[Urbanstudy] Re: Nangla Machi

[Sanjay Srivastava]

This is a response to Diya and Jibesh.

Dear Diya,
You ask why NM is an exception in terms of people not getting land (though I 
hope this proves to be wrong). Frankly, it isn't clear why, though perhaps it
might be that the High Court and other authorities feel that Yamuna-related
land  is so 'valuable' that whoever has 'encroached' upon it, deserves no
mercy. The river itself has become an semi-religious entity superior to the
humans rather than the both being a part of the urban cultural and political
economy. Of course, there is also the mass of influential 'public' opinion that
gathers around a mystical environmentalism within which the urban poor, at the
same time that they service the well-off are also hived off from their lives in
favour of a 'clean environment'.

Secondly, the land at NM is owned by a number of different agencies, or, at
least, more than one will be held financially liable if any resettlement plan
does come through. These have carried out their own surveys to see how many
have settled on their patch of land and hence what their liability might be.
Quite clearly, they would be quite happy if no resettlement plan was ever to
come through. While on the hand the concretness of the state is manifest in
ideas of statutory bodies and surveys (which will lead to specific results),
just as often the multiplicity of state procedures  and authorities can be the
black-hole where human aspirations disappear. The irony is that those who stand
to be most discriminated by the state often have the most (and are forced to
have the most) intense relationship with it.

There are also rumours (and very much rumours) about the role of local
politicians in all this.

I don't know if any of the above is explanation for might happen to those still
there are Nangla, but perhaps others have different points of view.

Regards,
Sanjay

Dear Jibesh,

The question of 'distance' is an important one, and not one that can be  easily
set apart by itself. Of course, it is true that in many senses I am, indeed,
distanced from the lives of those in Nangla. Perhaps similar to those others
like me who have not had to see their houses and shops being demolished. I
certainly don't wish to (and didn't in my earlier message) wish to express my
own sense of 'anguish' and 'helplessness' as this can too easily position an
outsider as the one as the suffering one. There is enough of anthropological
and sociological empathy with the suffering subject around, and after a point,
it becomes self-serving. To suffer philosophically doesn't hurt nearly as much
as to suffer historically (or, 'actually').

However, the question remains, how to, write from a position of relative
privilege about those who may not be thus positioned. This, surely has been the
 situation in which virtually all Indian social scientists find themselves,
whether articulated or not. And, speaking for myself, I have certainly learnt
from the writings of those who have not themselves been the subjects of
communal violence, the Union Carbide disaster, gender violence,
Emergency-related violence etc.

As for how 'administrative and state violence is lived', it should be clear that
my account is always going to be partial (and to some extent 'fictional', ie.
constructed out of fragments). But perhaps I share that with many others. I
certainly have no sense that what I might have to say is going to be a 'better'
one than some other. It definitely can not reproduce embodied suffering. That's
the proper limitation of all such work, one that can be undone by someone else
working in a different context.

As should be clear from above, I am very wary of stating that I am ever going to
be able to 'properly' represent violence experienced by others; that would only
trivialise what has actually happened at Nangla. However, given these
limitations, what can one do but work out some secon-hand strategy ( at least
for myself) of entanglement? An example, as inadequate as it may be. For the
past 3-4 months I've been involved in the case of an elderly man, a resident of
Nangla, who one afternoon, simply disappeared. He appears to have been very
active in mediating between the Nangla people and, among others, the police.
And, and as far the Nangla people are concerned, he was quite fearless in his
dealings with the the latter. Many seem to think that he was kidnapped by the
police, and, since November 2005 nothing has been heard of him. To cut a long
story short, since then, a group of Nangla people and myself have met and
visited police stations, Patiala House (courthouse), police officers (ACPs,
SIs, ASIs, constables), lawyers etc. Eventually, this led to the filing of a
Right to Information (RTI) petitition, after further visits to the RTI office,
the police, etc etc. Now that Nangla is to be scattered, all this will probably
come to nothing, since residents may not be able to organise over the issue,
living in different parts of the city, or having to leave it altogether.
Unfortunately, I can only narrate the complex violence of the state, through
trying to focus on its different sites (so what is happening at Nangla is also,
I feel, linked to urban 'movements' such as the Delhi govt. sponsored
'Bhagidari'). So, my account (of the state, violence, whatever), is really an
attempt at distancing only in the most literal sense of the term: how does one
understand urban reality as a consequence of a number of related contexts,
since actual violence is always born out of a wider and connected social
context. And finally, I think that the state is not 'out there', we are the
state. And if we have sense of 'state violence', we also have some sense of our
own those proclivities,attitudes, and desires. That's one of the ways I hope to
write about 'state violence', as different from the embodied violence
experienced by those at Nangla. The two stories, as I am sure you recognise,
can't be the same, though hopefully they will not be seen as mutually
exclusive, or, antagonistic.

Best Wishes,
Sanjay