[Reader-list] Nangla Machi

[Anand Vivek Taneja]

Reading all these accounts of what happened yesterday in Nangla Machi/Majhi
yesterday reminds me of a few months ago, when I witnessed the demolitions
around the Jama Masjid.

What shocked me then was the overwhelming presence of the police in heavy
riot gear. They had, in an extremely clinical fashion, surrounded the whole
place. The areas to be demolished were under siege. No one could escape. Or
even think of any protest, beyond tears and gesticulation, in the face of
such overwhelming force. People were still busy dismantling asbestos
roofing, and whatever else could be salvaged and crated away, when they were
forcibly made to move, as the bulldozers began their work, a few hours
before the verbal assurances of the night before.

Many people pointed at their electricity meters, visible as the walls
collapsed. We had legal electricity connections, we had licenses, we used to
pay the MCD rent. All except one man saying it quietly, flatly. The one man
weeping and cursing and shouting; railing at the policeman using the polite
phrase 'Dukandar Bhaiyon' over the megaphone, once the camera crews came in.


I have an image from that day that haunts me, which seems to me to be a
leitmotif of the loss and the displacement invisiblised in the brutal
process of transforming a 'Walled City to a World City', as the TOI campaign
goes.
The image is here
http://synchroni-cities.blogspot.com/2006/03/leitmotif.html
And this is the link to the TOI campaign's website (which, especially after
this, almost physically sickens me)
http://chalodilli.indiatimes.com/

I have been aware of Nangla Majhi for a few years now, from when I was doing
research on the Purana Qila. It turned out that many of the Archaeolical
Survey's Class 4(?) employees, who lived inside the Qila till the early
eighties were forced to leave, and found shelter in Nangla Majhi. Workers
from the zoo used to live in the illegal Chidiya Ghar Wala Colony, between
the railway tracks and the  east boundary of the zoo, completely invisible .
All the stories I heard about NM were always stories of precarity - about
how there were almost constant attempts to demolish the colony and remove
people, but how Tajdar Babar's interventions always saved them.  For me she
became an almost mythic figure, someone who fought for 'her people', and
stemmed the tide of the city's transformation.

I guess it's a sign of the tectonic shifts Delhi is undergoing that the
'populist' tactics of an old style politican whick kept NM and other,
similar spaces relatively secure for over two decades no longer work.

Anand




On 3/30/06, Rana Dasgupta <eye at ranadasgupta.com> wrote:
>
> quick description of my time there yesterday:
>
> first thing one saw were hundreds and hundreds of police who had come
> prepared as if for war - or perhaps to intimidate.  a row of riot
> control trucks was parked in front of the entrance, and all the cops had
> batons, masks and shields.  the first day's demolition work had
> finished, and the two JCBs were parked ceremonially either side of the
> entrance.  a stream of people were coming out of the area carrying
> boxes, cases, chairs etc.  there were about 2O trucks parked around
> loaded up with all these things and people were sitting outside with all
> their belongings.  inside the whole place was taken over by the police
> who were standing around and making sure people moved.  one day's work
> had done a lot - many of the houses were totally destroyed and just a
> pile of bricks, and the streets were completely blocked with these piles
> as high as a man, so everyone who was coming out carrying all their
> stuff had to climb over them.
>
> the whole place was strangely quiet considering the number of people and
> the drama of what had happened.  people were thinking about future
> constructions and were working to rescue materials from the rubble -
> electric wiring, corrugated iron, steel beams, etc.  the people i spoke
> to had no idea where they would go and had no option but to stay there
> as long as it was viable, but there were others who clearly had plans or
> options and had emptied their houses and left.  there was that strange
> incredulity of destruction: everyone wanted to show me what had happened
> to their houses and was light-headed with it, half laughing half
> furious.  "tell people," they said, "because no one else will believe
> it.  it can only happen here."  a boy took me into his bedroom which now
> had no roof or second floor: he had decorated the window frames and door
> frame with pink paper cut into patterns which was now incongruous given
> the pile of bricks and plaster in the middle.  a young man came along
> with me and showed me many places; he worked as a guard at the WHO, just
> down the street. when people saw me with a camera they directed me down
> streets where they thought i might get dramatic shots.  "vahan pe pura
> tora!"
>
> i spoke to a group of middle-aged men who were sick with everything that
> was happening, and the precariousness they were in.  they didn't know
> how long they would be there, or how bad conditions would get before
> they left, or what would happen afterwards.  many people said they could
> neither eat nor drink in this destruction, and i saw a lot of people
> trying to excavate water taps that had been buried.  in one house a
> woman was cooking dal and the family was crouched around her: it was a
> strangely normal scene.
>
> obviously a lot of debate was happening, and information circulating.
> there were rumours that VP Singh would turn up later.  the cops were
> part of this: they had little to do except just be there, so they sat
> and chatted with everyone.
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--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste
good with ketchup.
(with apologies to Dilbert)
http://www.synchroni-cities.blogspot.com/

Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the
past who is firmly convinced that without a sense of humour you're basically
pretty f***ed anyway.
(with apologies to Walter Benjamin)
http://www.chapatimystery.com/
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