Tushar and Matt: Feeling the misery of the poor Indians

Late last year, two young men decided to live a month of their lives on the income of an average poor Indian. One of them, Tushar, the son of a police officer in Haryana, studied at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for three years as an investment banker in the US and Singapore. The other, Matt, migrated as a teenager to the States with his parents, and studied in MIT. Both decided at different points to return to India, joined the UID Project in Bengaluru, came to share a flat, and became close friends.

Yet, when their experiment ended with Deepavali, they wrote to their friends: “Wish we could tell you that we are happy to have our ‘normal' lives back. Wish we could say that our sumptuous celebratory feast two nights ago was as satisfying as we had been hoping for throughout our experiment. It probably was one of the best meals we've ever had, packed with massive amounts of love from our hosts. However, each bite was a sad reminder of the harsh reality that there are 400 million people in our country for whom such a meal will remain a dream for quite some time. That we can move on to our comfortable life, but they remain in the battlefield of survival — a life of tough choices and tall constraints. A life where freedom means little and hunger is plenty...

Plenty of questions

It disturbs us to spend money on most of the things that we now consider excesses. Do we really need that hair product or that branded cologne? Is dining out at expensive restaurants necessary for a happy weekend? At a larger level, do we deserve all the riches we have around us? Is it just plain luck that we were born into circumstances that allowed us to build a life of comfort? What makes the other half any less deserving of many of these material possessions, (which many of us consider essential) or, more importantly, tools for self-development (education) or self-preservation (healthcare)?

We don't know the answers to these questions. But we do know the feeling of guilt that is with us now. Guilt that is compounded by the love and generosity we got from people who live on the other side, despite their tough lives. We may have treated them as strangers all our lives, but they surely didn't treat us as that way...”

So what did these two friends learn from their brief encounter with poverty? That hunger can make you angry. That a food law which guarantees adequate nutrition to all is essential. That poverty does not allow you to realise even modest dreams. And above all — in Matt's words — that empathy is essential for democracy. 

Harsh Mander in The Hindu. Here

"I didn't join Anna Hazare. I stand for secularism and Justice.": Harsh Mander

Was the agitation a revolution or a fad?
Comparing it to Egypt and Libya was out of proportion. Unlike in those undemocratic countries, here, nobody was afraid of being stopped while walking into a protest. And it’s different from other candle-light vigils. It’s not about one case, but against a malaise, an idea. It made each of us introspect as to how we have participated in protesting corruption in our lives. When we buy a house, or register something, will we now say we won’t pay in black? Corruption is a complex ethical issue, and this should be the beginning of a larger reflection about social reform.

Why didn’t you join the protest?
On principle, I feel it was democratic dissent, and therefore legitimate. But my vision for democracy and good governance does not end at having an uncorrupt government but also a secular, just and egalitarian government. Some groups in this agitation are not known to adhere to these democratic principles. This is why I had personal reservations about coming out on the street, but I stand by the right to protest, and was glad that people did.

Is the Jan Lokpal Bill naive and anti-democratic?
During the agitation, drafters of the civil society Bill had valid criticisms about the government Bill — more accountability from politicians and bureaucrats, Lokpal as a onestop shop for all citizens’ grievances about corruption, and more transparency in the selection of the Lokpal. At the same time, the Jan Lokpal Bill assumes overwhelming power. You just can’t have adjudication, investigation and prosecution all under one institution. There will have to be checks and balances. The voices demanding Jan Lokpal are being idealistic, but why not? The job of the agitation was to initiate action. Now the process of drafting and discussion will begin. It will make the weak Bill and the strident Bill compete to give us a strong, sensible Lokpal.

Is the civil society making unreasonable demands?
It’s hard in popular imagination to go into specifics. We can’t expect details of the Bill to be argued out in newsrooms and on the street — these are spaces for emotion and drama. It's the job of the joint committee including some intellectuals, the NAC and the elected leaders to go into specifics. But without the strong street movement, the government would not be open to dialogue today.

Harsh Mander in an interview given to Rohini Mohan for Tehelka. More Here

Waiting for Justice in Gujarat

It’s nine years since many districts across Gujarat were swept by a tornado of hate. Innumerable lives were snuffed out, women and girls brutally raped and killed, and homes and livelihoods destroyed. Thousands of people fled their homes in mortal fear. But nine years is a long time. Nature equips the human body and spirit with extraordinary capacities to heal from great injury. Yet, there are some wounds that don’t mend even after a lifetime. I encounter such unhealed suffering among survivors of mass communal violence in Nellie of 1983, Delhi of 1984 and Gujarat of 2002. There is something about the violence of mass hate, which makes its wounds fester even after many others heal.

In villages and towns of Gujarat, survivors have adapted themselves to the everyday reality of second-class citizenship. I estimate that nearly 100,000 people have been permanently ejected and their erstwhile settlements ‘cleansed’ of Muslim residents. A quarter of these internally displaced people endure in austere relief colonies, established after the carnage by various Muslim organisations. The remainder have moved to the safety of numbers in poorly serviced Muslim ghettoes.

Across the state today, I observe what I regard as the ‘Dalitisation’ of the Gujarati Muslim. Like Dalits, Muslims in Gujarat today live in segregated settlements, socially devalued and economically ostracised. They are discriminated against in schools and police stations, deprived of basic public services, discouraged in both private and public employment, and excluded from social intercourse such as wedding and birth celebrations. Dalits have lived with these social and economic disabilities for centuries. But the process of pushing Muslims to the same humiliating margins of Gujarati society as Dalits was compressed into the single past decade. This is the enduring legacy of the politics of hatred and division, which has triumphed in Gujarat. We don’t know if and when this will ever change.

Muslims in Gujarat today don’t live in the expectation of another imminent orgy of mass violence. But they survive daily discrimination as an incontrovertible element of survival. Markers of Muslim identity are fading from Gujarati public life. In many villages, one of the conditions imposed on Muslim residents who wished to return was that the call of the azaan from their mosque should no longer resonate in the village. Auto-rickshaw drivers in every city in the country decorate their rickshaws with symbols of their religious faith (alongside pictures of buxom film actresses). In Ahmedabad, I can estimate that my rickshaw driver is a Muslim only because his rickshaw has no markers of faith. Muslim eateries have adopted culturally-neutral names like Ekta, Tulsi and Jaihind, and no symbols of Muslim faith decorate their walls.

We’re helping hundreds of survivors to fight criminal cases against those who slaughtered, raped and plundered in 2002. But we frequently lose these cases in courts, because many baulk at the last minute from naming their tormentors. They want to see them punished, but calculate that if they are to live in Gujarat they can’t afford to antagonise their neighbours. Some dignify these ‘compromises’ as forgiveness. But in their hearts they know that these are acts of surrender. It’s not easy to feel resigned to see your tormentors walk free on the dusty paths of your village everyday.

Many people who filed charges against their neighbours for the crimes of 2002 found themselves embroiled in false criminal charges, and some even spent months and years in jail. They dropped their charges, as the price to be freed from jail and be relieved from false criminal cases against them. Young Muslim men also live in fear that they will be picked up for terrorist crimes. Many are forced to spend hopeless years behind prison walls on flimsy charges of which they may be acquitted. But who can return to them the lost years of their lives? And of those of their loved ones who wait all these years outside in penury and despair?

It does little to reassure the Muslim citizens of Gujarat that their persisting persecution under his watch hasn’t dimmed the sheen of chief minister Narendra Modi — an icon for legions of his admirers. He is celebrated by virtually every national corporate heavyweight for the rapid economic growth and ‘efficient’ administration offered by his stewardship of Gujarat. Yet, he refuses to apologise for the crimes of the dark months of 2002 and the complicity of his state administration. On the directions of the Supreme Court, his personal role has been investigated — and raises many doubts. His former home minister and senior police officers are in jail for extra-judicial killings. His public speeches are laced with barbs, which taunt and label the Muslim community as regressive, violent and unpatriotic. But these make him not less but more of a hero for millions of his adoring middle-class supporters.

Madhavrao Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of the RSS from 1940 to 1973, dreamed of an India where religious minorities could live only as second-class citizens. The India of his aspirations can be glimpsed in today’s Gujarat. But the Constitution promised all its citizens a land of equality and fraternity. Its pledges lie in tatters for the Muslim residents of Gujarat, nine years after their massacre stirred the conscience of the people of India. Neither the law of the land nor the legacy of the Mahatma in the land of his birth has secured for the survivors of 2002 justice, security, social dignity and freedom from fear. How many more years will they have to wait?

Harsh Mander in Hindustan Times. More Here

No riots can continue for more than a few hours.....

The assumption of the government drafts is that if only the powers of police and governments are augmented in communally charged times and areas, they would control communal violence effectively and decisively. This assumption flies in the face of the actual experience of successive communal pogroms. Did governments in Assam in 1983, Delhi in 1984, Mumbai in 1992-93, Gujarat in 2002 or Kandhamal in 2008 fail to prevent slaughter and arson because they lacked sufficient powers? Do we really believe that these governments were unable to control violence because they lacked the legal muscle? Or was the truth that they did not want to control the violence; but instead they deliberately enabled the slaughter? That they wanted to reap political advantage from a violently polarised polity, and were assured that they would legally be able to get away with such a crime?

If government officials and political leaders wish to act, the law as it stands is more than adequate to empower police and officials to prevent and control communal violence. No riot can continue for more than a few hours without the active will of the political leadership of governments that violence should persist and indeed spread; and the active abetment of police and civil officials to prolong the slaughter and arson. Communal carnages occur because they are systematically planned and executed by communal organisations, and because governments which are legally and morally charged to protect all citizens, deliberately refuse to douse the fires, and instead allow rivers of innocent blood to flow.

I regard such abetment of slaughter by public officials to be one of the gravest crimes possible in public life. To protect minorities from communal pogroms and mass violence, we do not need a law which adds further to the powers of police, civil authorities and governments. Ironically, such a law will achieve the exact reverse of what it claims to seek. The consistent experience of minorities is that greater powers in the hands of police would only be used against them. There is great unease with declaring regions as ‘disturbed areas': in large swathes of India's North-East and Kashmir, people have lived in the shadows of similar declarations, which give extraordinary powers to security forces. These routinely lead to crushing of people's elementary democratic freedoms. 

From Harsh Mander's article in The Hindu

To read the full article click here

''Do you call this living? Even death is better than this humiliation"

Even today, the memories bring tears of shame to her eyes. She was paid to clean dry toilets each day, by physically scraping the human excreta that accumulated on the latrine floors, and carrying it away in a basket. Several months pregnant, Saroj one day climbed a narrow wooded staircase to reach the latrine in one home. She slipped and her foot broke, and she lay helplessly in agony below. But her employers — of many years — were unwilling to lift her even in this state, because they believed her touch was polluting. Finally they picked her up with a pincer of logs, and her family took her to the local dispensary. She wept bitterly that day. “Do you call this living? Even death is better than this humiliation.”

From an heartrending article by Harsh Mander in The Hindu.

To continue reading click here.

IPL, corrupt crorepatis and hunger!

Shashi Tharoor - Lalit Modi 

Do you know the cost of a ticket to watch a IPL match? It ranges from Rs. 1000 to Rs 40,000. The exorbidant rates have not dithered the audience who throng in thousands match after match. The economics of  IPL is mind baffling. With the Shashi Tharoor - Lalit Modi saga going murkier and murkier the IPL has been named as Indian Paisa League by a குறும்புக்கார TV channel.
Here is the other side of the story. You would not stop your tears when you read it. Harsh Mander writes in The Hindu:

 ‘Half the week we are able to eat roti or rice with either vegetable or dal. The other half, it is just roti, or rice boiled with salt and turmeric. But there are four or five days in a month when there is no food, and we have little option except to fast. If there is any food, we give it to our children, adding a lot of water to fill their stomachs. Any additional food goes to our men folk, because we women are used to staying hungry'.

But the children's bellies are still empty, and they are restless and clamour for more food. ‘It is difficult for us to bear their weeping', the women continue. ‘When the wailing of infants gets too much, we lace our fingertips in tobacco or wild intoxicants and give the fingers to the babies to suck. It helps them sleep even with nothing in their stomachs. If they are small, we beat them until they sleep, but as they grow older, we try to teach them how to live with hunger. It is a lesson that will equip them for a lifetime. Because we know that hunger will be with us the rest of our lives.'

To read the full article click here.

There is no full stop in India!!

Saidullah has won many trophies (Pictures: Prashant Ravi)

Amidst the news of bombs and blasts, riots and tortures, chaos and mayhem seldom we come across such feel good stories. But, India is India. As the veteren BBC Correspondent has written in his book "There is no full stop in India" We may have our Narendra Modis, Pragya Thakurs and there may not be a full stop to this hate mongers' list. Similarly we have Teesta Setalvads, Sandeep Pandeys, Harsh Manders, Ehsan Jaffris. And there is no full stop for that list too. Similarly there is no dearth for unsung heroes in this land as well. One among them is Muhammad Sayeedullah. AMARNATH TEWARY has profiled him in BBC. It is interesting and inspiring.

Excerpts:

Mohammed Saidullah, a resident of Motihari in the Indian state of Bihar, has received many awards and trophies in the last few years for his innovation.

In 1975, when his Jatwa-Janerwa village was swamped under flood waters - an annual monsoon menace - he pleaded with a local boatman to take him to safety.

When the boatman refused to give him space unless he paid for it, the young Saidullah looked for other ways to tackle the floodwater.

Necessity met creativity and in just three days, he made an amphibious bicycle which could easily negotiate the floodwaters.

He modified the conventional bicycle by adding four rectangular air floats to support it while it moved on water. Two fan blades were attached to the spokes of the rear wheel which enabled it to run on both water and land.

The blades were arranged in such a fashion that the cycle could be driven in reverse direction too.

Shining moment

Later, Mr Saidullah demonstrated the prowess of his vehicle before a stunned crowd, which included the then state governor, AR Kidwai, when he crossed the river Ganges in Patna city.

His big shining moment came in January 2005 when the then Indian President, APJ Abdul Kalam, presented him with the National Innovation Foundation's (NIF) lifetime achievement award.

In the same year, he was selected as one of the 12 finalists for the prestigious Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Awards.

He was also profiled for the Discovery Channel's "Beyond Tomorrow" programme.

In fact, he has won so many awards that he has lost count of them all.

An impressed NIF took away his bicycle and offered to get it patented.But three years later, Mr Saidullah has neither got the patent nor the bicycle.

Saidullah takes his grandchildren
for a joy ride in his cycle-rickshaw

Today, he lives in penury.

Everyday, he pedals about 30 kms on his bicycle to sell honey so that he can feed his family of 16.

But the work brings him a paltry 1,500 rupees ($37) a month.

Grinding poverty

Unable to make the ends meet, he has now put up his roadside half-thatched, half-concrete house and the small plot of land - in Mathia Dih locality of Motihari in East Champaran district - on sale.

His disillusionment is such that Mr Saidullah wants to return all his awards and trophies.

"If you want to destroy someone, give him an award," he says.

After the bicycle, Mr Saidullah also invented an amphibious cycle-rickshaw which he demonstrated before the BBC team in a nearby pond.

"On this, I can take my grandchildren for a joy ride in the water," Mr Saidullah told the BBC.

"But I feel hurt by what the NIF has done to me. They used us for their promotion," he says.

"May I know how many innovators like me have been benefited and how many of us have been destroyed by them?" asks Mr Saidullah, with pain creasing his face.

NIF executive chairman, Anil Gupta, is sympathetic to Mr Saidullah's plight: "We tried a lot, are still trying and will keep trying to explore things being done for Mr Saidullah's amphibious bicycle. But yes his frustration is completely understandable.

"Despite our best efforts, for some reasons we failed to generate any entrepreneurship for his bicycle. We've given him the innovation fellowship of a fixed amount and we are ready to support him in future too," Mr Gupta said.

There is still a chance that things may look up for him.

A senior official in Bihar state's science and technology department, Ajay Kumar, told the BBC he would do all he could to help Mohammed Saidullah.

"Though there is no structured schemes for commercialisation of such innovations in my department but we would certainly help him in getting his product patented after talking with the NIF," Mr Kumar said.

According to Mohammed Saidullah's son, Mohammed Shakilurrahman, the family was not always poor. Mr Saidullah inherited acres of land, orchards, elephants and a big house from his father.

But, the rural scientist sold all his property to pursue his innovations, his son says.

New things

He blames his father's "sheer madness" for the family's poverty.

He too sells honey in the state capital.

However, Mr Saidullah's bitter past experience has not stopped him from moving on to new things.

After the amphibious bicycle, he developed a key-operated table fan which can run non-stop for two hours, a mini-water pump that needs no fuel and a mini-tractor which can run for two hours on just five litres of diesel.

Now, he claims he's making a helicopter which would cost the equivalent of $62,500 and a car that would be powered by air energy.

His dark, dingy workshop is crammed with a hand-made lathe machines and countless corroded nut-bolts littered on long rusty iron racks.

But it's his favourite place. "I love to be here all the time," he says.

Where would he go once his house and land is sold off?

"I'll make a three-storey moving car with folding cots, pack my family in and park it on an open government land by the roadside anywhere," he says.The maverick innovator says he draws inspiration for his innovations from his everyday experiences. He has named all his creations after his loving wife, Noor Jahan.

"Noor means light and Inshallah a day would come when there would be light in our life too," says Saidullah.
I took this story from here. Thank you BBC!
And see video of his amphibious cycle, click here.
And to read a detailed profile of him, click here.
And read : A poem, a girl and a success story!