[Reader-list] Nizamuddin Basti

[Yousuf]

Dear Ratish
  This mail comes as a relief - although some of us were looking at the news of the "demolition" with some suspicion of the rumours. But I would also like to point out that even a minor interaction with the residents of the basti Nizamuddin would show you how ill-informed and frustrated they are. A couple of months ago some of us were doing a recce before starting a heritage walk in the basti and we were almost mobbed by the local residents who wanted to know what our real motives were. They thought we are the respresentatives of the Agha Khan foundation, listing in our notebooks which house will go first. We tried to clarify our position, but they were simply not convinced. One question they all kept asking us (assuming we were either AKDN or MCD!) that WHY ARE THEY KEPT IN THE DARK? Why doesn't someone come to talk to THEM and tell them what the real intentions of this development project are? Who is going to gain what? how will they be affected, and so on.
   
  And I think this is the real crux of all development-displacement projects today (whether it is Nizamuddin or Nandigram) that the local people are never taken into confidence - always kept in the dark. I don't know if AKDN has made any communications already, but I think it is their responsibility to kill these rumours. The concerned people WILL make a hue-and-cry if they have not been given the right information.
   
  Yousuf

Ratish Nanda <ratishn at gmail.com> wrote:
  Dear Dr Sudeshna Chatterjee   I write in response to your e mail - which I have been forwarded on another chat group so I suppose it has been forwarded to thousands by the time this gets back to you. I write as one of the consultants to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture on a potential project.   I read your e mail with great alarm until I realised you might be writing in response to rumours about what we are hoping to achieve in Nizamuddin together with the MCD. I cannot imagine how you got the impression that anyone was going to be moved? The proposal does not envisage even a single house to be demolished. I wish you had re-confirmed your facts with someone before shooting off an alarmist e mail.   In the Nizamuddin Bastri - all components of the project are aimed at focussing on make the monuments - Chaunasth Khambha, Baoli, Atgah Khan's Tomb more integral to the Basti. The programme there envisages upgrading the health, education failities of the MCD; provide
 micro-finance and training for jobs etc etc.   I am presently away from the country but am to return to Delhi in mid May when I shall happily be able to brief you in more detail on the proposal - which it is - only a proposal as we are hopoing to work in the larger area - encompassing Humayun's Tomb etc - with various government agencies and are yet to reach an agreement.   We have earlier worked on the Humayun's Tomb garden restoration, which I was responsibl;e for on behaldf of the Trust and I have been here in Kabul for four years to do something very similar to what we propose in Nizamuddin. If you had looked at our website - www.akdn.org or visited our offices on Bhagwan Das Road prior to shooting off the e mail - you would have realised for yourself that vested interests are spreading rumours that will probably ensure nothing ever happens in Nizamuddin and people continue to live in deplorable conditions without access to basic services.    May I now request you to
 kindly help quelling rumours and I assure you that you will not have to mount a 'resistance' ; maybe you could use resistance to save the 800 year old, yet unprotected, Lal Mahal in Nizamuddin to be demolished by developers - if it has not already been!   Thanks for your concern.    Warm regards   Ratish    
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Ratish Nanda _________________________________________

 
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