Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Walking with the people

I think it would be safe to say that we’re living in very interesting times. Incredibly hard times too for many millions, and it is these very people who will make it more interesting still.
When I look around me, at the state of the country, at its corruption and its politics, its treatment of its own people, whether they be those dispossessed of their lands in the mineral rich Orissa or Chhatisgarh, or those dispossessed of their homes in the slums in Delhi or Mumbai, all those who suffer at the hands of ‘development’ and whose struggles never quite make it to any mainstream, national newspapers or TV channels, I wonder how it's possible that they won’t someday join hands and rise to awaken the middle class out of its 8-plus-percent growth induced slumber.
Surely the conditions are ripe for a people’s revolution? Though I have no idea what shape it would be in, and who would lead it.

For the moment, I am completely taken in by a small people’s movement raising its head in Golibar in Khar East in Mumbai. I’ve been following it only for the last 6 months or so and it’s been fascinating so far. For a history of the movement check:
Khar East Andolan website,
and this post about Golibar on the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan website.
Here is Javed's account:
Invisible Cities Part 7: the Golibar Diary
(Javed Iqbal is a brilliant young journalist who shoots as well as he writes- or is it the other way round? His reportage of Chhatisgarh/ Tribal/ Maoist struggle is insightful, powerful writing. And some of his pictures are haunting to say the least.)
And here is a Times Crest article by Ashutosh Phatak and Chatura Rao.

When I heard of the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, I was reminded of all that I had read about people’s participation in the design process while researching for my dissertation back in architecture school. There have been many instances and experimentations around people’s participation in designing spaces, usually homes for themselves, from around the world, and it was (then) an evolving process, as it is bound to be. And yet it held tremendously exciting possibilities. More than anything else, it seems only logical that people should have a say in how they want to live. Yes, we need experts to work things out, and sometimes to demonstrate better ways of doing things, but as end users, it only makes sense that people have a say in the kind of spaces they want to spend their lives in. This becomes even more critical for a settlement like Dharavi, which is not just residential but home to many cottage industries providing livelihood to many thousands. But that’s a whole separate debate.

Coming back to the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan. I have yet to understand it fully, but from what I gather these people are demanding (apart from their rights over their homes and lands) that rehabilitation be a collaborative process, not something that is forced on them. Having aided in building the city, they feel they are perfectly capable of building their own homes. While I’m not sure how the modalities of that would be worked out, it’s definitely an idea worth working on, and a fantastic initiative on the part of the people. If only our government could in turn, live up to the challenge. At the moment they don’t seem interested. Understandably. Much of the politics and by consequence public policy in this country, is heavily influenced by various pockets of money power. In this case it seems to be the builder lobby. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that they just want the people’s land; they’re not really interested in engaging with them at any other level. The ill-designed and maintained SRA buildings would stand testament to this. ‘Redevelopment’ is the new mantra, and there are enormous profits to be made, if the huge tracts of slum lands in the city can be freed up. This however necessarily involves rehabilitating thousands of people, many of who are migrant workers in the first place. This further involves massive administrative exercises of establishing the number of households eligible for redevelopment, which would be a constantly evolving number, of finding means of establishing ‘rights’ of these people who are not original inhabitants of the city, Constitutional provisions to the right to work and travel anywhere in the country notwithstanding. It involves taking the people’s consent to take away and homes and lands, and to ‘rehabilitate’ them in ill conceived, perhaps even inappropriate high-rise buildings.
None of these are debated in the public sphere of course, because if they were the government would be forced to face uncomfortable questions. And its records of rehabilitation are dismal to say the least. Given this context, the GBGB seems a logical if inconvenient response by the people. And has been largely ignored by the government, as far as I can tell.
Anyway, the Golibar people’s spirited fight for their homes reached a new milestone last month with some people from Ganesh Krupa Society sitting on a fast led by Medhatai Patkar, and the State Government agreeing to some their demands. A month later it turned out that the State Government didn’t want to honour the promises they had made to the people. So the people decided to take to the streets. They decided to walk from Golibar to Mantralaya, and meet the CM yet again. They were joined by others from all over the city, many of who were similarly aggrieved.
I joined the walk for a few hours on both days, curious to see the faces of these people, many of them hardly literate, who were nevertheless driven to fight for their rights by a corrupt, exploitative and unresponsive administration. And they chose to do so in a very Gandhi-ian way, using a non violent but forceful approach. All along the way they shouted slogans. A few articulate young men at the head of the procession constantly spoke about their grievances in the microphone, aiming to educate the people along the way and garner their support. At times the procession halted so Medhatai could give a short speech.
And so it was that to shouts of ‘ladenge, jeetenge’, ‘awaz do hum ek hain’, ‘buildaron ki jagir nahin, Mumbai humari hai’, ‘Maharashtra shasan hosh mein aao, bhrashtachar band karo’, ‘Rajiv Gandhi Awaas Yojana laagu karo, laagu karo’, ‘mukhya mantri samvaad karo’ and my favourite ‘sarkar humse darti hai, police ko aage karti hai’, people walked from Golibar in Khar to Mantralaya over two days, the 28th and 29th of May 2011.
Here are some pictures of the walk.

Women Power!




Curious cab drivers look on and take videos of the people walking. They prbably understand their reasons to protest all too well.


Some walking barefoot.


Walking under ever darkening skies. Soon after this image was taken, it started to pour.


Day 2: I joined the yatra at Lalbaug. Here Medhatai addresses the people...


... to an enthusiastic response.


Sangharsh Yatra!


Yes, this kid marched all the way. A country where children have to fight for rights to their homes (or lands as in Orissa) has much to answer for...


This one kinda 'marched' all the way too!


Ah smiles! I envy the photographer... was it Javed?




'Zameen and zameer bechna band karo'




Yes, it does get tiring, walking all day.


Vada pav- quick snack break.


Walking by the side of the road, so as to not disrupt traffic. The procession walked in a long queue of twos through the narrow streets of Golibar, and by the side on the main roads.


Walking, accompanied by the police.


The tireless Medha Patkar.


Informing the people along the way...


Keeping the NAPM flag flying high.


I had messaged a friend to get directions to Lalbaug, and he mentioned he was driving past the very area. So I asked him if he had seen the procession, so he could give exact current location. "No, flew over them all, I guess... With the new flyover.' Prophetic words, I thought to myself.


Md Ali Road. This is where a man walked up to me and asked if she was Medha Patkar. 'Heard of her, never saw her before.' he smilingly said.


Passers by stop to listen.






VT Station


Negotiating with the Police.


There were barricades near the VT station to prevent the yatra from proceeding towards the Mantralaya.


So the people went to Azad Maidan instead...


And sat there in protest while Medha Patkar and few other representatives of the people went to have a word with the CM.

6 comments:

Kaevan said...

The people's revolution is something I have been waiting 10 years for, now. In 2001, i used to drive from Dadar to VT using P D'Mello road (don't know if you have travelled on it - the dockyard road that starts from behind GPO all the way to Wadala station). The road then used to be lined with slums all the way through. As the cars zipped by uncomfortably close to their homes (outside which little children used to play), the thought often occurred to me that all it would take to spark off a revolution would be for one of the slumdwellers to throw a stone at one of the cars in frustration. It was so easy, I wondered why it hadn't happened yet. Maybe, it was because the slum dwellers did not see themselves as have-nots all their lives. They saw opportunity in Bombay, and felt they could be in cars too one day. Ten years later, though, I'm not so sure. As buildings get taller, the cars get plusher, and the chasm between the rich and poor widens visibly more, and as slums sprawl further and encircle the city, the revolution might just be at hand. All it needs is a spark and some sustenance.

poosha said...

My thoughts precisely... There's only so much the people will allow themselves to be pushed before they begin to realise the injustice of it all and become aware of their own power and start to demand some accountability.
Also, there are many issues here that need to be debated. Such as a vision for Mumbai, which our politicians don't seem to want to engage in. The city is expanding at a maddening pace, and current infrastructure can barely keep up. How do they expect to keep the city functioning with all the extra demand that is being generated everyday, in the form of more housing, more malls, more roads, more flyovers... its bizarre really. There's a shortage of water already, the sewer system can't keep in the monsoon, electricity is diverted from the rural areas to Mumbai regularly (to light up malls and billboards?!), roads are choked, public transport is dismal AND there are thousands coming to the city everyday. Having said that, its every Indian citizen's right to pursue opportunity wherever it presents itself. So really these are matters that need to be looked into holistically, and addressed at multiple levels...

poosha said...

*sewer system can't keep up
*electricity is regularly diverted away from agriculture

poosha said...

So you think the people's revolution is here, Kev?

Kaevan said...

It isn't. But I love it anyway. It won't achieve anything. But then, neither do revolutions. They just replace one class of oppressor with another.

poosha said...

Wow, you're an optimist! :)
But as far as this 'revolution' goes, we're much in agreement. Hence the silence.