From a Delhi jhuggi : Politicians want to remove poor people, not poverty

New Delhi: At the little BJP office tucked away on the first floor of a crowded market in Majnu ka Tilla there’s a palpable sense of anticipation. The party official, a local businessman with hennaed hair, is expansive and hostly. “Sit, sit,” he tells anyone who comes pointing to the white gaddi spread out across the room. And he offers pre-made tea in little paper cups with Narendra Modi’s face on them. Sushil Mullick, a middle aged man with graying stubble has come to meet the local BJP bosses along with a few others from his neighbourhood. The BJP leader is trying to explain to Mullick how Modi-ji will alleviate poverty. As for the local candidate Harsh Vardhan, he is an unassuming man, a family man who will talk to you if you stop him on the street. “We want a lifelong relationship,” says the BJP man. “I am right here. I own four shops here. I am not going anywhere. You can always find me.” [caption id=“attachment_1477467” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A jhuggi in Delhi. Sandip Roy/ Firstpost[/caption] “But will you do anything for me, bada bhai?” says Mullick. “Everyone says we will be close to you before the elections. Noone comes back afterwards.” Mullick is among the Metro dispossessed of the city. When the city took over their land they were the unfortunate ones who did not have the proper proof of residence though they had lived there for years. He says for 12 or 13 years he and his neighbours have tried to make a home on a sliver of land in Majnu ka Tila sandwiched between a busy road and a fetid nullah. The little land they have for their jhuggi is being steadily encroached by scores of rickshaws which use it as a garage dump and pay the local police a monthly for the convenience. New giant tower buildings are coming up on the street. In their shadow is a fight between the have-nots and the even more have-nots over a sliver of land. When the rickshaws are all garaged there’s no room to even carry a bucket of water between them. There are several hundred people eking out an existence in little huts patched together with tarp and tent which are tidy and clean inside. But pigs waddle outside and flies buzz angrily. By dusk it will be swarming with mosquitos. The residents have built a small open-air temple in the middle but the local thekedars have dumped rubbish including an old bathtub right next to it. Mullick is the pradhan and he says he has run for pillar to post for years trying to regularise their colony, or at least get the rickshaw garage moved. He worries that the children will get killed because of the traffic down the road at night. There have already been multiple accidents. “We are working people. We pull rickshaws, shine shoes, do mazdoori. We don’t want money,” says Mullick. “We just want proper sewers, a water tank and safer roads.” Right now the residents use the neighbouring scrub as a latrine. They pay Rs 5 to bathe at the gurdwara. At night the women and children are forced to use the roads. Drunk drivers shine headlights on them. The children bring water from about a kilometer away. The problem of people stuck in limbo land like them is the problem of permanent addresses in India. Everything needs a permanent address. To establish a permanent address is a sort of Catch-22 problem. Mullick says he has got electricity but the wires keep getting cut. When he tries to get ration cards they ask for electric bills. “Where will we get a bill when we get no electricity?” he asks. “If we had real houses, we would have real power.” They just watch bitterly as other jhuggis turn pucca. But there are 400-500 voters in the area though there is some confusion about the voter ID cards because they don’t all have proper addresses and have not been certified by an MLA. Mullick says he does not understand it all. “We are angootha chhaap people, illiterate,” he says. But he knows that every political season, the parties come calling. “The Congress says we will give you water, sewers,” says Mullick. “The BJP wallahs said we will build you houses. The 49 days of AAP sarkar made no difference either. We will go with whoever can help us. Before the elections they come to these slums. They give out blankets. Even the AAP wallahs were giving out clothes. But nothing changes.” He says this time around the BJP has been reaching out to them. They invited them to meet and said help gather your voters for us and if you are close to us we will help you. “People just say drink tea, drink coffee but then they forget us. They said they will remove poverty but everyone just wants to remove poor people,” says Dharamveer who also lives here. “There is room for garbage and rubbish but not for working people.” Mullick shrugs and says he goes to whoever wants to listen to him but without much hope. However he says he and his people are not going anywhere. “Sarkars come and go but we will be right here,” he says. As journalists we keep pontificating about whether the BJP vote is really a Modi vote, a national vote. But in this jhuggi the issues are deeply local, all about subsistence not ideology.The BIP is counting on the Modi wave in these parts to help Dr. Harsh Vardhan here. But Vinod who polishes shoes for living has his hopes on a different wave of older provenance. “Padey hai Ganga kinarey, kabhi na kabhi toh laher aayega, (We are lying on the banks of the Ganga. Some day the wave will come),” he says with a half-smile.