Two not-so-shining stories

The first comes from a village in Bihar. Its name is irrelevant because it could be any village in Northern India and the story would be about the same. My reason for being there was a TV programme on changes, by way of development and progress, that may have happened in the past five years. Naturally, I began my inquiries in the Dalit quarter because it is always to the ‘‘poorest of the poor’’ that change comes last and in our villages the caste system continues to ensure that our former untouchable castes remain both the lowest of the low and the poorest of the poor.

The first thing that happened after plastic chairs were pulled up under a Neem tree and conversation began was that Brahmin landlords and village officials arrived to find out what I was talking about. When I said I was here to find out if there had been changes for the better in the past five years they took from this a casteist meaning and said I must not think that there had not been change but it could only come slowly. Dalit children may not eat their midday meal with Brahmin children in the village school but they were taught that discrimination on the basis of caste was bad.

When I said it was change in terms of development that I was talking about they said I must not assume that only Dalits were poor in the village. Everyone was poor, they said, as poor as the Dalits. It was only after I assured them that I would spend time listening to their views later that I was able to conduct a tour of the Dalit basti. It was a sad, frightening experience.

On my tour I saw only five, half-built pucca houses that were being constructed under the Indira Awas Yojana. Every other home was a hovel made of mud and dried grass. In not a single one did I see consumer goods of any kind. All they contained was a straw pallet as a bed for the whole family, a mud cooking stove, a couple of cheap utensils and a couple of sets of cheap clothing. Forget about the past five years, nothing seemed to have changed in fifty. When I asked if they knew that crores of rupees were being spent by the government for the ‘‘upliftment’’ of those below the poverty line they said they were aware of these schemes but because implementation was controlled by upper caste village officials they rarely got to see any money. Below poverty line (BPL) cards had been handed out in the village, they said, but they had gone mostly to upper caste families. Loans had also been made available under another scheme but even these had gone to upper caste sharks who had made unsuspecting Dalits put their thumb impressions on documents they could not read. India was definitely not shining in this village although some people had heard that it was.

My second story comes from Mumbai which as India’s commercial capital should be gleaming. As I travel often to this city and use Marine Drive for my morning jog I have become quite familiar with its coconut-wallah, idli-dosa-wallahs and the sellers of cold soft drinks, hot chai and cigarettes. Last week they appeared to have been swept away by some giant broom. The only person lurking around was Ali, the idli-wallah, who told me that everyone had been ordered off Marine Drive because there was going to be some major Naval event.

Pavement hawkers represent, at least to me, the grittiest, gutsiest of our entrepreneurs. And, because they continue to suffer the licence-quota-permit raj they live life constantly on the edge so to be deprived of two weeks of livelihood means they will probably starve but because our shining new India has not yet shaken off our colonial past our police and municipal authorities sweep the poor off the streets, when they please, but do nothing to the middle classes.

Street hawkers exist in every major city in the world because they provide a service but in India they exist at the mercy of the police. The Prime Minister has personally intervened to ensure their right to earn a living but to no avail. The police continue to treat the PM’s orders and the ‘‘poorest of the poor’’ with contempt. Unless they learn to change their ways, unless we can give the poor the authority to spend the money meant for them there will always be a vast swathe of India that will never be shining.

— Write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com