandum, copies of which he sent to the collector and superintendent of police.

At the appointed time, at 11. 30 a.m., Lahane kept his date with death. He rode up to the gate of the Buldhana Zilla Parishad on hisbicycle, emptied the contents of a kerosene can over his frail frame, lit a match and then set himself on fire. He yelled, ``Zilla parishad murdabad... Brashtachari sarkar cha nished aso,'' as the flames covered him.

A Class-IV employee who opted for voluntary retirement from the tuberculosis hospital here in 1993, Lahane figured that immolating himself was the only thing that could jolt the local authorities out of their stupor.

``Listen Sir, do some justice to us poor people. We ask for just a pot of drinking water'', Lahane had scribbled time and again in memoranda to the sarpanch, block development officer, Zilla Parishad chief executive officer, district magistrate, local MLA and the chief minister. But his countless pleas left Lahane that much more frustrated. After all, why should the village be denied potable water when the 7,000-odd upper middle class settlers who infiltrated the village about a decade ago be given private connections from a water supply scheme launched exclusively for theoriginal inhabitants?

Lahane tried every which way an activist could -- memoranda, follow-ups, morchas, sloganeering, relay hunger strikes, press notes to newspapers and, quite naturally, the occasional outburst at the thick-headed local authorities as well. ``But for all his enthusiasm and determination Devidas had become a big joke for the zilla parishad officials,'' recounts Madhu Bapu Deshmukh, an old friend.

Lahane was admitted to the district civil hospital here with 95 per cent burns and was later shifted to the government medical hospital at Aurangabad, where he died the same evening.

The village erupted when a police van bearing Lahane's body pulled up before his house. The villagers refused to take possession of his body, saying they would not perform the last rites till the officials responsible were suspended. His body lay in the van through the night and about 1,000 villagers took out a morcha to the collectorate the next day. They surged into the premises, damaged government vehicles. Alathi charge followed.

Fearing another conflagration, police took Lahane's body out of the van and hastily cremated it. To show that action had been taken, the gramsevak and motorman in charge of distribution of water in the area were also suspended.Lahane's death has succeeded in rivetting the attention of the district administration, police and even the chief minister. But with the crusader gone forever, even the the last trickle of hope among Sundarkhed's villagers has dried up. ``Now there is no one left to carry on his work,'' says Rekha Khare, a neighbour of the Lahanes. ``Never did he ask us for any monetary contribution. He managed everything all on his own.''

Lahane was optimistic till his last moment, he hoped the authorities would listen. ``Oh, don't you worry... the law wants people to live and not die untimely. I know they will not allow me to self-immolate. They will arrest me for sure,'' he had told his wife before mounting his bicycle on that fateful day.

Lahane was wrong this time. Theauthorities were more callous than he thought.

Response at last

Terming Devidas Lahane's self-immolation ``a matter of great concern'', Chief Minister Manohar Joshi says he is seeking expert advice on whether the negligence shown by the Zilla Parishad (ZP) is a case fit for its dissolution. Joshi, on a three-day visit to Marathwada during the ruling Shiv Sena's Saffron Week, said in Aurangabad today that all information made available to him indicates that there was negligence on the part of the local administration and the ZP office-bearers.