[ This is Essay # 26 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]

In search of Ramrajya

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V Ramaswamy

“Let no one commit the mistake of thinking that Ramrajya means a rule of the Hindus. My Ram is another name for Khuda or God. I want Khuda Raj, which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on Earth.”

Mahatma Gandhi
26 February 1947

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In 1998, I came upon a graphic by the sculptor, Somenath Hoare. This is an image of a public meeting of Mahatma Gandhi. Amidst a sea of humanity, in the foreground, is a Muslim couple, with the man carrying a small boy on his shoulder. The boy’s arm is stretched out, his finger pointing to the Mahatma, who is seated in the dais in the distance. I was really struck by this image. To me it seemed an appropriate image to place on the cover of a book that remained to be written, which could be titled In search of Ram Rajya: Muslims in Independent India.

It was only in the aftermath of 6 December 1992 that I came alive to the question of Muslims in India. I was an atheist, and a left-oriented social activist working on issues of urban poverty, low-income housing, slums and squatters. Riots had hit Calcutta too, with Muslim bastis being torched in Tangra in east Calcutta and in Metiabruz in the west. This was the first time in my life that I knew communal riots in my city. The enforced stay at home when Calcutta was under curfew in the days following 6 December 1992, led to an enforced engagement with this question, the Muslim question, something I had hardly thought about earlier. Afterwards, my friend, photographer Achinto, and I went to Tangra. The people from the burnt out slum were sheltered in the municipal slaughterhouse. I will never forget that sight, a vision of hell.

A germ was planted in me. And that germ went on to take over and transform my life within 5 years. But before that all the habitual assumptions and notions, all the socialised conditioning and subtle prejudice in me had to be plucked out. I was fortunate to meet friends who aided in this.

During 1995-97, I was working as a social development consultant on a government project for environmental management. We came upon some statistics from the Howrah Municipal Corporation that made me sit up. The infant mortality rate for the majority Hindu population of Howrah (a million-plus city near Calcutta.) was just under 45 per 1,000 in 1992, while that for the Muslim minority population was about 105 per 1,000. By 1993, the figures were about 37 and 83 respectively. Trying to understand why there was such a big difference in the infant mortality rates, and more importantly wanting to and trying to do something that could make a positive impact on such a situation – took over my life. As a father, and having gone through the traumatic experience of my infant son being very sick, doing all one can to help sick children, whether one’s own or anyone else’s, whatever the cost – I think that is one of the most important things in life. In late-1996, I began working in Muslim bastis in Shibpur, Howrah. First as the leader of a team entrusted with implementing various environmental improvement works in collaboration with the local community; and when that was concluded, independently, through Howrah Pilot Project, a grassroots organisation established to work for long-term community renewal.

That was the beginning of my personal journey to build a bridge between my life and the lives of ordinary Muslim fellow-citizens. That was a personal mission. It was rooted in a programme to initiate and sustain community empowerment efforts, focussed on poor women and children, in Priya Manna Basti, Howrah.

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It is in the dis-aggregated health statistics of cities that we see the starkest implications of the continued mal-distribution of social, environmental and political resources. Given that the Muslim population of Howrah is made up predominantly of labouring people, living in bastis, while the Hindu population comprises both labouring as well as more affluent sections and is distributed across both slum and non-slum areas, the infant mortality statistics may be read as a proxy indicator of slum – non-slum differentials in infant mortality. These figures may also suggest that there may be deep-rooted and institutionalised attitudinal constraints to development in Muslim settlements. For there is near complete segregation of Muslims, a resultant of earlier riots in the city (1946-64), as well as prejudice in the majority community. Even today, it would be very difficult for a Muslim individual or family to get a dwelling on rent in a Hindu neighbourhood.

The key issue in a degraded, poverty-ridden slum environment is water-sanitation, owing to the absence of which the incidence of infant mortality and gastrointestinal diseases is very high. It did also occur to me that a book could be written, called “Why the children die”, giving a kind of X-ray / ultra-sound / MRI image, and a sort of forensic flowchart, of how and why this happens; and how exactly it can stop and what must be done, at various levels, from institutions, to ordinary people.

A ‘service latrine’ is a toilet that has to be manually cleaned out, by lowly sweepers. This is an arrangement that was widespread in old towns and cities across India. The image of a person carrying a basket of excreta on his / her head – had been the subject of a call to conscience by Mahatma Gandhi. But it was only in 1993 that the govt. of India finally enacted a law banning such ‘manual scavenging’.

The govt. also introduced a programme to be implemented through the urban local bodies to subsidise the conversion of these service latrines into sanitary toilets. But service latrines continued to be in use on a massive scale in Howrah, with all the attendant adverse environmental health risks to the community and the conservancy workers (apart from the violation of the latter’s human dignity).

The problem was that in many cases, there were a large number of people using the service latrine. In the slums of Howrah, a plot would typically house 15-20 households, and over 100 persons would be using the latrine, typically a hole in the floor of a small raised cubicle-shed. The govt. subsidy was, however, designed keeping a single (5-7 member) household in view. The slum plots were also congested with the hutments, leaving no spare space. Hence service latrines simply continued to exist and be used.

In some of the worst areas, the service latrines made the neighbourhood extremely foul and dangerous. These were the areas where the incidence of water-borne and gastro-intestinal diseases was high, with high infant mortality and morbidity.

During 1996-97, I was in charge of a community-based environmental improvement project of the West Bengal govt in slum neighbourhoods of Howrah. Not surprisingly, it was emphasised by the slum communities that proper toilets were their most vital need. Through dialogue and interactions with the households, it became clear that they were willing do as much as they could for the toilets.

The technical solution, under the circumstances, was a twin-pit latrine. This meant knocking down the existing toilet structure, cleaning up the spot, constructing two large, deep brick pits and erecting a multi-seat toilet shed block over the pits. The inert soil generated in turn in the non-used pits would be removed by the dwellers and used or sold as manure. As the plot was very congested, space had to be created to accommodate the two large pits (needed because of the large number of users). Some structures would have to be knocked down or shifted.

The construction cost of such a toilet was about Rupees 22,000 per unit (in 1997), while the govt subsidy was about Rupees 5,000. The slum landlords were persuaded to pay Rupees 5,000. Ten demonstration units were constructed, with the local people’s assistance and involvement. We had found and demonstrated the solution to an apparently insoluble but serious problem. I felt like a scientist who has made an earth-shattering new discovery, expanding the frontiers of knowledge and transforming human life.

In August 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, I felt that the best way to commemorate the occasion and to pay homage to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, was to work to eliminate service latrines from the slums of Howrah. So a service latrine elimination programme was developed. Surveys were conducted in slum pockets of Howrah. The cost factor was explained. With the necessary cost likely to be about Rupees 25,000, and Rupees 5,000 coming from the govt. subsidy and another Rupees 5,000 from the landlord, the remaining Rupees 15,000 would have to be contributed by the user households, who were willing to do so. A leading housing finance company was persuaded to extend credit, which the households would repay. The metropolitan development authority agreed to approve the scheme and provide the govt subsidy in advance.

The scheme was detailed and submitted to the Howrah Municipal Corporation. One municipal ward was to be taken up for complete elimination of service latrines in slums. And that would enable an appropriate city-wide scaling-up subsequently.

But nothing happened. Despite repeated efforts, over many months, and letters and meetings with officials – the service latrine elimination programme was a non-starter.

Much later, it became clear that this had been simply sabotaged by people within the Corporation. There was a happy and neat arrangement between officials and contractors, to appropriate the subsidy. A bogus toilet would be built – which would be non-functional immediately after. The subsidy was then approved, released and pocketed. Our programme would have interfered with this happy arrangement. Hence it was simply killed.

I tried hard to make a difference, but failed completely, whether because of my own incapability or the sheer enormity and deep-rootedness of the problem, or serious systemic failures and widespread apathy – I don’t know. I got completely burnt out in the process. But the effort continues in small ways, and surely big things take their own time to be cooked. A lot has been learned, a huge amount of rich experience has been gained.

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Muslims constitute just over a fifth of the population of Calcutta city. Over three fourths of the city’s Muslim population may be living in slum neighbourhoods.

Given that bastis are spread all over the city (rather than in a separate shanty-town), the basti lands are very valuable. With the existence of a large demand for housing among the lower-income groups and middle class, the blighted bastis represent a site for considerable profiteering through building construction, and thus attract ‘money power’ and ‘muscle power’, the whole operation being supervised by the ruling party. The tenant dwellers are the most disempowered section within this environment.

With the supply-demand gap in housing, and especially among Muslims, the large tracts of basti land have become caught up in illegal real estate projects. These have also meant a considerable increase in the strain on the already overstretched slum and city services. Large Muslim bastis in different parts of Calcutta have become the centre of large-scale illegal construction.

The tenant basti dwellers are today in a situation of great insecurity as the housing scarcity and real estate forces work to push out the poor and low income – either to fringe areas, or to unrecognised dwelling.

Given the already severely degraded conditions in the bastis, such illegal construction further complicates the possibility of improvements, or of planned basti development.

Basti land is the only potential source to meet the social and environmental justice deficit in Calcutta. Thus basti development, that is led by an empowered community-based institution is the objective that has to be worked towards. But a revolution in institutional arrangements is needed to take this up. The people on top, who could drive such a venture – are oblivious to such concerns; and there does not exist any other force in this city which cares, or is capable of doing anything unless it is for its own narrow interests.

Today, bastis in Calcutta do not offer any hope of such dweller-led development, to realise dweller-owned housing. The present trend of illegal constructions in slums puts paid to such thinking. Basti dwellers are not organised as a class, and in the bastis it is the thika tenants, promoters and their allies (often political party activists) who are more powerful. The very possibility of social and environmental justice in Calcutta is being foreclosed by the lengthening shadow of illegal buildings.

Without any exaggeration one can say that small children are being murdered by the apathy of the authorities and privileged citizens – because they succumb to diseases whose fundamental cause is the severe environmental degradation caused by illegal constructions.

There is a conspiracy of silence surrounding this, even as it takes place blatantly, flagrantly. And the most shameful part is that city life goes on, oblivious to this murderous reality… And sadly, the Govt of India’s urban renewal mission has become a means for slumdwellers’ land to be handed over to private developers to profit from, and what’s more, get govt subsidy to do so.

Environmental improvement and poverty reduction in metropolitan Calcutta can succeed only by building capable leadership for community development at the grassroots. And this is what Howrah Pilot Project has been doing.

[To be continued...]

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V Ramaswamy is a Calcutta-based business executive, social planner, grassroots organiser, teacher and writer. Address for correspondence: hpp@vsnl.com.