[Reader-list] what sinks will resurface as ghost of yesterday

[Sabir Haque]

Research Topic: "Developments on the Eastern Banks of Yamuna - its future implications"
 
Last time we surfaced, we carried a posting titled "IT SANK BY 8 inches - is it the beginning of the end?"
 
As vivek would like us to believe, we also sank for 2 months to be precise along with the posting. Well, I would like to call our new posting as "what sinks will resurface as ghost of yesterday". I would be equally pleased to make you believe that we went underground and tried operating a sting operation on the Commissioner planning of DDA and the main pracharak of Akshardham temple trust to find out the dirty truth, which thank 'amar' (of tehelka notoriety) didn't really work out. 
 
And now coming to the brass text, we managed to unearthen some really cool photographs which will show of how things have changed on the landscape of Eastern banks of yamuna. And was working on a website to show you the same.(link at the end of the posting)
 
>From the farmers of Eastern banks of yamuna, where akshardham stands proudly today, we got the photographs depicting the ravages done by our own police forces, of how they destroyed the standing crops of 100 and more farmers on a single day, it will definitely put kar saveks to shame. And it didn't even raise much dust to alarm the national media but enough to hide the hideous files which DDA today's fears to disclose. 
 
To lead this posting for a more focused path, we will unravel the following questions to raise more questions in the following headings - 
 
-> What happenned that day which we keep constantly referring to?
-> How did Akshardham manage to grab the odd 58 acres of land with or without any permission?
-> What was the role of the DDA and in the string of illegalities what is their present stand?
-> Why are we trying to make you believe that akshardham besides going to be a major cultural attraction for delhi is harmful to us? Is there something wrong with us or with akshardham?
-> Relate the above developments happenning on the Eastern banks of Yamuna to the Asiad games (1980s), when the western banks were developed? See! the connection to commonwealth games village, which is coming up on the eastern banks of Yamuna. 
 

WHAT HAPPENNED THAT DAY?
 
Its dated 2nd Nov, 2002. There is strange silence in the air on the eastern banks of yamuna, Mahavir just like he always does, reaches his farm early in the morning and loads his tractor with fresh vegetables and gets ready for the mandi. Not only him, scores of other farmers are busy with their daily chores. He leaves for mandi, happily, as today is the day of  "dhanteras", a day before diwali. He can smell celebrations in the air, and with good standing crops, he had enough reasons to be happy. He leaves happily, but no sooner he reaches mandi, he gets to know, that bulldozers are raging his farmland down. He and seven more farmers reaches their farm, and are  stopped by the policeman manning the boundaries of his farmland. He rushes back to get the stay order issued by the High Court, which he and seven other farmers filed against DDA, which puts the status of the land on stay. (we will be come to technicalities of law later on). Some rushed to call up the media houses, some came
 with still cameras, some went up to call up the local MLA - Meera Bharadwaj. Mahavir went up to the SHO, and showed him the stay order of the High Court and asked him to stop the action. SHO said he can't read (as in he is illeterate). and refused to even see the the stay order. Mahavir and other farmers lied down before the bull dozers and protested against the action. Police swung into action, and threw them into the police van, arrested them and took them to Pandav nagar, police station. By then Mahavir's makeshift pucca house, where the farming equipments were kept, was raged to the ground. Three of the the water pumps were pulled up and completely destroyed. Hundred of farmers were beaten up, when they tried to stop the action. Cameras were seized and rolls were exposed. Meanwhile, other policeman and policewomen were busy plucking  fruits(guava) and vegetables for home. All this happened and by evening,approximately 60 acres of land was cleared and flattened. Mahavir and and
 the rest of the farmers were released later in the evening. 
 
The labourers who used to work on their farmland, more than half of them fled to their villages that night itself. Never they imagined, they will ever have to face the ire of the police and treated  like criminals. All this time, Akshardham sect authorities were watching the action. The next day, they marked their territory rightfully, Mahavir can't even see his farmland now, as aksharham had covered their boundary - on 3rd Nov, the land cover stood to be around 38 acres. 

>>The "Bhiswambhar Das Ashram" - the temple angle. 
 
If you can get your hands on to the 1995 Delhi Map, released by Indian Book Depot. You will clearly find the Bhishambhar das ashram resting between the nizamuddin bridge and pandav nagar, and surely find cute looking trees drawn over it, showing that the ashram was surrounded by  greenery. What a location, isn't it - the banks of Yamunaji. As Shankar Sharma (lawyer of the bhishambhar das ashram's  swamy) meticulously takes out a natraj scale and draws over this dairy,and askes us the mastermind quiz question - "Ever wondered why the road NH-24 is made in a curved manner, connecting ring road to the way to ghaziabad". We looked at each other and answered him a stare, he proudly draws a straight line from the ring road to the pandav nagar. "See, if they had made a straight road, they would have to uproot the bhisambhar ashram. But they can't do it, its a historical site, 47 village around this spot, hold this ashram in high esteem. National heritage you know, they can't do it, you
 know, that is why the road is a curve, leaving the bhishambar das ashram untouched". 
 
Except the historical part, we believed him at that moment, well the observation is worth taking note of. Anyway, what it meant was this ashram was a recognised spot, as it is mentioned even in the Delhi map. But hundreds of such spots are erased every year, who really cares. But still the observation can be noted down. So what happenned to Bhisambhar ashram 'that day'. 
 
"Well, if LK Advani can rage a mosque down with  kar saveks, that too when he was a nobody. You can imagine, what he can do, when he hold the Home ministry portfolio": Baba Anand kumar spits fire whenever we ask him about 'that day'. The ashram was formed by Bhisambhar Das, the date cannot be confirmed, but as Anand kumar puts it, the ashram as a structure come into existence around 1954. During floods, baba bhishambhar used to make a machan on a Banyan tree and stay their for more than a month. Farmers used to come in boat and serve him food. This pretty much clears the fact, that the land was aptly used as a  river flood plane. 
 
After this bit of history, coming back to 2nd of Nov, the ashram was also raged into ground, the hanuman murti was showed no respect. The trees surrounding the ashram was cut and only a few handful remains today. The makeshift camp where sadhus used to stay was destroyed. As anand kumar puts it "We were preparing for bhojan, when the police forces came over. I couldn't even serve the sadhus who have come from far away places. It was so insulting". 
 
If you want to meet Baba Anand Kumar, he still stays besides the boundary wall of the akshardham temple towards the ghaziabad road, hanuman murti is kept under a banyan tree and he swears that until he throws the akshardham temple out of his land, he will continue living there. 

Now, that you got the story of 'that day', which we keep referring to so often, gear up for the next posting, where we will delve into the  illegalities of biggest law mongers of today - DDA. Soon, you will find urself under the hard skin of untruth. Wonder new parks are coming up everywhere near the yamuna river. Ever tried visiting the "sur yamuna bathing ghat" near wazirabad bridge which was launched by DDA with much funfare and couple of millions were spent. Try visiting it someday, and soon you will realise the scheme of things   planned by our city developers. More... and more on our next posting. don't worry we wont sink again. Next week perhaps.....

Sabir Haque
Leena Rani Narzary
Nidhi Bal Singh
 
[THE LINK TO THE PHOTOGRAPHS DEPICTING THE CHANGES ON THE AKSHARDHAM SCAPE OF EASTERN BANKS OF YAMUNA WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE LINK BELOW: www.whatasight.bravehost.com/links.html]
I am working on a website right now, the url will be registered soon, till that time, probably the website will be available on a free server site. 

aedios...take care all
[sabir haque]
 
contact information
---------------------------------
Sabir Haque
35,Mashigarh, Jamia Nagar
New Delhi - 25
sabir at ndtv.com
www.whatasight.bravehost.com
ph no: 9891408334
 
Nidhi Bal Singh
nidhib at ndtv.com
ph no: 9891627733

Leena Rani Narzary
leenanarzary at hotmail.com
ph no: 9891495886
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050507/de482c12/attachment.html