DHAURINAGAR
The women of
Byculla have transformed - maybe not their material condition - they're still
living on the pavement - so much as the state of their minds. They've learnt
to deal with established authority, how to organise themselves. They've gained
confidence through achievement, and they've begun to spread their message
to others, who also want to change their lives, but don't have a clue how
to begin.
One winter’s day, Mahila Milan gtot a call to come and help organise
a slum called Dhaurinagar, which lies on the main road in from the airport
to the centre of the city.
When Subhash Sawant first came to live in Dhaurinagar in 1970 there were just
forty to fifty houses. Subhash Sawant is both an oddity and a celebrity, and
for the same reason.
He's the only elected City Counsellor in Bombay who actually lives in a slum.
Right here in Dhaurinagar, a rabbit warren of little brick houses, wedged
between the main highway that leads in from the airport and blocks of mildewed
government apartments.
The first eviction notices predate even Subhash Sawant. They were issue back
in 1967. The Defence Ministry in New Delhi owns this plot of land. According
to their plans drawn up in the 1960s and never revised, this is open land,
supposed to become a military firing range.
But there are now many, many thousands living on it. They want title to the
land. The city officially acknowledges they're a slum. But its hands are tied:
“You'll have to talk with the people who own the land. It's not our
problem!” That means organising the community so they talk and act with
one voice. Easier said than done.
So Subhash has invited the women of Byculla to come to Daurinagar to start
the ball rolling.
“Since the time that Mahila Milan was formed, I've been watching the
way in which the women's groups have got together and they've started saving,
and the way in which they help everybody else. And it seemed to me that we
could use this..because we also have women's organisation. We have a Mahila
Mandal.”
So, a bunch of the Mahila Milan women took the train up first thing this morning
along with some of Jokin's NSDF - Slum Dwellers Federation - people, and four
South African activists who are here on a training visit. Their task is to
organise and energise the entire Daurinagar community.
Shekhar and Celine have split everyone up into teams, just to get a fix on
how many people actually live here.
The numbers are important. But even more important is using this exercise
to create a sense of community, of achievement through working together among
all the residents of Daurinagar.
The strange thing is it's all men here. Not a single woman about! Celine says
my observation is very short-sighted: “Oh God! Don't ask! The women
are busy cooking. They haven't come on the scene yet. And, hopefully, by the
end of the survey, they'll be there!. They’re watching, looking at what's
happening. But they don't enter the scene till we create that space for them...And
the survey is going to do that, ultimately.”
By the end of today every house in Dhaurinagar will have been surveyed three
times-house-counting, mapping, and household survey. “The women leaders
would come for a meeting at the end of it And each survey it will be be the
women who would be answering the people who are going to collect the data.”
adds Celine
And it's only if the women get involved, and are allowed to get involved by
their men, that will decide if Dhaurinagar is really ready.
Celine calls the involvement of the women - magic - when the men finally realise
that their women are the solution. It could happen today, tomorrow.... or
it could be in three months time.
“It is difficult to predict.. but we know for sure that this magic will
take place. How it is going to take place we don't know for sure. That you'll
have to wait and watch!
The first survey team - led by Sharmala and Lopez -straggle in. They sit down
on the earth, eat lunch on a palm leaf, and then hand in their numbers for
the morning.
Celine asks: “Which Gate Number?”
Sharmala says: “Two and three.”
.. This morning, they've counted over 2,000 buildings in Dhaurinagar. One
hundred and twenty two of them are small businesses: bakeries, tailors, electrical
repairs, auto parts, six doctors. You name it, they've got it right here in
Dhaurinagar.
Celine checks with Jockin that the first part of the3 survey is just to count
the total number of houses, not the inhabitants or what’ inside the
four walls.
As soon as lunch is over, we're going to fan out again and go to each house
and find out how many people actually live there, how many rooms they have,
whether they have electricity or running water, or whatever.
Celine signals lunch is over. Time to get going again.Armed with questionnaires,
the no-nonsense Rashida is leading four of us down a lane so narrow that the
upstairs windows of the small brick houses almost kiss each other.
She explains that now we’re going to interview them. Rachel, one of
the South Africans, is worried because she doesn't speak Hindi. Rashida reassures
her: “I'll translate for you.”
Give me the Chalk!” Rashida asks. Rashida needs chalk to mark the houses
once we've surveyed them. We continue down the alley.
Rashida knocks at the first house. A man in lungi and undershirt comes to
the door.
“What’s your name?”
“Bechan Jaiswal.” .
“And your wife's name?”
“Nirmala.”
“How many children? What are their names? Start with the eldest first.”
Some of the South Africans look exhausted. They only flew in yesterday and
they were probably up to all hours with the women of Byculla. The only one
who still has a spring in her step is Rose Malokane from the Transvaal.
“What we were doing now was just to check the number of houses. How
many houses are there? And then after that .... we'll be making another survey
to check how many people live in one house? How many of them are working?
How many of them are going to school? If there are father, mother? How many
children?”.
And that's the first problem. How many houses exactly are there in Dhaurinagar?
Celine says five groups have gone out and they'll come back with numbers of
how many houses are there in that particular - there are five gates in Dhaurinagar,
and they've divided themselves like that.You can't start to address a problem
unless you have accurate figures.
In Dharavi slum, for instance, the government did a census a few years ago.
They concluded Dharavi's total population was 250,000 thousand. Mahila Milan
and NSDF simply didn't believe this. So they went and did their own survey,
door to door. They counted five hundred thousand.
The rest of the afternoon in Dhauringar will be spent going like this from
house to house. By the end of the three days we should have a pretty accurate
snapshot of the slum. Then it'll be up to the residents themselves to decide
the next step.
~
Six months later, I’m back in Dhaurinagar. Inside the community hall.
A pleasant room. But dangerous. The ceiling is no more than seven foot, and
the roof fan takes up one of these feet. Which means if you're six feet tall....!!!!
Rashida’s sitting on the stone floor asking Ratan Behn - one of the
women opposite - to come forward with her passbook. She’s taking in
deposits for the Dhaurinagar branch of Mahila Milan's bank.
Ratan Behn takes out twenty paying-in books from a plastic bag, along with
an assortment of notes and coins. Twenty Rupees for twenty accounts - four
hundred rupees in all. “all of them give her money, and she brings them
here.”
There are twenty five hundred households in Dhaurinagar. In six months, a
quarter of them have joined the bank. Rashida expects that number to reach
one thousand by the end of the year. She's opening five new accounts every
day.
Ratan says a lot of things have changed since I was last he
“Before February, we used to save. But it was in our husband's name.
We had no control over the money. Now it's in our name! It's ours! And that's
not all that's changed!”
“First, we had never been to any office before. So because of Mahila
Milan we went to the Police station, we went to the ward office, we went to
the ration office, .and we went to the different places also where Mahila
Milan have built their houses. We saw that. We never knew about it before
that women had so much stre
Lalita - another member of the newly-created Dhaurinagar Mahila Milan - pipes
up:
We've got the basic amenities now, thanks to Subhash Sawant, our member on
the City Council. Now we want title to this land.”
“We don't want to go another place. We are organising ourselves because
we want this land in our name. We are going to build our houses on this land
only. We're not going to move from here!”
Malthi Rathe puts in her two cents worth:
“When you don't know how to organise you always get cheated. But since
February, Mahila Milan have come here, shown us what we can do. Nobody can
cheat us now!”
“We feel that Mahila Milan is like a shining star to us...because seeing
them only we have learnt so many things over here.”
And the money's really pouring in now! Rashida's surrounded by little piles
of notes: 50s, 20s, 10s, 5s, 2s and Ones. And by little columns of coins.
This really is a bank for poor people. Somewhere they can sit and talk. This
is the sort of place where a sense of community, of all being in the same
boat together, is somehow developed and nurtured.
But Lalita's sister-in-law - Lata - says things are not as smooth as I might
imagine.
“Our husbands doesn't help us. We don't care what our husbands thinks.
They're not even supportive of this.”
“You see lots of people have promised us houses before. Lots of people!.
And they come and take our savings. And then - one day - Whoosh, just like
magic, they're up and gone. My husband and I lost 4,500 Rupees like that.
Everything we had. Just wiped out, like that! So he doesn't think we women
can succeed where the men have failed!
“I had the same feeling when the Mahila Milan account has been opened.
I thought that only, that these people are going to cheat us and take our
money and run away from here. But Lata, she convinced me. She told me everything
because she had visited Byculla place, and everywhere, and she knew about
what is happening in Bangalore, Madras. So because I had trust in Lata I opened
this account. And now I have trust in Mahila Milan!”
But there are many other women in Dhaurinagar who still have to be sold on
Mahila Milan! Rashida, Lata, Ratan and Lalita whisk me out of the hall and
we head down one of the lanes.
First stop: Sabina Rodriguez, a Christian from Goa. Dhaurinagar, in fact,
has a lot of Christians.
“She’s a sceptic?” I ask Rashida.
“Yes. She comes to every meeting, but she's not a member of Mahila Milan.”
I ask Sabina: “Is this is true? You come to every meeting? And you're
not a member? Why not?”
“I was waiting for my neighbors. They were saying that we're going to
join the Mahila Milan with you only. But they have not come. So I have to
wait for them.”
“Have you tried to convince them?”
“Yes. but some house problem, money problem. That's why.”
“You always say you're going to join. But it's still always Tomorrow,
tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes
Manana! Manana! Doesn't make no difference whether you're Goan or Mexican.
Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator! I knock on another door.
“Yes, Good afternoon. I wanted to ask you a question..All these women
who who belong to this group Mahila Milan here in Dhaurinagar. You're not
a member. And I wonder why not?”
The next woman claims she hasn't joined because she's waiting for Sabina Rodriguez
to join. It goes downhill from there. Next house: two ladies. They've had
a bad experience.
“We once paid money, several years ago. So why pay again? We even have
a receipt.” After that we stopped paying because we couldn’t.
So that’s why we haven’t opened an account in Mahila Milan?
In other words: Come back in a couple of years. And show us if you're for
real!
We head off down another gully. This is where Lata lives. They have running
water and elecricity, but no tie-in to the sewers.
First door we knock on has a fierce dog and doesn’t exactly exude enthusiasm.
She says she opened an account but hasn’t paid in for the last two months.
Someone's saying they are closing. No? That's why I've not paid anything.”
Ah! That's what they are saying. Whoever they are! So there you have it. The
sceptic. The Follow-my-Neighbor, the Apathetic and the Rumor-monger. It's
not as easy as it looks. People want proof. They want results. They've been
lied to too many times before.
Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episodes
33 - 35
Main
Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3
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