Tavleen Singh
Till last week I had never met Milind Deora even though I have lived in his constituency of Mumbai (South) for nearly 15 years. Our paths never crossed somehow and if we met last week it was only because we happened to be on the same TV show. A special programme on the general election that NDTV-Profit’s Shivnath Thukral was recording in a grubby studio in Parel. Milind’s new challenger, Meera Sanyal, was there too. She has abandoned a successful career as a banker for the uncertainty of politics because she was deeply affected by official incompetence during and after the terrorist attack on Mumbai. She is contesting against Milind as an independent candidate.
In the grubby studio we talked of high ideals and fine things like how India can achieve her dream of becoming a developed country by 2050. Milind was full of what he had achieved in his five years as an MP. I am not going to list his ‘achievements’ because if you read the newspapers you would have seen them in the glitzy advertisements his campaign is putting out. He seemed confident of winning a second term even if his constituency has been expanded to include some areas in which the Shiv Sena is strong. He is a personable young man, Milind, but talks in the smug tones of politicians from an older era. He did not appear to believe that either he or his party could do more than they already have for the people of India.
If this were true then India would not be among the poorest countries in the world with social indicators that place us lower than sub-Saharan Africa’s war-ravaged countries when it comes to infant mortality rates, malnutrition among children, basic education and healthcare. This is without mentioning the rickety state of our transport systems and public services. If any political party can be directly blamed for this appalling state of affairs it is Congress because it has been in power in Delhi for most of our years as a democracy. I would have been happier to listen to Milind talk of his ‘achievements’ if he had set them against the backdrop of India’s failures to provide her people with their most basic needs. These thoughts were going through my mind as I walked my dog, Julie, in the squalid streets of South Mumbai the morning after the show. I looked at the broken, stained pavements, the dusty foliage and the abandoned pipes and cables that lie everywhere making the most exclusive area of the city look like a construction site. Does Milind Deora ever walk in his constituency? A
As I was thinking these things and trying not to inhale the nauseating stench of rotting garbage and urine, I ran into one of my street pals, Amit, on whose behalf I had once sought Milind’s help through a friend. Amit was born on a pavement in South Mumbai and now brings up a family on the pavement outside the building in which I live. He has two daughters, Rageshwari and Mekhala, whom I am trying to educate, a wife called Lakshmi and a small son. Amit’s real name is Hamid and when I tried to enrol him in the Goodwill driving school last year, to teach him a skill, I found that he could not be enrolled unless he could prove that he was an Indian citizen. It was for this that I sought a letter from his MP only to find that it was no use because the driving school could not enroll him without more substantial proof. ‘‘He is a Muslim,’’ they said politely, ‘‘and how do we know that he isn’t Bangladeshi? How do we know he isn’t a terrorist?’’
So Amit’s dream of driving a taxi ended. I got him a job as a peon but it did not last long. He was paid Rs 3,000 a month for long hours of work and this much he earns anyway through selling fish and helping the police take dead bodies out of the ocean. On this particular morning Amit looked distraught. His children clung to him and there was no sign of his wife. ‘‘The police have locked her up,’’ he said simply, ‘‘because when the municipality-wallahs came and took away our things, she tried to resist. I have to go this morning to Cuffe Parade chowki and see if they will release her. But it’s bad for the girls for this to happen because it disrupts their school.’’ Through the good offices of the Pavement Club’s Mr Lawrence I am trying to get the girls to attend school regularly, but when the municipality seizes the family’s meagre belongings they take away their uniforms as well.
Amit and his family are not alone. In the constituency of Milind Deora I know thousands of street people who have nowhere to go but are harassed on a daily basis by municipal officials who tell them they have to leave. If Milind Deora were genuinely concerned about ‘the poorest of the poor’ then one of his priorities would have been to build low-cost housing that South Mumbai’s pavement dwellers could afford to rent. It is the absence of such housing that causes more than half the citizens of Mumbai to live in unauthorized slums. Rent for a hovel in one of these slums is a minimum of Rs 1,500 a month. People like Amit cannot afford this much but if the municipality of Mumbai had night shelters or low-cost accommodation available for rent he would be happy to give his family a roof over their heads. When the rains come he builds a shack by the sea but even then there is the constant fear that the municipality will come and break it down and confiscate the family’s possessions.
If the state cannot look after its weakest, most vulnerable citizens the least it should do is stop harassing them when they try to fend for themselves. In the time I have lived in Milind Deora’s constituency I have watched the livelihood of thousands of Marine Drive’s hawkers destroyed by the municipality. Overnight they were thrown out and told to find somewhere else to go. Where was their MP when this happened? If Milind were a new kind of politician, the kind that his leader Rahul Gandhi seeks to be, he would find thousands of Kalawatis to help in South Mumbai. If young politicians cannot see that helping end India’s shameful poverty is the most important thing they can do, then the future looks very, very bleak. THE SENTINEL
Till last week I had never met Milind Deora even though I have lived in his constituency of Mumbai (South) for nearly 15 years. Our paths never crossed somehow and if we met last week it was only because we happened to be on the same TV show. A special programme on the general election that NDTV-Profit’s Shivnath Thukral was recording in a grubby studio in Parel. Milind’s new challenger, Meera Sanyal, was there too. She has abandoned a successful career as a banker for the uncertainty of politics because she was deeply affected by official incompetence during and after the terrorist attack on Mumbai. She is contesting against Milind as an independent candidate.
In the grubby studio we talked of high ideals and fine things like how India can achieve her dream of becoming a developed country by 2050. Milind was full of what he had achieved in his five years as an MP. I am not going to list his ‘achievements’ because if you read the newspapers you would have seen them in the glitzy advertisements his campaign is putting out. He seemed confident of winning a second term even if his constituency has been expanded to include some areas in which the Shiv Sena is strong. He is a personable young man, Milind, but talks in the smug tones of politicians from an older era. He did not appear to believe that either he or his party could do more than they already have for the people of India.
If this were true then India would not be among the poorest countries in the world with social indicators that place us lower than sub-Saharan Africa’s war-ravaged countries when it comes to infant mortality rates, malnutrition among children, basic education and healthcare. This is without mentioning the rickety state of our transport systems and public services. If any political party can be directly blamed for this appalling state of affairs it is Congress because it has been in power in Delhi for most of our years as a democracy. I would have been happier to listen to Milind talk of his ‘achievements’ if he had set them against the backdrop of India’s failures to provide her people with their most basic needs. These thoughts were going through my mind as I walked my dog, Julie, in the squalid streets of South Mumbai the morning after the show. I looked at the broken, stained pavements, the dusty foliage and the abandoned pipes and cables that lie everywhere making the most exclusive area of the city look like a construction site. Does Milind Deora ever walk in his constituency? A
As I was thinking these things and trying not to inhale the nauseating stench of rotting garbage and urine, I ran into one of my street pals, Amit, on whose behalf I had once sought Milind’s help through a friend. Amit was born on a pavement in South Mumbai and now brings up a family on the pavement outside the building in which I live. He has two daughters, Rageshwari and Mekhala, whom I am trying to educate, a wife called Lakshmi and a small son. Amit’s real name is Hamid and when I tried to enrol him in the Goodwill driving school last year, to teach him a skill, I found that he could not be enrolled unless he could prove that he was an Indian citizen. It was for this that I sought a letter from his MP only to find that it was no use because the driving school could not enroll him without more substantial proof. ‘‘He is a Muslim,’’ they said politely, ‘‘and how do we know that he isn’t Bangladeshi? How do we know he isn’t a terrorist?’’
So Amit’s dream of driving a taxi ended. I got him a job as a peon but it did not last long. He was paid Rs 3,000 a month for long hours of work and this much he earns anyway through selling fish and helping the police take dead bodies out of the ocean. On this particular morning Amit looked distraught. His children clung to him and there was no sign of his wife. ‘‘The police have locked her up,’’ he said simply, ‘‘because when the municipality-wallahs came and took away our things, she tried to resist. I have to go this morning to Cuffe Parade chowki and see if they will release her. But it’s bad for the girls for this to happen because it disrupts their school.’’ Through the good offices of the Pavement Club’s Mr Lawrence I am trying to get the girls to attend school regularly, but when the municipality seizes the family’s meagre belongings they take away their uniforms as well.
Amit and his family are not alone. In the constituency of Milind Deora I know thousands of street people who have nowhere to go but are harassed on a daily basis by municipal officials who tell them they have to leave. If Milind Deora were genuinely concerned about ‘the poorest of the poor’ then one of his priorities would have been to build low-cost housing that South Mumbai’s pavement dwellers could afford to rent. It is the absence of such housing that causes more than half the citizens of Mumbai to live in unauthorized slums. Rent for a hovel in one of these slums is a minimum of Rs 1,500 a month. People like Amit cannot afford this much but if the municipality of Mumbai had night shelters or low-cost accommodation available for rent he would be happy to give his family a roof over their heads. When the rains come he builds a shack by the sea but even then there is the constant fear that the municipality will come and break it down and confiscate the family’s possessions.
If the state cannot look after its weakest, most vulnerable citizens the least it should do is stop harassing them when they try to fend for themselves. In the time I have lived in Milind Deora’s constituency I have watched the livelihood of thousands of Marine Drive’s hawkers destroyed by the municipality. Overnight they were thrown out and told to find somewhere else to go. Where was their MP when this happened? If Milind were a new kind of politician, the kind that his leader Rahul Gandhi seeks to be, he would find thousands of Kalawatis to help in South Mumbai. If young politicians cannot see that helping end India’s shameful poverty is the most important thing they can do, then the future looks very, very bleak. THE SENTINEL
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