Tags:
Journalism of Courage
On March 12, a new goddess, Manushi Swachha Narayani, chose Delhi’s Sewa Nagar hawker market as her abode. The Goddess evolved out of Manushi magazine’s work to protect street vendors from routine human rights abuses, humiliation, assaults on their livelihood and huge extortion rackets legitimised by archaic laws which treat this legitimate occupation as an ‘‘illegal activity’’ despite the fact that the city cannot function without street vendors.
Our Broom Deity slowly acquired a human form. We named her Manushi Swachha Narayani. Its literal translation would mean the Goddess of Cleanliness but she represents many more qualities than respect for physical cleanliness.
Devi Swachha Narayani was to appear in Sewa Nagar after a proper temple had been constructed for her abode as part of Manushi pilot project of developing a Model Market for street vendors and hawkers to demonstrate by concrete example how street vendors can be integrated in the city economy in an orderly and aesthetic manner. However, since our Model Market construction work was stopped midway by sheer violence and force and we were facing serious assaults from the extortionist gangs who were getting support of the local police, corporator as well as the MP of our area, we decided to bring our Goddess to Sewa Nagar much ahead of time and with much fanfare. She travelled in a specially decorated tempo amidst the auspicious sounds of shehnai and was received at Sewa Nagar with beautiful dholak beats to celebrate her arrival. Her 11 symbols are: broom, clock, coin, scales, video camera, diya, calculator, pen, conch, barley stalk and lotus. For the moment, her mandir is a mobile stall, but we will build her temples all over India.
