The Bricks Of A Right To A Home

There are no homogenous slums and there is no homogenous people’s movement. And there probably isn’t a bigger illustration of it is Mumbai’s Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan that was born after 80,000 homes were demolished in 2004-2005. Young women leaders with MBa degrees and others who are housewives. Young boys who are science students, school dropouts and ‘taporis’ or even those who top their exams studying during demolition drives. There are ragpickers, small businessmen, autorickshaw drivers, government clerks, railway employees, physical trainers, full time activists, teachers, tailors, fisherfolk, students, informal labourers, artists, aspiring filmmakers, mechanics, plumbers and the unemployed.

Here are seven short profiles on few of the organizers working in Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, printed in Fountain Ink Magazine in their February Issue. You can read it here.

Uday Mohite – Bheem Chhayya, Vikhroli

A 16 year old Uday Mohite had come to Bombay in 1992 but returned to his village due to the fear and violence of the riots. A Matang/Mang dalit, he hailed from Dahivali-Budruk village in Ratnagiri district, where his parents lived as daily wage labourers, and he remembers growing up eating mango skins with chilli powder. ‘The Hindu people used to throw rotis on us after we worked for them.’

‘Humne wada liya ki hum izzat ki roti hi khayenge.’

He returned to Mumbai in 1994, where he worked as a daily wage labourer for Rs.25 per day, where he worked in a small factory earning 650 rupees a month, and lived as a manual scavenger in private buildings across Ghatkopar area.

‘I used to throw up doing that work, in the gutters, with all that shit.’

In 1997, he started to ride an autorickshaw. And he continues to do so today, now owning his own vehicle.

On the 19^th of November, 2011, a demolition drive in his settlement of Bheem Chhaya claimed the life of his 14 month old son Jayesh who fell and drowned in a ditch on the 12^th of December, 2011. He would go on a hunger strike for 19 days demanding justice against the officers of both the BMC and the police for negligible homicide.

A year later, on the first death anniversary of his son, while plans were being made by the Ghar Bachao movement to march to the Mantralaya on the 1^st of January, 2013, Uday would quietly sit in corners, alone, anxious, as his wife was in the hospital expecting a child.

A 3.4 kg baby would be born on the 4^th of January, 2013, on the fourth day of the protest. On the fifth of January, as residents from over 18 slums were on relay hunger strike on the poduim, an extremely happy Uday Mohite was secretly distributing sweets to friends and supporters of the movement, while the crowd and other organizers thought that that people were cheating on the hunger strike.

In Bheem Chhaya, where residents have been living on the marshes, the battle for Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana is also an internal battle, when Uday was confronted with people who lived in MHADA flats who started to move into the slum to get another home of their own, in case of any victory from the Ghar Bachao movement.

These confrontations between him and the ‘dalaals’ have been taking place for years now, with one of the ‘zameen-dalaals’ even putting a case on him for attempt to murder.

‘After the death of my son,’ He said, ‘We formed women’s committees to deal with all the problems in the area.’

‘We’re only standing for those who have no house of their own.’

‘I am tired though sometimes,’ He says, ‘I want to just get into mantralaya even if they martyr us. We have worked really hard for the movement now, for respect, and this poverty is no life for any of us.’

‘Annabhau Sathe used to say, ‘Yeh azaadi jhooti, desh ki janta bhooki hai.’’

‘Nothing has changed. ’

‘My daughter, my eldest six year old says I have time for people, for other people’s children, but none for her.’

Anwari Sheikh – Mandala, Mankhurd

Anwari Sheikh, originally from Assam, a mother of 11, lost her house in Mandala the 2004-2005 demolitions. On the 30^th of May of 2012, Anwari Sheikh walked into a neighbouring 20-home settlement called Mahatma Phule Nagar 2 esconced between a highway and a railway, that was being demolished by the BMC.

She was helping to prevent the demolition drive, and to help the residents organize, and join the movement that was born in her settlement of Mandala in 2005.

As the residents kept asking if their would be any hope for them in the story that I was writing about the demolition, Anwari was quick to assert that the media has never stopped demolitions and the only thing that has done anything, is the ‘andolan.’

Yet Anwari herself, since 2004, when she held her baby in her arms and had gone to Delhi to confront the central government with the demolition of 80,000 homes, has come a long way between hope and desperation. She remembers vividly the day she met Sonia Gandhi. This was in 2004, right after the Lok Sabha elections and the victory of the Congress.

‘Hum gariblog ne aapko kursi par bhitaya, Hum garib log ne aapko vote diya, aur aap humko bhul gaye?’ Anwari spoke boldly and an ashamed Sonia Gandhi apparently had no response.

‘Hum thak bhi jaate hai,’ Anwari would tell me in 2010, yet on the day of the march on the 1^st of January 2013, with the euphoria of thousands marching down Shivaji Park Road in Dadar, she remembers the days in 2004 when the movement was in it’s strongest phase.

With a sense of nostalgia she marched silently, yet like many of the marchers who had been marching since 2004, there was a sense of foreboding as well.

Her sons have at times chastised her for being so involved with the movement, and she has defended her position knowing that someone has to fight for a roof over their heads.

When her MLA Abu Azmi had come to Azad Maidan on the eight day of the protest, a small framed woman walked onto the stage and picked up the microphone, and stood over Abu Azmi, and spoke, with passion and with growing anger:

‘In 2004 when our homes were broken, when bulldozers dragged my home and pushed it into a ditch, into the filth, when my children, when my sister, when my brother were sitting in a line, Abu Azmi had come, seen everything, and at the same time, met and sat with the dalaals and put kichdi in their hands.’

‘Our biggest enemies, the dalaals. And we don’t need no builders, no dalaals. And we don’t need anyone.’

‘Our women would sit, in the water, in the cold, all night, and nobody would help us.’

‘I want to tell Mr.Azmi this, that our women have been on the streets till the first of january, with those brothers who work all day, those sisters who work at home all day, those labourer who builds the buildings, those who pick the thrash, why are we, why are we sitting here?’ She screams in anger.

‘Our fight is for a home for a home, and no matter what, we will earn from anywhere and we will put rotis on the table for our childen!’ She would say to loud cheers.

‘Your people come and take our votes, then after you win, where are you? So how do you come here? And what are we to you? Hum neta log ko, chil ke, ghuma ke, ghuma ke, gira bhi sakte hai, aur ghar ke liye roti bhi la sakte hai!’

‘This is our power!’

‘I wont say anymore or tai will get angry.’ She said to loud laughter, and the requests to carry on from the organizers around her.

Santosh Thorat – Annabhau Sathe Nagar, Mankhurd

In 2004, Santosh Thorat was just a few weeks from being a regular in the police force. Then the demolition drives had come. Santosh was a part of the police party that was sent with the bulldozers to demolish his own settlement of Annabhau Sathe Nagar.

Santosh belonged to the same caste as Annabhau Sathe, a Matang/Mang Dalit, a social reformer, communist, who wrote over 35 novels in Marathi who literally died in the destitution that -Santosh was born into.

Through the anxieties of the demolition drives in 2004-2005, Santosh Thorat met the Senior Inspector and begged him to leave his house alone.

The Inspector told Santosh not to worry.

They sent him to another part of the slum, and when Santosh Thorat returned, he found that not only was his house demolished, but that the police had also leveled the house of a family whose two children were still in their home, hiding in fear of the police.

They had survived by running under their beds, but Santosh Thorat would make a decision that day itself, that would lead him to be a leader of his people in Annabhau Sathe Nagar, and the first man to scream, ‘Inquilab Zindabad’,  and sing songs of social transformation, at every protest that followed in the next nine years.

‘Bahut gaaliya diya woh din,’ (I abused a lot that day), he said, ‘And I knew there was no turning back.’

In 2007, Santosh led his people to block the highways at Mankhurd to ensure  his people had access to clean water. For years, people used to dig wells into grounds that were very close to the dumping grounds of Deonar and sicknesses were rampant during the monsoons.

A pipeline used to run parallel to the basti, and while there was a pipeline that led to Annabhau Sathe Nagar, it wasn’t connected by the Municipality.

‘Rasta rokne ke baad, policewalle sab aa gaye the,’ (after we blocked off the road, all the policemen showed up), Said Santosh, ‘ACP aur inspector ne chehre se dekha hoga, yeh sab andolanwalle log hai. Aur agar woh hame aaj bhaga denge, hum kal bhi aayenge.’ (The inspector and the ACP had probably just taken one look at us and realized that we were andolan people, and if they drove us away today, we would have come again tomorrow.)

The Municipality assured them that they would connect the two pipes for water within eight days –  they did that in just six.

Yet again, on the 14^th of May 2010, the bulldozers come and demolished an estimated 500 homes in Annabhau Sathe Nagar.

Krishna Nair – Golibar, Jawahar Nagar, Khar

Krishna Nair, son of a trade unionist, a chartered accountant by profession, a teetoraller and a Shiv Sena party worker is overtly aghast with the current situation in the country. ‘Gothala hi ghotala hi ghotala.’ (scam after scam after scam.) ‘My brother Ashok was a bank robber. He was caught by the police in Yawatmal district, and brought dead to Mumbai.’ Said Krishna, in the middle of a rally held against builders in Golibar, Khar, Mumbai during the fifth demolition drive two years ago, ‘I wanted to ask the police this. That my brother may have stolen some five or six crores and they gave him such a swift justice, but the powerful who steal three thousand crores or one lakh crore really just get away with it?’

Krishna lives in Jawahar Nagar and has a front row seat of the agitation against builders Shivalik Ventures and Unitech Group in Golibar. Like many people in Golibar, he watches how scam after scam follows and is reported dutifully in the media, but the fraud that is destroying the homes of his friends doesn’t seem to find much indignation in the mainstream press, and the government’s response does not really surprise him.

Krishna knows the middle class. He works with them. He knows how the politics of profit would not work in Golibar. ‘There’s an old lady, a very rich old lady, a client of mine, who lives all alone. One day she was telling me about how her whole family hates her and just wants her money. But I asked her, when you only taught your children the love of money, then what would you expect will happen?’

Krishna often speaks about ghettoization in Mumbai. In rallies he repeatedly mentions how people from the working class will eventually have to move out of the city, owing to rising costs of maintaining a building apartment. He knows this is a political move. It is an attempt to turn what was once a working class city whose political actions can challenge the financial edifice, into a city for the upper classes.

‘Javed bhai,’ He once turned to me in Nirmal Nagar police station, across a police officer sitting between us, on a day the supporters of the builder and protesters had a violent confrontation.

‘You went to all these Naxalite areas to report, right?’ He asked.

‘With all these corrupt people and builders getting away with it, you think you can find us some Naxalites?’ He asked, right across the face of the police officer.

The policeman between us was shocked. I erupted into laughter.

‘Krishna bhau, if Naxalites come to Golibar, the first person they will kill is you, as they don’t like competition.’ I said.

The  police officer agreed and started to chastise Krishna. Krishna loves to provoke people.

Kiran Keny – Sion Koliwada

‘All that land in Bombay is ours,’ Said Kiran Keny, ‘Just beyond Wadala Bridge, Bombay Port Trust,  Road, that land belonged to my great grandfather and the great grandfathers of most of the people here.’

Kiran Keny from Sion Koliwada is a 23 year old student third-year commerce student in South Indian’s Welfare Society College, who is a Koli adivasi, the original fisherfolk inhabitants of Mumbai, who’re now fighting against the builder Sahana Developers. His father who worked in the pharmaceutical industry, died in 2000 of cirrhosis of the liver, leaving Kiran under the care of his working mother and his older brother.

He is often seen carrying huge bundles of papers and documents, walking into the lawyer’s office, with a patience to sit and watch them prepare affidavits, strategies, complaints, and letters to the police and the administration. He would eventually notice the lawyers office were over-burdened by cases from slums across Mumbai, each facing a builder lobby, or demolition threats, or false cases put on by the police.

‘I was a little educated, and little by little the lawyers used to send me to listen into different matters and other people’s issues.’ He said, ‘The lawyers think I should take up law after this.’

‘And nowadays I don’t have time to study commerce.’

Sion Koliwada and a massive number of those who’re against the demolition and the builder are a younger generation, some still in school, some in college, some in their first jobs, and now with their first experience of state oppression, injustice and the long walk through the corridors of power – the corporators, the mantralaya, the courts. Their ideas of a nation, their ideas of democracy are changing, their illusions of rights, are being confronted with the arrogance of police power.

‘I know now, we never have been a democracy, and I don’t think we ever will be.’ Said Kiran Keny.

Kiran is the same age group as Prathamesh who documents the struggle of his people on video camera, who filed a complaint against the police when they tried to snatch his camera, and who would call up and yell at the officer who abused his mother during a demolition drive. He is the same age as Dhiren, who’d go on hunger strike during the recent protest. He is a little older than Frank who would be beaten by the police and pushed into the police van when he tried to stop the police from beating his father. He is the same age as Mahesh, who would remind history against forgetting, that Bal Thackeray was no hero to the Kolis, when he betrayed them 20 years ago, when the name of Sion Koliwada railway station was changed to Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar.

‘My father told me how all the Kolis had gone to meet Thackeray to stop the changing of the station, and Thackeray told the delegation it was all sorted. A few days later, the name was changed.’

In the month of December, 2012, there was a meeting held in Sion Koliwada where residents had gone to Sena Bhavan and found that the Shiv Sena and Udhay Thackeray might be able ‘to straighten the builder out.’

For a few hours, the residents held a meeting and discussed the strategy to utilize their contacts in the Shiv Sena. Kiran spoke about the pros and cons of such a strategy, the practicalities about such a move. Eventually, the residents refused to involve the Sena.

‘We don’t want to be indebted to such a party.’ Said Kiran.

Madhuri Shivkar – Sion Koliwada

Madhuri Shivkar, 28 years old, is one of the leaders in Sion Koliwada. A graduate of zoology from  Ruia College, she worked in a consultancy firm from 2006 till 2009 as an assistant in the revenue accounting department, and also claimed a degree from one of the most controversial management colleges in India. She had lost both her father and mother by the time she reached nine, and was brought up by her grandmother and her older sister in Sion Koliwada.

In 2010 in the month of September, when the first eviction notices started to appear in Koliwada, the residents and Madhuri turned their attention towards Golibar, after TV9 reported how a demolition drive was defeated by protesting residents and the intervention of the Chief Minister.

Madhuri and the residents then visited Golibar and met both the leaders in Golibar as well as the leaders of Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan. She would soon find herself first at the forefront of the agitation in Golibar against Shivalik Ventures and a few weeks later, when the demolition crews came to their village as well. ‘It was really being with them, that taught us how valuable documents were.’ She said, ‘And they trained us in a way no education institution can.’

She would have her first stint in jail on the 25^th of January, 2011 for a week from charges ranging to attempt to murder and rioting and then again on the 30^th of May, 2012, she would be dragged away by a laughing police as they protested against a demolition drive. She would be in jail for the next 14 days charged under Section 143, 147, 149, 152, 332, 353, 504, 506, along with Section 447 and Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. Most charges concerned rioting, unlawful assembly and ‘causing hurt to a public servant’ when Madhuri Shivkar was merely lying down with her hands locked with the women of Sion Koliwada under a bulldozer and an approaching police contingent.

‘The builder’s lawyer had asked our lawyer what we wanted,’ She says a few months later, ‘Our lawyer told them, our clients went to jail, now yours have to go too.’

Madhuri ensured the formation of a 15-member core team in Sion Koliwada where the oldest person is 38-year old Rajesh Koli. ‘Senior log thode thakele hote hai.’ She laughs, ‘They are pessimistic at times and keep thinking and talking about compromises and I know our young people, we’re stronger, we won’t just give up like this.’

‘I am working fulltime in the movement now. I may be new to it, but I know we have a long way to go. There is too much injustice in the city.’

‘There are people who come to support us, who are so much more vulnerable than us, who suffer so much, and there is a strong bond that has formed between us all, and it’s stronger than family ties.’

For the 10 day protest, 5000 people who stayed at Azad Maidan were being fed by the efforts of two settlements – Sion Koliwada and Mandala.

‘We all took turns.’ Said Madhuri.

Devasandhan Nair – Golibar, Khar

Devasandhan Nair not only lived in Golibar’s Ganesh Krupa Society, but he was someone who was closely linked to the movement. In a meeting a few days after a demolition drive in February of 2011, he quietly and nervously tried to exhort his neighbours to put aside their differences and fight the builder and for their right to a home. ‘We are all leaders, it’s not like this one is a leader or that one is a leader,’ he’d say, to applause from his friends and neighbours.

A few months later in 2011, without telling anyone, he secretly accepted the cheque from the builder and left, leaving his home to be demolished in the next demolition drive.

What was first a rumour, next become the bitter truth. People called one another, to confirm whether he really did do it. When he was packing, people requested he reconsider his decision, but it was too late. He had already taken the cheque and was adamant on leaving. He would soon be alienated by all of his friends, he’d be unwelcome to all future meetings, and he’d be persona non grata.

A few days later he sent me a message, ‘I only did what I did, out of anger towards one person. I still cannot forget the insult that I have been given. I am not trying to justify my doings. I always had respect for you and the others. I will never be able to make up for this. I am still angered and this might be my weakness.’

But there was a pattern to this.

Devasandhan was an educated, professional storyboader artist for films and advertisements. He would even use his talents to come out with cartoons about the corruption in the state. He spoke fluent english and would often take on the responsibility of preparing press notes to cross that massive bridge between Hindi and english, the local organizers and the english press.

Devasandhan actually wanted to leave six months before he did. In his home six months earlier, he would quietly exert his frustrations, and his humiliation for being in a small room in the corner of Ganesh Krupa. He would often be embarassed with his home, and would reveal it when he borrowed a friend’s car to go and pick up his brother-in-law, who often disgraced him and his financial situation, and that he lived in a ‘slum’. Yet he refrained, he knew he had a responsibility to his immediate neighbours, who were a very poor family from Karnataka who had difficulty to make ends meet. He knew he was responsible for them, and had helped them with money and work in the past. If he left, what would happen to them?

Yet when he left, his other responsibilities were his schizophrenic wife, which is what those who could still be magnanimous towards him, felt was the real reason he left. His own reason was the insult he received from the local leader of the movement, Ajit, who had abused him in public. But most thought it was just money, no one felt that he didn’t take a lot of money to leave – probably more than what other’s were getting to give away their homes, as Devasandhan was a very visible member of the resistance.

There are still others who proudly proclaim how much they had refused, while some wait to be asked.

A few months later, a group of residents who wished to compromise had a secretive meeting with the builder. They had asked for a registered agreement and a promise of a home, and the builder had asked for them to withdraw their criminal case against him. Nobody got what they wanted and when the residents had returned, they were chastised by the rest of their neighbours.

‘Even if he gives a registered agreement, what makes you think he won’t break it?

‘He’s already cheated us once.’

‘Now we know how afraid he is of the criminal case against him.’

This Participatory Democracy Shall Not Be Televised

On the 1st of January, 2013, over 10,000 marched, blocked roads, with 10 days of a sit-in and a parsimonious media coverage yet as the protests grew, as delegations politely marched into offices, the government promised to act, initially without offering anything in writing. The protestors would leave at the end after ten days at Azad Maidan with token promises from the government, and a muted disappointment with the movement, placated with a vow to intensify the struggle in a way the media and the state will not be able to ignore: to occupy the Mantralaya

This longform piece appears in Fountain Ink Magazine in the February issue of 2013, here.

In 2004-2005, the Maharashtra government had demolished over 80,000 homes. On the 1^st of January, the legacy of that demolition drive had decided to march to the Mantralaya to demand a right to housing under the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana.

Over the last nine years, the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan that was born in the slum of Mandala, in Govandi, had also taken up the issues of working class and middle class slums and their battle against controversial redevelopment projects. It exposed the Adarsh scam, and recently filed complaints against 15 judges and government officials involved in the Nyasagar Co-operative Housing society, where the office of Vilasrao Deshmukh, would change the reservation status of a plot of land meant for the dishoused, and hand it over to the judges.

Right To Information activists of the movement, have been beaten by criminals and supporters of the builders, had false cases thrown on them (including POTA), and recently in the case of Mohammed Shoukat of Golibar, his fifteen year old son has been missing since August of 2012.

The movement for the right to housing in Mumbai starts when it was still Bombay. While think-tanks like the BMW Guggenheim lab have the David Van Der Leers pouting Thackrey-esque wisdom like ‘City is exploding, we may need to think of limiting people coming to Mumbai from outside’, the fact remains is that the people are already here, and they will still come, a majority have already had homes demolished repeatedly and they rebuild. There are those who have been here even before Mr.David Van Leer, who are being kicked out of their homes and onto the outskirts of the city through a process of gentrification that is more violent, fraudulent and arbitrary than it is mentioned.

The class character of the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan itself is an indication that it’s not just migrants who’re facing eviction, social apartheid and the violence of a deep state, yet even working class and middle class Maharashtrians and Kolis, the original inhabitants of Mumbai, the former residing in a village built by the British over 70 years ago, after their lands were expropriated to build this city that the ‘Marathi-manoos’ claim as their own.

A few days ago I met an architect indulging in urban studies with one of the think-tanks that are envisaging a new city, who found himself in Azad Maidan surrounded by people who were fighting the builder lobby and rehabilitation projects, a majority of which have come into being through forgery. ‘I met a man the other day who does work as a forger with the builders.’ He said casually.

‘Can you give me his name?’

Silence.

Ex-information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi’s petition had stated 87 rehabilitation projects across Mumbai where there were accusations against the builder for forgery, grabbing public lands, and listing imaginary individuals to increase the number of free sale flats. These are the same accusations in all the SRA projects whose residents marched to the Mantralaya, from Golibar to Ramnagar.

Mr.Gandhi’s petition was argued in 2008. It led to the Anti-Corruption Bureau to investigate the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, which led to a suspicious burning down of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority office. And finally, it ended up with a High Powered Committee which has mostly been pro-builder, with slum-dwellers having little to no faith in.

A brief history of betrayal

On the 24^th of November, 2010, just after Prithviraj Chauhan had gotten into office as the new Chief minister, he was met with a delegation from Golibar’s Ganesh Krupa Society who informed him about the impending demolition drive that was in progress in Golibar, and about all the alleged forgeries and discrepancies in the project, such as the grabbing of land from the Defence Ministry and the Railways.

The CM had passed a verbal stay order and the demolitions stopped.

A few months later in the January of 20^th, 2011, demolition drives took place again, with a lathi-charge where the young and the old were detained.

The Chief Minister did not act.

They again took place in May of 2011, when the Minister was in Delhi and unavailable. And was then confronted with a hunger strike by an aging activist Medha Patkar and numerous residents, and the growing angst against his absence and popularity of the movement. The hunger strike lasted 9 days, and had asked not just for investigation into SRA schemes, but that 25 settlements be declared as slums under the Maharashtra Slums Act, 1971, thereby granting them legal status which envisages their right to water, electricity and sanitation, and that plans be made for the implementation of Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, for cheap and affordable housing for the poor.

His Ministry would then form an independent committee to look into the forgeries and discrepancies in 15 re-development projects in Mumbai,  to only withdraw the promise when the matter was taken to the High Court by the builders and their supporters.

A rally of around five thousand and more was taken out in the pouring rain on 28^th of June 2011, demanding that the government stick to its promise yet it led to Mr.Chauhan replying to the delegation that met him, that even the builder’s supporters had their rally and if the builder’s had public support than he doesn’t know who to believe.

Unfortunately, recordings by freelance filmmaker’s of the builder’s supporters did not reach the Minister, when the interviewees clearly stated they didn’t know where in Golibar they lived, or that they came from Bharatnagar in Bandra East.

Since then and once again, during another demolition drive in Ambevadi society in Golibar in August of 2012, where the builder and the SRA wished to demolish homes on the premise that the building for the slum dwellers already existed (which only existed on paper), again there was a verbal stay order on the demolition from the Minister’s office. Yet on the 28^th of December, 2012, those houses were demolished, preceded by a lathi-charge and an array of cases falling onto residents who merely asked the government to follow its own High Court order that asked for rehabilitation buildings to be built first.

Four days later, on the 1^st of January, 2013, they had marched again to the Mantralaya.

A Day in the life of An Organizer

‘Jameel bhai, jab Ambujwadi mein demolition drive ho raha tha, us time, sadak par 3000 log road par aaye the. Toh abhi rally mein 5,000 kaha se aaye hai?’ I had asked Jameel Akhtar Sheik.

‘Jameel bhai, when there was a demolition in Ambujwadi in May, there were 3000 people on the roads before bulldozers. So how come there are 5000 for the rally today?’

Jameel Akhtar smiles, his neighbours around him laughed. He knew the answer, they knew the answer; they had organized. There was no Medha Patkar in all the gallis, going to every home, it was the local organizers, the Jameel bhais, the Masood bhais, the Rashida behens, the Vijay bhais, the Girija behens, the Jagdish bhais and the 56 society organizers they had created that have worked for years in Ambujwadi, whose grassroot level actions have at times, have most importantly, threatened the power structure of landlordism prevalent in the settlement.

A few months ago, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers close to a slum landlord had planted flags over one of the offices of the Ghar Bachao movement in Ambujwadi, and instantaneously, hundreds of people of Ambujwadi surrounded the police station and demanded their removal without incident.

When the local organizers of the Ghar Bachao movement are threatened by any of the slum landlords, who not only demand protection money for the protection of homes against demolition, but make money even after the BMC demolishes homes, the local organizers have galvanized group actions that have seriously threatened their standings in a slum.

Ambujwadi, born post 1995, exists on the fringes of suburban Malad, without electricity, without access to clean water, with a history of petty crime, child trafficking and health problems, where the ‘dadas’ sell shanties to people from anywhere from Rs.40,000 to Rs.3,00,00

With the passing of the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, the parallel government that was born – the slum landlords who built illegal settlements by paying massive amounts of grafts to local political parties, to the police, to the municipality itself, will possibly come to an end.

Jameel Akhtar during a speech in an unorganized but just demolished Prem Nagar in Goregaon, was greeted with massive cheers when he said: ‘‘If the government is going to give land in Powai to the Hiranandanis for 40 rupees per acre, we’re ready to give four hundred rupees.’

One of the most prevailing myths of Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana and of shanties in Mumbai today, is that the residents are getting free housing. Yet in the case of ‘illegal’ shanties, they not only have to pay to acquire a small corner without electricity, water or sanitation, but they’re deprived of security. With Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, they will simply pay the state a stipulated rent amount, thus increasing revenue for the state, and obliterating the parallel government that has existed as the state has abdicated from its responsibility of the Right To Housing.

‘We want housing, that is a fixed house, no one will sell them once they get it,’ Said a speaker at Azad Maidan to massive cheers from the crowd, ‘Those who already have a house, shall not get one.’

Jameel Akhtar Sheikh, 48 years old, a tailor by profession and one of the main organizers in Ambujwadi had on the 28^th of May 2011, organized his own slum to thwart a demolition drive by the BMC. Over three thousand people stood before the police who would eventually withdraw, along with a JBC bulldozer retreating to loud cheers. Just two days later Jameel Sheikh would be halfway across town to help thwart a demolition drive in Sion Koliwada which is agitating against Sahana Developers.

This time Jameel Akhtar lies down before the bulldozers, and is promptly arrested and sent to prison along with 25 other women, half from Sion Koliwada and another group from Kanavaram Nagar who had come to support the anti-builder movement of the Kolis in Sion Koliwada.

I managed to interview him when he was out a few weeks later.

‘Police asked me, why do I come to support these Koli people even when they’re not people of my slum.’ He said during a rickshaw ride from Goregaon West, to Ghatkopar where another slum Ramnagar was facing a demolition drive, ‘Mein ne bola, ki jab police ki justice aur court ki justice fail ho gayi, toh janta ko haath uthana padta hai.’

‘I told them, when your justice, and the justice from your courts have failed, then the people have to stand up.’

On the 1^st of January, 2013, in the morning of the march, the first call I get is from Jameel Akhtar who tells me that five thousand people have already left Ambujwadi, where they will march to Golibar, and then link up with another group, marching from Mankhurd.

But for five thousand to march from Malad to Golibar, a distance of 20 kilometers is no easy feat. So the organizers instead marched into Malad Railway station and took over two trains to reach Khar east, and marched into Golibar where the residents had prepared breakfast for 4,000 people. It took the residents of Ambujwadi around 20 minutes to simply enter into Golibar’s Ganesh Krupa Society.

Eventually the first group from Golibar and Ambujwadi marched from Khar to try and link up with the second group led by Medha Patkar from Mankhurd towards Mahim.

They would eventually take over Kalanagar road and Shivaji Park road, ‘hum garibo ne road banaya hai, bhetho’ – they would say, as a visibly polite police tried it’s best to not exacerbate a massive crowd of thousands, and organizers made spaces for cars to pass through.

The marchers sang songs and screamed slogans of solidarity, government violence, inequality, and revolution, kept discipline, and moved without incident and reached Mahim Marchi Marh, where the second group eventually caught up with them. They would eventually march to Shivaji Park and spend the night.

By 10:30 on the 2^nd of January 2013, they marched from Shivaji Park, via Lalbaug, Byculla and Mohammed Ali road, to eventually be blocked by a contingent of police in front of CST station. They were not allowed to march to the Mantralaya, and were being requested to move into Azad Maidan.

The crowd was restless. They had marched on the 28^th-29th of June, 2011, and were pushed into Azad Maidan before. They wanted to march to the Mantralaya this time. They screamed slogans against the police, they made their intentions clear to walk to the Mantralaya, yet the organizers were quick to placate their anger as Medha Patkar would speak to the Chief Minister’s personal assistant via cell phone.

A promise from the Chief Minister’s office to meet a delegation of 20, eventually convinced the marchers to move into Azad Maidan.

Then the government broke its first promise of the year. While a delegation of 20 started to move towards Sehadri, the Chief Minister’s guest house, they were told that the Minister will only meet six representatives. The delegation refused and just moved back into Azad Maidan.

A visibly angry Jameel Akhtar took the podium, and throughout his short four minute speech he was being shushed by Medha Patkar to be a little less subtle. Yet he didn’t relent.

‘Forget the delegation,’ He screamed, ‘it’s not just about the 20 people, if the government doesn’t take our demands, it won’t be 20 people, or even 20,000 people, but 50,000 will stand at their gates. Manzoor hai?’

‘Sehadri is not far from us, nor is the Mantralaya.’

‘The people here from their office, the dalaals, the builders people, why don’t you go, go to the guest house and tell them that we, the workers built the guest house, not you, and we will come there as it is ours too.’

‘If they have the guts, tell those builders that those workers who make your homes, should get a house. If they have the guts, tell them that those who stitch your clothes, should get a house. It they have the guts, tell them those who sell vegetables on the street or bring it to your house, should get a house. Those who bring milk to your house, should get a house!’

‘Or leave your chair, and leave your guest house!’

‘We won’t tolerate any insults, we have been marching for two days, not for any political party or any dalaals, but for our rights, our right to a home. And our right to live.’

‘Humare liye, hamare mazdoori ke liye, humme kya milta hai?

‘For us, for our labour, what do we get? We built such high towers, but for our children, for one family, one meal itself is such a struggle.’

‘yeh kursi wallo ko ehlaan karna hoga, sadak banene walle sadak par chalenge, aur building banane walle building mein rahenge,aur  tere baap ki jaagir hindustan nahi hai.’

‘Those in power should understand, those who built the road will walk on the roads, those who built the buildings shall live in the buildings, and this country is not your father’s estate.’

A few hours later, a few speeches later, when other organizers felt that they should stay outside Sehadri and see how many people could fit inside, the government finally agreed to meet 15 representatives. They left in a police van, to the anxieties of other protestors who felt that if the government is going to behave in such a way about a delegation, how will they listen to our demands?

An hour and a half long meeting ensued with Medha Patkar, State Home Minister RR Patil and Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan and fifteen representatives from numerous slums from the city. A sympathetic R R Patil and Prithviraj Chauhan admitted to most of the demands and stated that they have their own problems with the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme. When bringing up the issue of lack of land in the city, they were confronted by plans prepared by the delegation that ‘30,000 acres of land above ceiling must and can be recovered from – 138 entities- 17,000 acres and also 13000 acres from a few hundred others. Land given on long term lease at 1 Rs/ sq feet etc should be recovered. All this should be re-allotted to the cooperatives of poor and middle class. Hiranandani’s land allotted at 40 Rs/acre needs to be recovered.’

Yet with nothing in writing, the protestors came back to Azad Maidan and decided to stay until the Minister’s office committed itself on paper.

Jameel Akhtar then found his three children and his wife, and slept in the open air of Azad Maidan.

10 Days of A Protest

‘Who bought that poster of Gandhi in the rally?’

‘We should’ve had Bhagat Singh.’

‘Why is Ambedkar’s poster smaller than Gandhi’s?’

-          Said the younger organizers of the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Movement

There is a strange element of radicalism present in the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Movement which quietly grumbles under its breath when Anna Hazare is on the podium. ‘You know what was the first question he asked, when he was told about the andolan?’ Said an organizer, ‘How many people are there?’

‘Not what is the issue, not what we’re fighting for, but how many people are there?’

There is a stranger element when invited India Against Corruption activists who’ve never been present during a demolition drive give speeches that get a lukewarm response and are followed with a Gaddar song that takes apart everyone from Advani, to Modi, to Sonia Gandhi, and speaks of years of loot and the suffering of the poor, which has the crowd of mostly daily wage labourers, highly amused.

Anna Hazare had come, with an army of pressmen and presswomen following him, taking up massive amounts of space in front of the once empty podium. During the press conference there was not a single question about the Slum Rehabilitation Scams or the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, the interviewers merely asked about the Delhi Gang rape, the Maharashtra irrigation scam and his own anti-corruption movement. Mr. Hazare had to plead, ‘Basti ke baare mein mujhe poocho.’ (ask me about the slums)

Yet as he left, the media left. The first two days of the protest had a few articles in mainstream English newspapers while some of the regional newspapers carried front page stories. The next eight days and the final agreement with the government wasn’t present in any of the English press. There wasn’t a single cameraman present when MLA Abu Azmi arrived at Azad Maidan where a mass of his betrayed constituency were protesting for the past week, and what ensued over the next two hours was a tragicomedy of epic democratic proportions.

The matter of Ganpath Patil Nagar, a slum on the fringes of Dahisar on mangrove land had been taken up by the movement, when residents had come to Azad Maidan bearing the fears of an impending demolition drive on the 10^th of January, 2013. The demolition drives took place and over 200 homes were demolished even when representatives of the slum and the movement met officials to try and garner an agreement, with residents asking for a proper survey of the slum and that homes that existed before 2005 not be demolished. The demolition drive did not discriminate and a few mainstream newspapers ran frontpage articles, mostly praising the administration for their action.

Sarcasm and Democracy

Abu Azmi, of Samajwadi Party swept the elections in 2008 after Raj Thackeray had declared war on the migrants from north India. Ward M, or Chembur East, a ghetto with one of the worst development indicators in the world, with a child mortality rate of 66 per 1000 births and a life expectancy of 46, voted en masse for him. Ward M, where once in 2004, 80,000 homes were demolished and there was not a single political party for them.

Yet over the years, the Samajwadi Party had become a parallel government due to the responsibilities the state had abdicated from: the right to water, the right to life and housing.

While India voted for water as a human right in the United Nations, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation denies water to every slum that came into existence after 1995. Abu Azmi’s people were quick to begin providing water, charging residents who would stand in line all day, to around Rs.20 for three cans water, amounting to six liters.

A water mafia was born.

At the protest, he was greeted by an effigy that stated ‘Aamdaar lapata hai’, which was politely moved to the back when he showed up. A nervous Abu Azmi sat on the podium surrounded by his constituency, and would listen to residents of Ward M, list all the crimes of his party and his people, at times the speakers, assertively grabbing their attention, ‘Abhi aap dhyaan se sooniye.’  (listen carefully now)

The Samajwadi Party, was accused of everything from running the water mafia, to absence during demolition drives, to corporators who kick people out of offices, abusing residents by saying, ‘tum kaun ho mangne walle, tum kaun ho poochne walle?’(who are you to ask me these things?)

“We go into their offices and say, ‘our slums have been demolished.’”

‘And your people say it’s not been declared as a slum.’ Says Ram Bharadwaj of Mandala, ‘And when today, we had a meeting with the BMC, they agreed that any slum on government land should be declared as a slum and deserves electricity and water.’

‘The government makes development plans, and in the development plans our slums don’t exist. They’re little green spaces, empty plots. Because they just want to sell them to the builders.’ Continued Ram.

“‘What is this Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana? What is the point of all this? I will handle it,’ they tell us,” Say Umar Muhammed of Mandala, ‘Yet when this scheme is there in other cities around the country, why is it not there in Mumbai?’

Abu Azmi sat for over an hour, around the residents of Mandala, while Medha Patkar and other representatives were in a meeting with the BMC. He was nervous, fidgety, taking notes, constantly being reminded by speakers that they don’t care about identity politics, with speakers constantly screaming a slogan: ‘Hindu-Muslim, sab bhai-behen hai.’

‘When you speak, we don’t want you to talk about politics,’ Said Sumit Wajale, ‘We want you to talk about our development.’

Imtiaz from Antop Hill, an RTI activist on whom a POTA case was once put, was quick to remind him that he should’ve been present when his constituency started to march itself, and yet he only showed up eight days after they began to march. And he was followed by Sumit Wajale who got the crowd riled up to entrap Abu Azmi to sit down and stay on the dharna until the demands of his constituency was met. ‘Should he be sitting here?’ he asked a crowd that laughed into raptures.

When he finally was given the microphone to speak, he spent the first five minutes making excuses on why he wasn’t present for the past eight days, and managed to placate the crowd by praising Medha Patkar. He put the blame entirely on the administration, the ‘haramkhors’ as he said, who wouldn’t act unless there’s a cut in it for them somewhere. The government is a mess and only an ‘andolan’ like this would fix it. He promised again to support all the demands of the people and praising the collective power of thousands sitting in at Azad Maidan. He would begin to speak about the few times when he did act for the people, apparently bringing up the demolition of Mandala in the parliament, and ‘paani ka koshish humne kiya’ by bringing many water tankers into the area, and that he did try to stop the water mafia, but instead the police started arresting people who were buying water. Yet the highlight of his speech that did not miss many of the protesters was the fact that he couldn’t even say Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, stammering, calling it, ‘Rajoov….Rajoov…. jo… ya… Awas Yojana hai us ke liye mein khada hu.’

‘if I fail to support the people, you can give me a garland of flowers.’ He said to cheers from the crowd.

Abu Azmi left after two hours at Azad Maidan, with a promise to create a committee in every slum that belongs to his constituency, and a promise to lead a delegation to the Mantralaya the next day with both the issues of SRA and Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana.

‘How much he lied,’ Said a few residents of Ambujwadi and Mandala.

Post-Script: An End To The Protest

Amina bi, 85 years old from Ambujwadi stayed at Azad Maidan for the entirety of the ten days of the sit-in. She sat in the front, covered herself in a blanket at night, screaming slogans, raising her fists, and laughing during the day’s proceedings.

Many other protestors would go home and return by the afternoon and evening, but there were thousands like Amina Bi, who lived in Azad Maidan, who were fed by the collective kitchens that were started by the slums themselves.

After the end of the protest was announced she quietly walked onto the podium to meet Medha Patkar but she had already left. When Medha Patkar returned she saw that she was busy, and said, ‘Chodd do, badme milenge.’ With muted disappointment

‘Andolan toh karna padta hai,’ she said as she quietly moved back to her space to prepare to go back to Ambujwadi, hoping that this time, after nine years, the movement did bring them some relief.

For 10 days, the protesters tried to bring a government official to meet them at Azad Maidan, and threatened them again and again with a march to the Mantrayala. Each time that action was postponed as different offices of the administration, either the BMC commissioner, the State Human Rights Commission, or the Water Department, had offered the delegation time to meet. Every office of the government besides the Chief Minister’s office was forthcoming.

On the 10^th day, a secret plan was made to send small groups of residents from all the slums to the Mantralaya. Groups of ten and twenty slowly started to leave Azad Maidan and quietly took a bus or a taxi towards the Mantralaya. Within an hour there were almost five hundred people who had taken over the parking lot of the Mantralaya at Jeevan Bheema Marg, with four police vans and a contingent of police negotiating with them.

The police who were surprisingly polite, requested the organizers to send groups of ten and twenty from the same slum up to the offices of the Mantralaya to deliver their applications for the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana, and others from the SRA projects to deliver their complaint letters to RR Patil, the State Home Minister and to the Chief Minister.

Lines outside all of their offices were nothing but the protestors from Azad Maidan.

‘Police bahu izat dikharahi hai,’ Said Noorjahan of Malvani in Malad.

At the end, hundreds of protestors had managed to deliver the applications to the Mantralaya without any incident. They returned with a letter that promised the pilot project for Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana in Mandala, and the news that the protests shall end for the moment, but that if the government betrays them again, then they will march again.

‘This is not a good end,’ Said Krishna Nair of Golibar, who walked away from the podium feeling that they could’ve really stayed on for a few more days and got a concrete decision on the SRA scams as well.

Yet he was satisfied when others promised him that they will march again.

Post-Post- Script

Eight days after the end of the agitation, on January 18, as the government started making preliminary inquiries into the SRA projects, private security personnel allegedly hired by a builder entered Ambevadi society of Golibar and started an argument with the residents which led to a violent confrontation; two women had to be hospitalised after the clashes. The residents managed to capture one of the henchmen and locked him up for the police to come and take his testimony. The police, however, threatened to charge the residents with kidnapping, which led to further altercations between the residents and the police.

It was then that Krishna Nair reached Budh Vihar and managed to negotiate a compromise between the police and the residents. He took the “henchman” to the hospital and managed to get his testimony collected by the police.
A few hours later he was furious,“Yeh saale haraami police log mere par rioting ka case daalne wale hain. (These corrupt bastards are going to book me in a case of rioting).”

Next day the private security firm entered Ambevadi again, with police protection, and this time pointed out resident Pradeep More, who was later arrested by the police. The residents resorted to a relay hunger strike after there was no response from the government to their complaints against the private security firm and the police. There had been zero media reaction to these events at the time of going to press.

Invisible Cities: Part Fifteen: Missing

This article appears in abridged form in Daily News & Analysis on the 14th of December, 2012.

Sajid Mohammed, a 15 year old boy from Golibar disappeared on the 1^st of August, 2012 on his birthday. His father, an RTI activist who fought against the builder lobby in Golibar, wrote complaints one after another stating that his life and that of his family was in danger but the police took no action.

Shoukat Mohammed was 25 years old in 1992 when his video cassette store at Nirmal Nagar, Khar was burnt down in the riots. He lived away from his home for four years, than eventually moved back into nearby Shastri Colony in Golibar, where he has lived since, bringing up a family with three children, his first child, a daughter Rukhsar was born in 1994, and his son Sajid was born in 1997, and then Zahid, his youngest, in 1999.

He has worked in the railway department’s as a Senior Indicator Operator directing traffic of the local trains for the past 22 years now and over the past few years has been campaigning against Shivalik Ventures and the re-development project in Shastri Colony, Golibar, alleging that in Shastri Colony, the ‘secretaries and the chief promoters had given bogus names who are non residents of Mumbai’ for the SRA project, and that ‘the survey was not conducted as per proper rules of the SRA,’ that illegal structures were listed as legal, and that homes were surveyed twice, and that one of the members of the society Chandrakant Gaurav alias Dagdya had prepared bogus ration cards, bogus electricity bills for his own structures to be declared eligible.

Developer Shivalik Ventures has repeatedly asserted that there has been no wrongdoing in their massive redevelopment project in Golibar where one after another of the 46 societies has made accusations of forgery and highhandedness of the SRA and the builder.

Shoukat, alone in his society has been singlehandedly writing complaints about the project, his home being one of the lone standing structures in Shastri Colony, the rest demolished or residents having moved away. In his complaints to the police, he even stated that one Mrs. Zaibunnissa Khan, a relative of the chief promoter, Sayyed Rauf, had approached him with an offer of 15 lakhs to withdraw all the complaints against the builder.

Then on the 27^th of April, 2011, his neighbour Chandrakant Gaurav had approached him and threatened his saying, ‘that he would be picked up and killed,’ and that he (Gaurav), ‘was well protected and could get away with anything’ and that ‘they would put a false case on him (Shoukat).’

When Shoukat had gone to file a complaint to the police they refused to lodge a First Information Report even when he produced witnesses, and the police merely lodged a NC (a Non-Cognizable offence).

Yet on the first of August this year, Shoukat’s son never returned from his tuitions. His suspicions immediately fell on his neighbours, Chandrakant Gaurav alias Dagdya, Javed Qureishi, Jaffar Qureishi, Ghulam Sheikh, Ismael Roshan Khana alias Pappu.

A worried Shoukat went to Nirmal Nagar police station and was told to wait 24 hours. On the 2^nd he repeated to the Sub-inspector Sharad Panduram Jadhav that he has suspicions that members of his society were involved in the abduction of his son, yet instead of filing a kidnapping case, the sub-inspector wrote it down as a missing persons case.

Speaking to Sajid’s family, his teacher, and his friends, Sajid is described as an introvert, with little interest in outdoor activities, with few friends, and a diligent student studying for his 10^th standard SSC exams at Cardinal Gracias High School at Khar. He vanished without any of his possessions but the notebooks he had taken for his tuitions and the clothes on his back. There are no suspicions amongst his friends, teachers or his family that the boy could’ve run away. And that too, for over four months.

Irrespective of whether it was a kidnapping or a missing persons case, the police did nothing for the next two months.

Then on the 26^th of September, a whole two months after he went missing, with the help of a human rights organization, Shoukat drafted a letter to the Home minister, and the Chief minister, threatening to go on a hunger strike at the Mantralaya, if the police did not file an FIR and look for his son. Finally, the police took cognizance of the father’s complaints and  in a few days they arrested those Shoukat had accused.

The behavior of the police is implicit in the fact that they did not ask for police custody of the accused even though they hadn’t found the boy. The first three accused were merely released in 2 days, and the other two was arrested later and swiftly released again.

Meanwhile, Sub-Inspector Sharad Jadav refused to comment on why he did not file it as a kidnapping case when Shoukat first approached him and merely walked away pointing out a senior officer. Inspector Ramesh Khakale responds that the police had arrested the accused but the case is still in investigation and that it is now being handled by his Senior Police Inspector Sahebrao Sonawane, who refused to speak to the media.

In the past few years, a large number of RTI activists who fought against the builder lobby have been attacked by miscreants or known criminals – Santosh Daundkar of BIT Chawl, Aba Tandel of Golibar, Sandeep Yeole of Ramnagar, Suresh Banjan of Indiranagar.

Invisible Cities: Part Fourteen: Ramnagar: Schizophrenia And The City

This article appears in Daily News & Analysis in three parts on the 9th, 10th and 11th of December, 2012.

Mangesh Khopde (31), was admitted to Ward 1 of Sion Hospital on the 14^th of November. He was screaming, violently lashing out, and had to be strapped in, given electroshock therapy and sedated.

It all started when on the 9^th of November, 2012, his house in Ramnagar, Ghatkopar was demolished for a SRA project called the Satra Hills by Satra Developers.

Mangesh, who had also been sober for a year and a half, was on anti-psychotic drugs, that were lost in the demolition as his family could not rescue all of his belongings.

He had confrontations with the police and the supporters of the builder, and was pushed into the police van, raving and abusing the whole time.

Eventually, over the next few days, without taking his medication whose prescriptions were buried in the rubble, he found himself wandering aimlessly, fighting with strangers, and screaming. After a year and half without alcohol, he had a relapse, that led to his breakdown.

Taken to the hospital with extremely high blood pressure, he was sedated with Lorazepam, given the anti-psychotics olanzepine, haloperidol, quetiapine, and pacitane, over the days, reacting to some medication, and not reacting to others. He now doesn’t remember the events of the ninth of November, but still disagrees with the idea of moving into a building, preferring to live in a slum which has low maintenance costs.

The dispute between a group of residents of the 18 societies of Ramnagar, all named after Shivaji’s forts, are the numerous allegations and discrepancies in the project, especially concerning forgery and the undemocratic manner of the decisions taken by the developer,.

Central to the dispute is the strange role played by a resident called Prabhakar Shetty of Sinhagad society.

In a letter dated 27^th of July, 2009 that RTI activist Sandeep Yeole acquired from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, he complained about the undemocratic manner the SRA project was being handled by the Developers, by the resident’s federation itself, and by numerous members of the federation, including Shankar Mahadik, a National Congress Party Worker and treasurer and Sanjay Shetty, who was the under secretary.

His letter itself originally in Marathi, hints to the highly spurious manner of functioning of not just the developer, but of numerous parties in the residents associations, and the complete absence of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority.

‘Shankar Mahadik brought in Satra property developers. To start with the development the developer needs to send a letter of interest to the federation and the societies involved. Mahadik however made no such insistence for the letter and allowed developers to begin the surveys without providing any letter to the federation or any of the societies. On the other hand, they made contracts with the developers and architects in a hurry. This contract was lacking and inconsistent, which I noticed and brought to the federations notice, but they did not take any proper action over it. Many of the societies in the area were coming together to sign the contracts despite the problems in it, so we too gave our contracts and all necessary documents to the federation. As the president of the Sinhgad Society, I had been in touch with the federation and had been asking for additional information regarding the developer’s plans, but never received any concrete replies or answers from the them. I got into numerous arguments with them due to this. One night in July 2006, Sanjay Shetty came to my house with a single contract which Shetty said was in favour of the societies and made me sign the papers. He said that he would give me a copy of the contract I signed in the morning, but did not give me one. Because I had no copy of this, I got into arguments with the federation. Because they were always on the side of the developers and not the people, I started avoiding the federation meetings. I even met with the developer and tried to get information from him as the President of the Sinhagad Society, but he too was always vague and non-committal.

So I sought this info under the RTI. Under the RTI act I was only able to access the contract signed with the federation and not the contract with the developer. With this I also received the necessary supporting documents submitted along with the contract, including power of attorney, registration of proposal, and documents which the society was never shown. When we showed these documents to other society members and workers, we collectively began fearing that in future our houses will be broken and we would become homeless.’

In another letter to the Ghatkopar Vibhag he stated, that ‘We also found an authority letter and letter for registration, which were typed in English and contained forged signatures. Our Society head, Prabhakar Shetty had been elected as Vice President of the Federation. However, when the proposal was presented to us, Shripad Pawar signed as Vice President and named Prabhakar Shetty as only a member, and forged his signature on the proposal.’

There is clear prima facie evidence that Prabhakar Shetty’s signatures do not match on many of the documents where he has allegedly signed. However, on the 9^th of November, 2012, he himself was pushing people out of their homes, abusing them.

Prabhakar Shetty, a very suspicious and evasive man, claimed, when asked if he supports the project, that ‘it (the project) is for the entire Ramnagar, and it is a government project’. When asked, if he wrote any letter to the SRA, he claimed ‘phele tha aisa’, but refused to elaborate on record. Praful Satra, the developer, claimed that he always had a majority consent in the project, and the few people who were protesting earlier, slowly started to accept him as the builder.

Meanwhile, those residents now who still protest, claim Mr.Shetty was simply bought off.

‘He used to keep calling us on the phone since the day the notice came, and told us to take the cheque before our homes were broken down,’ Said Sheetal Kopde, ‘But once the home was broken down, he started to taunt us, saying we should’ve just taken the cheque.’

Mangesh’s mother Sunanda has been a domestic worker for 31 years and feels it is too early for her daughter-in-law to work as a domestic worker, worried that her son might never recover from his psychotic breakdown, leaving him incapable of looking after their three children.

‘We won’t leave without respect,’ She said, ‘Sar jhuka ke hum nahi hatenge.’

The Marked Man

Sandeep Yeole, RTI Activist and a social worker, carries around a gigantic bundle of documents that he has acquired from police stations, the slum rehabilitation authority, the collector’s office, the MHADA, the environment Ministry, regarding each societies discrepancies in the project. One such group of documents details that the Letter Of Intent clearly states that the builder must get environment clearance before a commencement certificate, yet both papers show, he has a commencement certificate arriving six days before the clearance. On that, the builder claims that he had the Environmental Clearance in March of that year itself, but the notice reached them late.

Satra Hills is currently, literally being built by digging into a mountain where stand the homes of working class marathi folk, where now a few hundred shanties overlook a construction site as a gigantic hole next to a hill, with residents anxious about the rain and possible landslides.

Sandeep, however, still persists to point on the discrepancies in the project, where all he desires is that the builder should be removed and the people given a chance to develop themselves.

‘We are not against development,’ he says, ‘Vikas ke naam peh vinaash karenge, hum us builder ke development ke khilaf kaam karenge.’

‘In this scheme, there is no transparency, no democratic values, and it doesn’t work within anything close to what are co-operative values. It just plants a builder and that’s it.

‘All our self-development is based on environmental, social, economic, political and cultural values, and our fight is not to increase how much sq feet we get, or how tall the building is. We aren’t profit-oriented.  Our fight has substance.’

Armed men broke into a small room where he along with protesting residents held their meetings on the 30^th of October this year. He was attacked by eight men in August of 2009. A large number of false cases of dacoity and extortion were put on him long before the SRA project, when he was instead investigating the role of a local Shiv Sena corporator and future MLA, Shantaram Chavan, who has now passed on, who was also involved in trying to bring a builder into Ramnagar.

On the 23^rd of November, another resident Santosh Hinghe, whose house is still protesting against the demolition, complained to the apathetic police at Vikhroli Park Side Police station, that the construction of the building was damaging his home, but was instead beaten up by two constables.

Suspicion and violence is now a way of life in Ghatkopar’s Ramnagar.

A man was murdered on the 1^st of October, 2012, yet all parties claim this has nothing to do with the project.

Dozens had even attacked those protesting against the project on the 1^st of June, 2011, after the government agreed to investigate the project after Medha Patkar’s hunger strike.

The Slum Rehabilitation project in Ramnagar is one of 15 projects across Mumbai including Golibar and Sion, that the government had initially agreed to investigate after Medha Patkar’s 9-day hunger strike in May of last year. Since then the government relegated on its promise and the matter is now in the High Court.

Shailesh Gandhi’s petition in the High Court stated in 2006 itself that there around 89 SRA projects where there are ‘Forged  signatures  of  slum  dwellers  to  show  that  they  are  agreeable  to  the  developer’ and ‘Names of non-existent slum-dwellers being listed to increase free sale component’  (both allegations also exist in Ramnagar). The case led to the creation of the High Powered Committee whose record of offering relief to slum dwellers against demolition drives is an emphatic zero.

The government has claimed that all the controversies regarding SRA projects such as Ramnagar should be looked at by this committee which few slum dwellers have faith in.

‘The committee is completely anti-slum and pro-builder,’ Says Sandeep Yeole, ‘It exists so people don’t take all these forgery cases to the High Courts and stretch the project on and on, but to finish them then and there if they go to the committee.’

Sandeep believes in the long fight, and claims he is not afraid of any of the consequences. He is aware that he is a targeted man, but also knows that there is a quiet majority that sees the sense of self-development, considering that the SRA scheme has failed. His weapon, against those he claims the builder has: the police, the courts, the violence, is to inform people about what the SRA scheme really is. ‘Out of the 18 societies, Lal Kila society chased the builder away when he couldn’t answer their questions.’

 ’What do I gain by committing forgery?

Praful Satra, Managing Director of Satra Developers, responds to the controversies regarding the Satra hills project

Satra Hills, covers a plot area of 29,168 sq m, and is at an estimated cost of 275 crores. Five rehabilitation buildings will be built for the slum dwellers, while high-end apartments with swimming pools, a hi-tech gymnasium, and grand entrance lobbies will be built for free sale.

A few homes still unbroken, surrounded by the remnants of broken walls, are scattered around the construction site. It was here that Mangesh Khopde’s home stood, once upon a time, but now has literally been plummeled into rubble, along with his medicines to keep him sane, propelling him into a downward spiral that led him to the Sion hospital.

Praful Satra believes himself to be a veteran to Slum Rehabilitation Projects, referring to, and dismissing other builders in the city who failed to work at the few places in Mumbai where land is still available. In an interview lasting just under an hour, he reiterates repeatedly that he has the consent of the majority of the slum dwellers.

‘We have 98% consent, only 25 people are still protesting and they are all being misguided. In 2006, I had 75% consent, and today I have more than 98% consent.’

‘Can you tell me why there are allegations of forgery coming from some of the slum dwellers?

‘See forgery doesn’t even happen. It’s not possible. Andar ka shabd hota hai, see if there are 2000 people, and out of them 2 haven’t signed, and one think they will blackmail the builder, milenge, jayenge, then the one will say, the queries have been satisfied and will sign, aur usko bolega, I haven’t signed, both will fight, but he has!’

‘So this is a local problem?’

‘See if someone tells you there is forgery. Ask yourself, why does anyone commit forgery? And why do the forgery when you are getting an official majority? Do you have anything to gain from committing forgery?’

‘But there are documents available from the SRA, the complaints that have been written….’

‘See, no one has sent me any complaints, I have not gotten anything from any agency or anyone.’

‘There is a man who has four different kinds of signatures on four different kinds of documents.’

‘See, the society gives me the papers. The consent. I don’t know who is this, who is that, and it is attested in front of 10 or 11 people, not in front of me.’

‘Mr. Satra, if you have done everything legally, then let’s turn the question around. There are countless of projects in Mumbai from the SRA which are taken to the high court with instances of forgery. So why are people talking about forgery?’

‘We will talk about ourselves, And we haven’t done any forgery, and whatever consent we got from the Ramnagar Co-operative society, we got, we got the LOI, the CC, the environmental clearance and we have doing everything as per the rules. But there are some people, two-three, people, who’re misguiding other people. There is this one man, Sandeep Yeole, who is meeting everyone and he is telling people the wrong things. And just 25 people listen to him. He has never met me, never called me. And we replied to his letters asking what is his problem? And come and meet us, and what is your problem?’

‘Tell me more about Sandeep Yeole.’

‘See, I know, this man, he has an NGO, he just wants to give everyone a house. And that’s what I want to do. I want to give everyone a house too. See, you are an NGO, aap accha kaam karte ho, I love you, ok fine, aap bahut accha aadmi ho, aap paisa nahi kahte ho, very good. I am a builder and all builders have a bad name, but out of 2000 builders not everyone is the same.’

‘Can you tell me about the role of Shankar Mhadik of National Congress party. It is known that one needs the patronage of a political party to pacify the people. In your capacity, do you feel that this idea about forgery is in-fighting between different political parties?’

‘See I will speak about my own case. I will only talk about my case, nothing general. See like I said before, there are 2000 people, and people have been there for 70 years, and everyone is a legal tenant. And 98% is legal. There is very little controversy as everyone is legal. And I am a a builder, I have nothing to do with any political party. Internally, a slum is known as a political vote bank, and all parties are there, NCP, Shiv Sena, Congress, MNC, BJP, and on the hill, candidates from three parties are winning – MNC, BJP and Shiv Sena, what do I have to do with them?’

‘But if you have to work with the community?’

‘See in 2006, no one would go there. No one was interested. And because of will and experience, we went there, hum himmat kiya, and we were successful.’

‘Can you tell me why Mangesh Khopde who had a psychotic breakdown, is protesting against demolition and the project?’

‘There are some 20-30 who are protesting with this Sandeep Yeole. And this man Mangesh’s father, apart from him, all are ready to leave. His children, his wife. And we have the transit camp ready for them. We are giving 7000 per rent. And the cheque for 18 months is also there. And this is one of four such cases. And we did a meeting with them. And they want money. Unofficially. We refused. They want five lakhs, and if we give five lakhs to 2000 people, 100 crore ho jata hai. They wanted five lakhs, and I have never given anyone money. This is what I heard. Not directly. Through media.’

‘Now under 33-38 rule, those who still protest have to go through a process with the builder. And this man, who is protesting, is with Sandeep Yeole, and they want to develop the whole society by themselves. Sometimes they want a 500 sq feet home, and we can only go as per SRA rules where it is 269, and if tomorrow the government, gives 300, we will do it.’

Do you feel Sandeep Yeole is working for another builder?’

‘No, this man, he’s a good man. He wants everyone to have a house. So do I’.

‘I am not doing anything wrong. I am with people. I am working for them. And I have to make the tenements, and for those who are legal, I got to give them a house, and those who are illegal, I got to give the PAP to the government. What benefit is there for me?’

‘But you will have free sale flats? You are making very high-end apartments?’

‘And we have amenities. If we didn’t have them, we wont sell anything.’

‘And a swimming pool?’

‘See the first building I am making for the Slumdwellers of Ghatkopar will be the top building in Mumbai. I am giving them a flowerbed, a balcony, parking, and a swimming pool. For them.’

‘Different buildings for free sale and different for the slums? Swimming pools for both?’

‘No, different for slumdwellers and different for free sale. Tum aaj jhopad pati meh rehte ho, bahar jaa ke sandas karte ho, machar hai, nalla hai. And we are giving all the amenities and people are trusting us, and those who are protesting, they will come eventually.’

Invisible Cities: Part Twelve: Breaking The Sparrow

Months after the last demolition drive, a court order to construct a boundary wall in Sion Koliwada leads to tension between the police and protesting residents especially after a contractor illegally demolishes a home.

This article appears in two parts in Daily News & Analysis on the 6th of November, 2012. Photos of the day can be viewed here.

Residents of Sion Koliwada showed all the documents to the police officers at Sion Police Station, prima facie evidence of forged signatures on consent forms and proof that a few people who signed, died long before they apparently gave consent to the builder. Instead, the police had to pay heed to a High Court order asking for them to provide protection for the building of a boundary wall across the village and they showed up on Monday, the fifth of November.

This is irrespective of the fact that the protesting residents of Sion Koliwada have a number of cases against the builder in the High Court.

Meanwhile, residents still stayed back from work, and decided to protest against the construction. But ever since their experience with mass arrests last May, the residents made a tactical choice to let the builder construct his wall, provided he does that and nothing else. The case in question was filed by the previous society of Sion Koliwada (who the remaining residents accused of fraud) complaining about slow work against the BMC and the state, without making the protesting residents as a party in the case.

The construction of the walls resumed with one of the first actions of the police to direct the removal of a small tent at Sion Koliwada where most of the residents conduct their meetings, or watch TV, wondering how the few TV Journalists who visited them, documented their lives.

After that, through hurls of abuse, the demolition/construction crew started to break down remnants of homes already demolished, and then moved to the door of the home of 85 year old Rozi Francis Patil whose house was disputed between the BMC and the 85 year old Rozi and her family. While residents loudly protested against the demolition of the door, repeatedly asserting that the police has a high court order that only asks for the building of a wall, the contractors relented and moved away from her home.

However, once the wall was built around Rozi’s home, cutting off her neighbours from view, an overenthusiastic contractor ensured it turned into rubble.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police promised to file a case against him, while builder Sudhakar Shetty of Sahana Developers claims that the disputed building belonged to them as the BMC had sealed it, and handed it over to them.

Short silences in moments of chaos

The Sparrow: Lily Peso left her work today as a stenographer and came to look after her 85 year old mother Rosie’s home in Sion, afraid that it might be levelled for the wall. She sits alone by her door, quietly, watching the labourers build their walls in what used to be her yard.

‘Why are you sitting alone?’ I asked

‘I am like a sparrow. Do you know the story of the sparrow and the tree? Once a tree falls and all the sparrows leave the tree except one. And that sparrow stayed near her broken tree and cried and just refused to move. Then Goddess Indra comes and asks the sparrow what is the matter. The sparrow says that I grew up with this tree, she lived happily here, and ate her fruits, lived in her shade, how can I leave it? And then the Goddess made the tree again and all the sparrows came back.’

‘I am here now alone, just remembering the place where I grew up.’

The labour: More than three dozen labourers were picked up from the Nakas, promised 400 rupees for a days work. Nasirul, who lives in a slum in Mumbai Central says: ‘They lied to us.’

‘They told us we only had to do some fencing work, not that we had to barge into people’s homes to do it.’

‘This is all wrong, we shouldn’t be doing it.’

‘Have you done work for the government before, like this? Even during demolition drives?’

‘Yes, and they never tell you that’s the work they’re taking you for.’

The Sellout: Kalpesh Shivkar, screams at the crowd, at his angry ex-neighbours, at his friends, ‘I just took five lakhs, what have I done? What have you done for me?’

In May of this year 25 people went to jail trying to protect his home from being demolished. They were arrested for rioting when they lay down before the bulldozer that was menacingly crawling to break down his walls.

The journalists:  Journalist A: ‘A white girl got raped in Bandra today, I don’t think anyone will come to report what is happening in Sion now.’

Journalist B: ‘I work for ____ media, owned by the Pawars.’

‘And they will let you write about this?’

‘We already did before.’

There were only two journalists at Sion Koliwada today.

The Detained: Resident of Sion Koliwada, a young professor B. at a prominent college in Mumbai, abused Inspector More, calling him a servant of the builder and he was swiftly taken away and put in a police van.

Police Discourtesy: When things subsided, a group of young boys were gathering when Constable Tely started to scream at them: ‘Are you here to watch a film?’

‘Yes, they are,’ Said Pushpa Shivkar, defending the boys of her village, ‘You have shown them a wonderful film by doing what you did today.’

At this point, Constable Tely started calling Mrs. Shivkar, who is twice her age,

‘madharchod/behenchod.’

Pushpa Shivkar yelled back saying that he should just meet her in civvies and not in his uniform so she could teach him a lesson, and he continued to hurl abuses at her, until another woman took her away.

The Bad Policeman: ‘Are you happy that you don’t have to raise your lathi on anyone today?’ I asked a constable, sweating under his riot gear.

‘Yes.’

‘And how would’ve you felt if you had to?’

‘I would feel nothing.’

‘Ever felt bad for beating up someone?’

‘We usually give warnings, if they don’t listen, then that’s it. And it is my duty.’

The Good Policemen: In the middle of the afternoon, two policemen, one Tukaram Jadhav was more interested in sharing riddles, lively laughter and mathematical wisdom with two happy school-going girls, away from all of the arguments and the abuse that flowed between the residents and the police.

‘If you have to cut a long pipe into 2002 pieces, how many times do you cut it?’

A Short History Of Death And Madness in Bastar

A young boy outside Basaguda police station in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.

This article appears in Daily News & Analysis on the 8th of July, 2012.

The list of villages are endless. Operation Green Hunt was only the second phase, Operation Hakka and Vijay are only new names to an old war. But the names of villages touched by war can sometimes repeat themselves. Gompad, Singaram, Gacchanpalli, Lingagiri, Nendra, Rajpenta, Tatemargu,Tadmetla, Vechapalli, Gaganpalli, Kottacheru, Maraigudem, Pallecharma, Munder, Pollampalli, Kotrapal, Burgil, Bhejji, Goomiyapal, Hiroli, Jangla, Dhampenta, Hariyal Cherli, Karremarka, Mankelli, Sameli, Regadgatta, Pusnar: these are just a few villages where adivasis have been killed in the last 8 years in undivided Bastar district, with testimonies collected by journalists and anthropologists and political activists whose own list was submitted as petitions to the Supreme Court.

Since 2004-2005, the Salwa Judum rallies conducted themselves completely out of sight and out of mind like they did in Basaguda block.

From the testimonies of the villagers themselves, ‘On the 5^th of December, 2005, the workforce of Salwa Judum and the CRPF visited Basaguda and stuck posters that said that a Salwa Judum meeting is going to be held at Avapalli on the 1^st of January, 2006, and if the villagers do not turn up, they shall be called Naxalites. We attended the meeting on the 1^st of January 2006. We were told that, if those who are members of the Sangam (village-level Naxalite groups) do not surrender right away, all of us will be killed. Nine of the villagers who were not members of the Sangam were forcefully made to admit that they were members of the Sangam. After this, we stayed till the meeting ended and came back to our village. After some days, on the 21^st of February 2006, the Salwa Judum workforce came to Basaguda and asked us to deliver a speech against the Naxalites, and those who would not, would be deemed as a Naxalite.

Two days later, villagers from (names withheld) were made to carry out a rally at Lingagiri, Korsaguda, Sarkeguda, Mallepalli, Borguda, where many houses were burnt, people were beaten and many women were raped. Out of rage, a few days after the rally, the Naxalites came to Basaguda on the fifth of March, 2006 at 9pm. They attacked the villagers and killed four people. The villagers then went to the police station to file a report, and after the post-mortem of the deceased, they returned back across the river. Meanwhile, the Salwa Judum and CRPF came and beat us, grabbed us from our necks and took us to the camps on the other side of the river, where we were kept for two months, and the mistreatment continued.’

Three years after that, with the help of a Supreme Court order that gave the villagers the right to go back home, did the villagers from Basaguda block return back, to live in a tentative peace that was shattered by the killing of 18 people in Sarkeguda on the 28^th of July, this year. In 2010, Basaguda block was hit by a ‘cholera’/dysentry epidemic that claimed more than sixty lives. Those who never went back to their homes in Chhattisgarh still continue to face violence in Andhra. Just recently, on the 2^nd of July, another IDP settlement was destroyed by the Forest Department in Khammam.

The state has never shied away from geography of murder: everyone who lives beyond a certain village, further into the forests is a potential Naxalite and can be killed. The mandarins of the mainstream media can call it collateral damage when they’re confronted by overwhelming evidence of an unjustified killing. And at the same time, they’ve never taken themselves into the civil war whose brutality raged for six years in complete silence, until Herr Chidambaram would finally make his exhortations of development, and the Tadmetla massacre of 76 jawaans had journalists in newsrooms wondering where is Dantewada.

‘Did any journalist come to the village the last time it was burnt down? I had asked the villagers of Badepalli of Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.

‘No.’ They said.

‘Did any human rights activists come?’

‘No.’

‘Did any lawyer, or anyone from Manish Kunjam’s party, (Communist Party of India) come?’

‘No.’

‘How many homes were burnt down that time?’

‘All.’ Said the Sarpanch, ‘But this time, only two survived.’

The above conversation took place in the village of Badepalli, in Kuakonda block of Dantewada District of Chhattisgarh in May, 2009, a few days after the village was burnt down by security forces for the second time in five years. The first time was in the summer of 2006 when it didn’t even make a statistic, while violence was perpetrated by both the state and the Maoists on a daily basis. The second time in the summer of 2009.

This too, in an area where the government exempted around 108 villages from the 2010 survey due to inaccessibility of terrain and ‘prevention by the Maoists.’

Its existence, forget its burning, did not exist as a statistic, nor did it exist as an complaint against the police in any charge-sheet, or in any of the petitions that were filed in the Supreme Court.

So how many villages were really burnt down in undivided Bastar district by the Salwa Judum or the security forces when there was a chance that some were never even counted, and many were burnt down more than once? How many people were really killed in those eight years?

What is rarely mentioned in mainstream debates is the extent of violence perpetrated against the local population, starting from the mass forceful displacement by the Salwa Judum where village after village was burnt down, and people were forcefully driven into ‘resettlement camps’. There are thousands of testimonies of the same, that are repeatedly and categorically denied by the state of Chhattisgarh, who once, in a moment of pride a few years ago, mentioned that 644 villages were ‘liberated’ from the Maoists and its inhabitants were now living in the camps supporting the Salwa Judum movement. That is 644 villages, whose villagers were driven away from their homes and taken into camps. Then there were the Matwada Camp killings where three men had their eye sockets smashes by SPOs.

And burnings preceded killings, and killings preceded burnings.

Fifteeen killed in Gaganpalli. Ten killed in Nendra. A man talks about his brother from Kottacheru who was killed by the CRPF. ‘He was shot in the stomach, his shit was all over the place.’

Of course, Salwa Judum backfired, Maoist recruitment rose. Then came Operation Greenhunt.

Nine killed in Gompad. Five killed in Gacchanpalli. Three killed in Pallecharma. Six killed in Goomiyapal. Two killed a few months later in Goomiyapal. One fiteen year old boy killed again a few months later.

Seven killed in Tatemargu. Two killed in Pallodi on the same day. Ask the villagers about what happened five years ago, and again they would talk about the dead and murdered.  Sarkeguda, the epicentre of Chhattisgarh’s newest atrocity of the year, was burnt down in 2005. Their memories don’t fade. Last year when Tademetla, Morpalli and Timmapuram was burnt down, it was not the first time they were attacked. Sodi Nanda s/o Adma  of Tadmetla was killed by the security forces in 2007.  Barse Lakma s/o Bhima of Morpalli was going for ration at Chintalnar market when he was picked up by the security forces two years ago.

From Phulanpad village where Barse Bhima and Manu Yadav were killed last year, around three years ago, Aimla Sukka (20) s/o Chola and Aimla Joga (20) s/o Choma were killed when their village was raided by security forces.

The memory of violence in Chhattisgarh stays in the present tense. But how will the rest of the world beyond Dantewada remember something it never knew? Earlier there was silence, now the Murdochian media calls the dead collateral damage. When will the casualties of war be robbed of their gravestones, those nouns: Maoists, Maoist supporters, SPOs, Salwa Judum leaders, adivasis, CRPF jawaans, when will we start talking about killing itself as the war crime, and not who was killed? This is a war of attrition, a dance of death, a class war to some, yet the greatest inhumanity is to believe this is a war someone will win.

***

Journalist Rito Paul from DNA has also visited the site of the latest killing with Kopa Kunjam, who worked to rehabilitate the villages in Basaguda block but would eventually be arrested for murder of a man who the Maoists had killed and who Kopa had tried to save. Rito’s report and the people’s reaction to meeting Kopa is here

A Subaltern Guide To Filmmaking

This article appears in Daily News & Analysis on the 17th of June, 2012

I had gone to watch Shanghai with the residents of Bheem Chhayya, Chedda Nagar, Annabhau Sathe Nagar, and Sion Koliwada, with the same people who’d stand before bulldozers, who’d organize protest after protest, who’d be beaten by the police – to whom state repression and structural violence is an almost everyday reality, to whom the word ‘Shanghai’ itself has been oppressive to the bone, shattering home after home, with the memory of the 80,000 homes that disappeared one day alone in Mumbai, not far away from their memory.

After the film, when I ask if the film deals with the issues of the working classes and the protestors who face the brunt of state violence, of ‘development’ and bulldozers: The answer is a unanimous no.

They felt that it wasn’t just that there was absolutely no tension in the beginning, tension characteristic to state-people conflict in development projects – protests, evictions, police firings, the day to day violence of state functionaries, especially the police. It wasn’t just that the character of Dr.Ahmedi was as uninspiring as a doorknob, or that there were no working class organizers or ‘andolan saathis’, who are predominately responsible for strengthening every people’s movement and struggle, and who’re the first to be brutally attacked or killed. Or that there was no mention of how the mainstream media is co-opted into the fantasy of Shanghai, or that the daily trials and vulnerabilities of working class (except one character) and informal labourers is absolutely invisible. The filmmakers of Shanghai, are guilty of having done exactly what the state would want to do to resistance and people’s movements in the slums – they bulldozed them out of the film.

Development projects, have a very political purpose, not only to hand over prime real estate land to private parties, but to remove every possible centre of dissent and political activity that is always incipient in the slums and working class neighbourhoods. The film, by portraying only the hypocrisies and the futilities of a middle and upper class characters, whose so-called good intentions and attempts for justice are constantly thwarted by ‘the system’, betray the one place where inspiration is found: the protest in the people’s movement, when the hungry go on hunger strike.

Thus, all of those who once stood before bulldozers, would not send anyone to go watch the film. A sentiment repeated by all of them – from Annabhau Sathe Nagar to Sion Koliwada.

‘They showed in the film, that the public is not agitating, that they’re only a few angry people who’re fighting for rights and dying,’ Says Santosh Thorat of Annabhau Sathe Nagar, who has been fighting for the right to a home, and against Slum Rehabilitation scams, since his home was demolished in 2005, ‘And this film is about how the state deals with the few of them, so you better keep your mouth shut.’

‘People who don’t have any knowledge of what’s happening in the street and in the morchas, in the andolans, especially the youth, whose homes have never been demolished, they’d be very badly influenced by this film.’ Said Jameela Begum of Anna Bhau Sathe Nagar. Four young boys from Sion Koliwada who experienced demolitions and violence, would add how a young woman leader from their slum is in jail for protesting against demolition, but their awareness was born by the realities of what they face. The lack of the realities of what they faced in the past week – one boy who was beaten up by the police after trying to protect his father from the police, simply replied, ‘the film was boring.’

Another issue would be semantics and two words in particular ‘dalaal’ or tout– by far one of the most hated figures in the slum and in development projects; those opportunists who eat money from the political establishment, often betray their own neighbours and families for profit. A word, that can lead to violence, and to counterviolence. A word, which is not mentioned in the film even once – even though the ‘dalaals’ had considerable screen time. The other word ‘morcha’ was appropriated by the developer, when the word has absolutely close connotations to people’s movements. Here, it’s happily appropriated by the developer while the ‘people’ remain absolutely absent again, incapable of claiming their own symbols.

On a positive note, the viewers are glad that the well-entrenched corruption is shown, even aware of the irony that ‘special thanks’ for the film had gone to Ritesh Deshmukh, the son of the man who has tormented them the most: Ex-Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh ‘who sold the dream of Shanghai’ that gave birth to their nightmares. Jameela felt that this film says it clearly, ‘rajneeti kuch nahi hai.’

‘Ek accha baath thi kya zaada sentimental nahi tah, accha fact of matter film baniye thi.’ Continued Jameela Begum, who felt the lyrics, ‘Sone ki chiddya, dengu malaria, sab hai bharat mata ki jai,’ was absolutely brilliant.

And if the film wasn’t called ‘Shanghai’, then ‘picture ke saath hamara kuch lene dena nahi hai.’ Said Uday Mohite of Bheem Chhayya who had kept a hunger strike for 19 days to protest against the demolition of his slum, and of the death of his 3 year old son.

Response: Aniruddha Guha from DNA interviewed director Dibanker Banerjee about the issues raised by the residents I saw the film with. According to Dibanker, if you represent working class movements in cinema, you’re making a ‘mobilization propaganda film.’ The interview is here.

A Constitution’s Dead Army

Thirty years ago, a retired armyman’s body was being dragged by a police jeep as his adivasi brethren, armed with bows and arrows, helplessly tried to stop the convoy but were fired upon and chased away.

This article appears in Daily News & Analysis on the 9th of April, 2012.

Gangaram Kalundia was bayonneted in the police van, and then dragged across the village, for speaking for the rights of his people, and there was never any prosecutions against the police for his murder.

Gangaram was an adivasi of the Ho tribe, who joined the army when he was 19 years old, fought in the war of 1965 and the war of 71 as part of the Bihar Regiment, and had risen to the rank of Junior officer.

He voluntarily retired and returned home to find that his village Illigara in Chaibasa of West Singhbhum of Jharkhand (then Bihar), along with some 110 other villages would be submerged due to the Kuju dam project, that was funded by the World Bank.

He would organize his people to fight for their fundamental rights against displacement and the project exactly thirty years ago, to only be brutally murdered by the police early in the morning on the 4^th of April, 1982.

‘This is where we placed stones to stop the convoy that had Gangaram,’ Said Tobro, then 14 years old, now pointing to a small woodland by the roadside, ‘and this is where we were, with bows and arrows, but the police fired upon us and chased us away.’

While Gangaram Kalundia was killed in 1982, a long agitation had still sustained itself, that had often driven people like Tobro underground, aware that the police were rounding people up. Surendra Biduili, 52, was a part of the agitation against the dam, and the eventual victory in 1991 when, ‘the World Bank withdrew the money.’

‘Their reports said that the dam would only submerge lands that had paddy,’ he continued, ‘but it was a lie, we were cultivating vegetables as well.’

It was much later when Gangaram had become a symbol for oppurtunistic politics, and his shaheed divas, would be attended by every other political party, or as Surendra would say, ‘First everyone used to be afraid to mention Gangaram’s name, now all the parties of contractors and dalaals come for his shaheed divas.’

In The Thousands

Gangaram Kalundia was not the only adivasi leader killed for representing the rights of people. Just a few kilometres away from Chaibasa, across the Sal tree forest, is the village of Bandgaon, where Lalsingh Munda was killed in broad daylight in the market on the 1^st of November 1983. His concerns were that sacred grounds were being used by non-tribals and contractors as a waste dump.

‘You travel by bus to Chaibasa, well, back then, people used to get off the bus to piss into the sacred grounds.’ Said Phillip Kujur, a member of JMACC (Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination Committee).

Phillip Kujur was also associated with Lalit Mehta who was brutally murdered in Palamau in May 2008, Niyamat Ansari who was killed by the Maoists in Latehar District on the 2^nd of March, 2011, and on the 29^th of December, 2011, Pradip Prasad was killed by PLFI extremists in the village of Mukka, Latehar.

Sister Valsa who fought for the adivasis in Pachuwara in Pakur District of Jharkhand was murdered on the 15^th of November, 2011.

The roads in adivasi villages are punctuated with memorials for fallen leaders and activists.

The office for NGO Birsa in Chaibasa has a memorial stone with other names: Vahaspati Mahto killed in 1977 in Purulia, Shaktinath Mahto killed in 1977 at Dhanbad , Ajit Mahto killed in 1982 at Tiraldih, Beedar Nag killed in 1983 at Gua, Ashwini Kumar Savaya killed in 1984 in Chaibasa, Anthony Murmu killed in 1985 at Banjhi, Nirmal Mahto killed in 1986 at Jamshedpur, Devendra Mahji killed in 1994 in Goilkera. The memorial ends with the sentence, ‘anaam shaheed….hazaaron mein.’ (Unknown Martyrs, in the thousands)

‘When I was young,’ Said Phillip, ‘I was travelling with two veteran activists, who kept pointing to village after village saying, ‘here’s where another cadre of ours was killed’, and there I was, another man they trained to fight for people’s rights. Finally, I turned to them and asked, ‘you taught all these people how to fight, but did you teach them how to stay alive?’

In recent times, K Singanna, one of the first organizers of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh in Narayanpatna Block of Koraput District of Odisha was shot thrice in his back in a police firing incident on the 20^th of November, 2009. Since then, another leader Nachika Linga has been living underground in fear of arrest, or death, as posters calling for him to be caught ‘dead or alive’ were posted all over Narayanpatna after the firing. Both individuals were responsible for organizing the Kondh adivasis to claim their rights as per the Fifth Schedule, to free themselves as bonded labourers on their own land.

In Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, Muria and Koya adivasis committed to taking the cause of their people via rallies, writ petitions, and organizing them to fight peacefully for their rights, have almost all been arrested as alleged Maoists. Manish Kunjam, an ex-MLA, has faced repeated death threats and his own cadre, responsible for working in the villages, have been in and out of jail.

On International Labour Day, the 1^st of May, 2008, in Kalinganagar Industrial Park of Jajpur, Odisha, one of the leaders of the Anti-displacement group, Dabar Kalundia was attacked outside the gates of the Rohit Ferrotech Steel Plant and escaped, but Omin Banara (51) was killed.

In Memory of Gangaram

‘They all talk about Gangaram, but they don’t care about his wife.’

Birangkui Kalundia, widow of Gangaram, lost her only daughter when she was giving birth to her grandchild. She was widowed by the state, and her daughter would be another statistic to those 80,000 women who die every year due to childbirth.

Her brother-in-law, would also cut ties with her, often dividing the produce of Gangaram’s 15 acres for himself, leaving her out with nothing, and after his death, she moved out of the village his husband fought for, to move in with her new caretakters, her nephew and his wife, where she lives with a quiet pride to this day.

She still holds onto the medals won by her husband, the citation for his President’s Medal,  speaking in soft tones unforgivingly about the men who killed her husband, coming to terms with injustice in this life, to a hope for justice in the next.

Death In A Quiet Corner

This op-ed appears in abriged form in Daily News & Analysis on the 19th of March, 2012.

‘Torture has long been employed by well-meaning, even reasonable people armed with the sincere belief that they are preserving civilization as they know it. Aristotle favoured the use of torture in extracting evidence, speaking of its absolute credibility, and St.Augustine also defended the practice. Torture was routine in ancient Greece and Rome, and although the methods have changed in the intervening centuries, the goals of the torturer – to gain information, to punish, to force an individual to change his beliefs or loyalties, to intimidate a community – have not changed at all.’ – from Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People, The Dynamics of Torture, by John Conroy.

On the 11^th of August of 2010, Mandangi Subarao of Kondabaredi village of Rayagada district of Odisha, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the offices of the Anti-Naxalite cells of the police station.

He killed himself in the police station that specializes in tracking down and killing Maoists, in fear of the Maoists, according to the police.

His case was eventually sent to the National Human Rights Commission by the National Campaign For The Prevention Of Torture, who asked the state to submit action taken report by 2 February 2012. The police continue to be on duty. A similar situation had developed in Dantewada when the NHRC took cognizance of the death of Pudiyama Mada after newspaper reports detailed his torture by the Central Reserve Police Force, and his eventual ‘suicide’ in the Sukma police station.

Meanwhile, the medical report on adivasi teacher Soni Sori’s condition that reached the Supreme Court stated that stones were found lodged in her vagina and her rectum while she was in police custody.

The Supreme Court gave the Chhattisgarh government 55 days to respond, and sent her back to the Chhattisgarh jails, and has revealed once again, that the rule of law and the constitution is divorcing itself from the aspirations of citizen of the state, whose fundamental Right To Life has to be protected by the Courts, not something the Court grants her, or the police is allowed to take away the instant they consider her a Maoist sympathizer.

Her hearing was supposed to be held on the 25^th of January, 2012, but its turn never came up. Instead, the Superintendent of Police Ankit Garg, who she accused of torturing her, won the President’s Medal for Gallantry on Republic Day, the day the constitution of India came into being. He was awarded for his conduct during an encounter with the Maoists in Mahasumand District in 2010.

To the state machinery: it remains a story of he said, she said, as the allegations of torture in police custody leave no witnesses besides the tortured themselves, but in this case, the accused has a medical report from Kolkatta to say that her body was violated beyond anyone’s imagination, unlike the Mandangi Subarao case, where a man who kills himself in the police station in fear of the Maoists has done so in a district, out of sight and mind, and buried in the quagmire of the hopelessness of raising one’s voice over endemic abuse.

The National Human Rights Commission has gone on record to say that 1574 custodial deaths took place between April 2010 and March 2011. And between 2001 and 2011, there were around 15,231 custodial deaths, according to The Asian Center For Human Rights who had done a similar study on custodial violence in 2008, where they had claimed around 9,000 people were killed in police custody since 2000, at an unchanging average of four per day.

The Police State Against The Woman’s Body

16 year old Meena Khalko was killed in an alleged encounter and accused as a Maoist. Allegations would surface that she was raped and murdered and not killed in crossfire, and the Chhattisgarh Home Minister parroted his police officials who said that she was ‘habitual about sex’ and had links with truck drivers.

Ishrat Jahan who the Special Investigation Team confirms was killed in a fake encounter recently was questioned by our own Home Minister G.K. Pillai who finds that her checking into a hotel room with another man is suspicious.

In none of the 99 cases of rape allegations against Special Police Officers or security personnel in South Bastar did the police file even a single First Information Report even after the Supreme Court ordered them to do so. The National Human Rights Commission Enquiry Team, (comprising of 15 police officials out of 16) only investigated five cases out of 99, where in one instance, they visited the wrong village and construed that the allegations were baseless as they couldn’t find the victims.

In the other village of Potenaar, there were discrepancies in the testimonies of women who were raped three years earlier and there was no FIR filed in the police station. Thus they construed again, that the allegations were baseless, as women traumatized brutally by assault have to apparently remember the intricate details of everything that was done to them and lodge a complaint against the same police that rapes them.

The women of Vakapalli of Andhra Pradesh who were allegedly gangraped by the special anti-Naxalite forces the Greyhounds, are still fighting for justice in a case that was widely highlighted in Andhra Pradesh but the accused policemen continue to be in duty, and the state continues to construe their allegations as nothing but Maoist propaganda.

Even though the women’s statements were recorded both before the police as well as the Magistrate: all of them stated that they bathed after the assault, they did not resist the assault as they were afraid of violence, thus, there was no sign of injuries (besides one woman who had a boot on her face), and thus no physical evidence of rape, and the case would run aground by a system that ignores the Supreme Courts own directives on rape, which mention that inquiries should be done on accusation alone and the burden of proving innocence falls on the accused.

A 12 year old girl who was allegedly raped by the member of the elite anti-Maoist C60 group of Maharashtra, in the village of Paverval on the 4^th of March, 2009, the alleged rapist himself, claims with strong conviction, that it’s all Maoist propaganda mischief.

In Narayanpatna block of Orissa, in the village of Taladekapadu, on the 19^th of April, 2011, a 14 year old girl was allegedly gang-raped by four security personnel, yet without making her medical report public, the Crime Branch claims the entire allegation is false. The girl’s family belong to the Kondh tribe who have been criminalized in a district that has seen mass arrests, police firings into crowds, mass abductions and tortures, and the burning of villages, and to them, the idea of approaching the judicial system itself is oppressive.

And the cases like hers are those that never receive the kind of attention that the Soni Sodi case has, where a woman stood up for her rights, who approached the media that would listen to her, who repeatedly spoke about the torture faced by her family by both the state and the Maoists, and would yet be condemned by the system, while those who defend human rights watch helplessly.

The State As A Bystander

A woman attacked with acid by a man in the middle of the market while a crowd watches without doing anything can be described akin to Soni Sodi being brutally tortured as the judiciary, the press, the senior police officials, larger civil society and the general public sit quietly.

A group of committed activists, a dissident media and international human rights organizations have been repeatedly bringing her case to the public eye, yet as a matter of fact, have failed to prevent her torture.

Bystanders, and the silent consent of the general public plays its role in perpetrating human rights violations. If a woman is being tortured, first it’s veracity is questioned, then when it is confirmed, she is dehumanised with the tag ‘Naxalite supporter’ so people can continue to be bystanders, and turn the pages over the suffering of a fellow human being. When it comes to rape, a victim is dressed indecently, not that men need to keep their dicks in their pants. When it comes to rape accusations against the police, the very lackadaisical and haphazard manner of the investigation, the complete lack of interest shown in even lodging FIRs, doesn’t entertain any seriousness of the crime and only manifests the complete bias of the police who are convinced that all accusations against their own, is malicious propaganda meant to ‘demoralize’ their ranks.

Bystanders, when there are many of them, will always pass on the responsibility of doing something when there are others in the crowd. Responsibility is diffused. Responsibility is further diffused, when the crowd looks around and notices no one is doing anything. Chief Ministers are quiet. Home Ministers are saying a rape victim was habitual about sex. The Highest Court of the land, sends a woman back to her torturers, to ensure procedure. But when a police official suspected of torture is awarded by the president of the nation, what kind of message does it give to the police?

The police however have been convinced that the Maoists have been using the laws of the land, the courts and Writ Petitio, to hamper their counterinsurgency efforts. And counterinsurgency is completely incompatible with human rights – what are human rights violations to one, are standard operating procedures to those in uniform.

State of Anomie

Psychologist Ervin Staub quotes in The Origins and Prevention of Genocide, Mass Killing, and Other Collective Violence, that ‘Dominant groups usually develop “‘hierarchy legitimizing myths” or legitimizing ideologies that justify subordinating other groups. They often see themselves as superior and deserving of their status due to their race, religion, intelligence, hard work, worldview, or other characteristics. Groups also embrace ideologies of development and visions of economic progress, identifying the victim group as standing in the way.’

And Jon Conroy quotes him extensively in Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People, The Dynamics of Torture, where Staub studied mass human rights violations in Argentina during the military Junta, where “….over time, ‘the many kinds of victims made it difficult [for the perpetrators] to differentiate between more or less worthy human beings. It became acceptable to torture and murder teenage girls, nuns and pregnant women. Learning by doing stifled the torturer’s feelings of empathy and concern.’ Furthermore, the Argentine torturers could see that their actions were supported by the larger society. Their superior officers signed release forms for kidnappings, relieving the lower orders from responsibility for the acts they carried out. The judiciary commonly accepted the military’s versions of events. The press – threatened by prison terms for demeaning or subverting the military – largely accepted censorship and did not report on disappearances. Doctors were present in interrogation rooms…….The middle class, Staub says, was pleased by the junta’s economic policy and was unmoved by the repression that accompanied it.”

A considerable difference in India would be: the mainstream media censors itself not out of fear but for reasons it knows best.  The middle class, especially, is happier to be engaging with the indigenous adivasis as exhibitions in state-sponsered fairs. Doctors in Chhattisgarh had botched two medical reports on Soni Sodi.

In India, ‘development’, ‘economic progress’, have become the legitimate myths, justifications, war cries; the apathy, for the killing of the illegitimate children of the Republic.

That every day, four people are invisibly tortured to death in police custody reflects upon the society we are becoming, and the apathy that emanates from it, is the gasoline that falls into the tinderbox that is a lawless society holding a gun to its head, a neurotic world of violence where people kill each other for a packet of biscuits, or uncontrolable rage, or where the Border Security Force strips a man and beats him brutally and videographs it, as every institution of authority has broken down, where the new deities of profit, growth, development have destroyed the needs of human touch and conscience: where compassion, empathy, and mercy were quietly executed in some forest declared as a Disturbed Area or a ‘liberated zone.’

Jai Bhim Comrade: Where The Republic Still Lives

A teenage boy records a scene from documentary film Jai Bhim Comrade that was shown on the 25th of January, 2012, at Ramabai Nagar, where on the 11th of July, 1997, 11 people were killed in police firing.

The family of Namdeo Surwade who died of his injuries a few years after the firing.

This article appears in Daily News Analysis on the 2nd of February, 2012

Early on the morning of 11^th July, 1997 at the Ramabai Nagar in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, a woman saw a garland of slippers on the statue of iconic leader B.R. Ambedkar. Within a few hours angry Dalits had gathered on the highway to protest against the desecration.

By 7:30 am, a police van would stop 450 meters away from the protesters, disembark and immediately start firing. They’d fire over 50 rounds within twenty minutes into small lanes and by-ways and into people’s homes – into the homes of people who were not even protesting.

They killed ten people.

Young Mangesh Shivsharan was shot in his head, right in front of Namdeo Surwade who was shot on his shoulder.

‘The boy’s brains were all over my father’ said Manoj about his father Namdeo Surwade, a handcart puller who could never work a day after the injury and died a few years later, becoming the eleventh victim.

But there was another casualty of the killings at Ramabai Nagar.

Vilas Ghogre, Dalit poet and singer, committed suicide horrified by what he saw at Ramabai and the realization ‘that this country is not worth fighting for anymore’ as witnessed by his friend, singer Sambhaji Bhagat in Anand Patwardhan’s new film Jai Bhim Comrade, screened at Ramabai Nagar on the eve of the nation’s 63^rd year as a Republic.

For three and a half hours, over fifteen hundred people saw the film on a makeshift screen, many standing through its entire duration. The film details not just the life of Vilas Ghogre and the police firing but its aftermath – the movement for justice that led to the police officer who ordered the firing to spend less than a week in ‘hospital’ (not jail), before being let off on bail by the High Court. It tells other stories – the martyrdom of a young Dalit Panther Bhagwat Jadhav, killed by the Shiv Sena at a protest rally in 1974; the incisive and fiery oratory of Panther leader Bhai Sangare that possibly led to his martyrdom in 1999; the Khairlanji massacre and continuing atrocities in the countryside. It examines the assault on the Constitution and the slow appropriation of radical Dalit leaders into mainstream Congress or hardcore rightwing politics while also critically examining the role of the left in dealing with caste.

Highlighting precarious livelihoods, it paints intimate family portraits of ordinary Dalits across Mumbai and Maharashtra and all this intersects seamlessly with the central role of music in not just the film but in the Dalit politics of resistance.  Protest songs sung in every chawl, basti and galli  lead us to the newest generation of cultural activists/musicians such as the Kabir Kala Manch, whose songs are viewed as such a threat by the State, that they’re branded as Naxalites and forced to go underground.

The religious mother of the enigmatic singer Sheetal Sathe of the Kabir Kala Manch, would say, ‘At every performance my children always assured me that they’d never take up arms, that they’d change the world only through song and drum.’

Yet cultural and social revolution is a threat in the same country where freedom of speech and expression is a privilege.

At Ramabai, young teenagers with moist eyes watched the screen quietly, listening to a spirited widow describe how her husband’s hands were slashed by upper caste men, and how he bled to death while the police refused to take their statement. The proud woman had saved Rs.5 and Rs.10 a day over the years to buy herself land and educate her children. When the filmmaker asks her how she kept up her spirit, she replies: ‘I can’t afford to lose. What’ll happen to my children if I lose?’

When a group of boys were asked what was their favourite part of the three and a half hour film, they replied, in unison: ‘The songs of the Kabir Kala Manch.’

No wonder the state views them as a threat.  Resistance and symbols of resistance need to be wiped out like Pochiram Kamble who was killed for uttering the words ‘Jai Bhim’. Yet the film that documents the recent decades of caste oppression and it’s growing denial, has found that symbols of joy, hope, perseverance and resistance, always survive, irrespective of thousands of years of oppression.

Another Dalit leader Ashok Saraswat’s speech in the film drew laughter from the crowd at Ramabai: ‘Unfortunately we gave up 330 million gods but made Ambedkar into a god. We wear Babasaheb Ambedkar’s photo around our neck. On waking up, we say “Jai Bhim”. Before sleeping, it’s “Jai Bhim” and when having a little drink, it’s Jai Bhim!”

“Listen people! God is not in temples or idols. God is found through service to the poor.  Gadge Baba would ask – ‘Is Ganapati a god ?’

‘Yes, Baba!’

‘Who made Ganapati?’

‘A potter did.’

‘So tell me who is Ganapati’s father?’

‘The crowd wouldn’t answer.’

‘Ashamed to say it?’

“Then softly they’d say: ‘Ganapati’s father is the potter.’”

The crowd of Ramabai, especially the young, laughed out loud but none of them found the scenes of puerile racism from the middle and upper middle classes very funny.

The filmmaker interviews a young student from Jai Hind college who says, ‘Dalit issue frankly is definitely ameliorated over the past half a decade or so.’ A sentiment that is not only echoed in the mainstream media that is beginning to cite Dalit neo-liberalism as a way forward, yet those comments are put in sharp contrast to the National Crime Records Bureau that mentions ‘Every day three Dalits are raped and two killed’ and the conviction rate under the Prevention of Atrocity Act is a mere 1%.

In Beed district of Maharashtra, a young woman was raped by upper caste men, and her entire family was beaten for confronting the attackers. An old man from the same family begins to speak:  ‘We are responsible for this.  We never got organized or converted to another religion. We failed to do that. Had we done it we could have mentally discarded caste and made others understand we are humans. We Mangs bear the brunt of injustice.’

‘But those who converted to Buddhism also face atrocities.’ says the filmmaker.

‘Yes in some places it happens even to Buddhists. But they have the strength to retaliate.  We lack that strength. That’s the point.’

At that point, the crowd at Ramabai Nagar, was moved to cheers and applause.