[Reader-list] fourth posting

[lalit batra]

A ‘Posh’ Resettlement Colony

In a situation of ever decreasing norms for the poor in the city, Gautam
Puri, Molarband is considered by many as the ‘posh’ among the resettlement
colonies that have sprung up on the periphery of Delhi in the past five
years or so. On closer scrutiny, it appears that the only reason it
deserves this dubious title is its proximity to NH-2. Otherwise, it
presents a more or less familiar sight of depravation and lingering
hopelessness that many such resettlements sites exhibit. 

Gautampuri was established in the winter of 1999. The first batch of
people to have been resettled here were jhuggie dwellers from Gautam Nagar
(behind AIMMS) area. For months they had to live in makeshift tents of
chatai and plastic as plots were not allotted to them. The only source of
water was tankers, which were, of course, very irregular and insufficient.
Hunting for drinking water in the nearby areas was in itself a full-time
activity. Paradoxically, there were days when these thousands of people
used to find themselves surrounded by water on all sides. These were the
days when the villagers of the nearby Ali Gaon, enraged over the hordes of
Bihari jhuggiewalas becoming their neighbours, used to flood the ground
where the ‘resettlers’ had pitched their tents. Over the years the
villagers came to terms with the presence of jhuggiewalas in their
vicinity but the tension still resurfaces sometimes. This in fact is a
narrative that has resonance in other parts of the Outer Delhi as well
with conflicts between slumdwellers and villagers becoming frequent.

Tankers remained the only source of water supply in Gautam Puri for quite
some time. The people here shudder when they remember those endless hours
they used to spend in queues fighting with and shouting at other people.
Slowly, pipelines were laid, hydrants installed, tanks put up. The
situation, as far as availability of water goes, eased a lot. But many of
the problems still persist. The hydrants are installed along the main
lanes. So those living inside have problem accessing water while those
living in corner plots claim greater right over it. This has created a
sort of divide between anderwale and konewale. 

There are people who have installed their private shallow hand pumps. But
the quality of groundwater is very bad and this water can’t be normally
used for purposes other than washing. But when there is no water for more
than a day, which happens quite frequently as water supply is dependent on
electricity supply which is erratic, to say the least, people have to use
this water for even drinking purposes. Water borne diseases, thus, are
quite common. There are times when water doesn’t come for even 3-4 days.
Then obviously hand pumps are not able to meet everybody’s needs. In such
a situation the people have to relive the experience of the year 2000 when
they had to wait endlessly in front of the tanker to fetch even drinking
water. Skirmishes between individuals and groups for accessing water are
an everyday occurrence. Sometimes there are serious fights also which
might result in somebody killing someone as has happened a couple of times
in the past few years. 

As far as group fights go, these happen mostly along caste or mohalla /
block lines. All the people I talked to in Gautam Puri belonged to upper
or middle castes. They complain of ‘scheduled caste people’ being
quarrelsome and noisy on the taps. One could sense that dalits, especially
Balmikis, are relatively more organised or ‘networked’ than other caste
groupings in the basti, which made upper and middle castes wary of them.
Although the line between caste and mohalla groupings get blurred
sometimes, especially in the case of Balmikis who seem to have a sort of
pan-basti network; mohalla groupings definitely have a logic of their own
as their basis lies in uneven distribution of civic services and
proximity. In situations of acute water crises, it is the mohalla/ block
identity that seems to dominate.


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