She wept bitterly that it was her son's first
day at work. We were initially confused. Why
was this an occasion for grief? "He is
just 10 years old," she explained. It was
his own decision to drop out of school, and
join his father's trade as a house painter.
He felt that if he worked, at least the family
would be freed from the burden of providing
for him. His home is a grimy single-room tenement
at the edge of the garbage dump for all of Ahmedabad
city. The colony is one of more than 80 that
sprang up for survivors of the 2002 massacre
in Gujarat, who continue, even five years later,
to live in dread of returning to their original
homes. They survive not just as economic refugees
but as fugitives from a continuing climate of
sustained hate and fear.
The Gujarat government is in complete denial
about the conditions of internal displacement.
In an affidavit to the Supreme Court in January
2006, it admitted that some affected persons
had not returned to their homes, but maintained
that this was not because of fear but because
of superior economic prospects that they found
in the new locations. In a recent communication
to the Supreme Court commissioners in the right
to food case, it stated even more categorically
that all "riot-affected people have returned
to their homes".
This official falsehood was easily nailed by
a visit in October 2006 by the National Commission
for Minorities (NCM) to 17 such colonies, where
they found appalling living conditions. This
was further confirmed by a comprehensive survey
of 81 relief colonies by Aman Biradari, which
found around 30,000 internal refugees living
with abysmal denial of public services and livelihoods.
The survey noted that not a single of the 81
colonies were established by the state government,
which did not even provide the land for any
of these. Instead, every single of these were
built by Muslim organisations on purchased land.
In only six of these was there some kind of
collaboration by secular NGOs. This is a grave
abdication by the State but also by international
and national humanitarian organisations.
>From the start, after the forced closure
of relief colonies by the Gujarat government
in 2002, the return of 200,000 internally displaced
persons to the land of their ancestors had to
be painfully negotiated with neighbours who
had betrayed and attacked them. There was rarely
a welcome, or expression of remorse. It was
made amply clear that their homecoming was on
sufferance. The first condition if they insisted
on returning was that they would not give evidence
against their attackers in any criminal case.
As a result of their consent to this humiliating
condition, thousands of criminal cases connected
with the carnage collapsed at the stages of
investigation or trial. They also had to accept
residential segregation and boycott in employment
and trade.
For those who were unwilling to accept the terms
set for their return, or who could still not
muster the necessary trust to come back to the
land of their ancestors with their families,
or those who continued to be openly intimidated,
the choices before them were stark: to leave
Gujarat, to buy or rent homes in Muslim ghettoes
or, if they were too poor, to live in the deprivation
of relief colonies. It is difficult to estimate
the numbers of the first two, in a situation
in which the government refuses to keep records
of displacement. This minimises its own responsibility
and culpability. But this survey gives an idea
of the numbers of internally displaced persons
in relief colonies five years later.
The colonies were established by Muslim organisations
on the cheapest land available, without connecting
roads and distant from economic prospects. The
daily grind of finding work is compounded by
the fact that people who fled from numerous
villages were bunched together in colonies that
were built with paramount considerations of
safety in numbers rather than sustainable prospects
of employment. The survey found that the majority
of men travel long distances to their old places
of residence to eke out work, but there they
are hampered by boycott of Muslim shops, eateries,
even factory and farm workers and artisans.
Women have mostly had to drop out of low-end
employment once available in their old homes.
Most colonies continue to be treated as 'unauthorised',
denied public services of drinking water, drainage,
street lighting, ration shops and ICDS centres.
There are only five ICDS centres in the 81 colonies,
and only three serve supplementary nutrition
to children. The NCM noted conditions of great
destitution in the colonies - only 725 of the
4,545 families had below poverty line ration
cards that entitle them to subsidised foodgrain.
Even in such desperate conditions of daily survival,
the state government chose to return Rs 19.1
crore unutilised from the highly insufficient
grant of Rs 150 crore. Yet, it maintained that
all tasks of relief, rehabilitation and compensation
were fully accomplished. This was observed with
regret also by the NCM, "In the course
of our visits to the camps, we found several
people who are in need of funds under different
schemes. If the state government was able to
identify such people and extend the benefits
of the scheme to them they would be able to
utilise the entire money allotted."
The colonies' residents, whose existence, let
alone legality, is denied by the government,
live under continuous insecurity also because
they are vulnerable to pressures from local
religious organisations. Residents report pressures
to follow the specific beliefs of particular
Muslim sects, or other lesser legitimate demands
of local managers, on constant threat of overnight
eviction. Widows and single women are the most
vulnerable.
Children, as always, are worst affected. Only
two of the 81 colonies were found to have government
schools and five some form of private schools.
In addition, religious teaching was offered
in four mosques. There were non-Muslim students
in only two of these schools. By exiling Muslim
children into ghettoes and relief colonies through
fear and hate, children of both communities
are deprived of contact and companionship with
children of other faiths. They will be far more
susceptible to falsehoods about the 'other'
community.
In the colony on the garbage dump, children
have cleared a space amid the mountains of refuse
to play cricket, while we found it hard to bear
the stench. The residents survive with spirit
and courage, amid sub-human conditions and failure
of the State to provide a life of security and
dignity to all without discrimination.
But they also live with isolation, fear, hate,
boycott, intimidation and penury as a way of
daily life. For this, we all stand indicted.
Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari,
a people's campaign for secularism, peace and
justice.
