There's
no doubt about it, this is incredible India all right.
Where else in the world would you get Judges of a High
Court treating a deity as litigant in a legal case?
And then, because the said deity, otherwise referred
to as Ram Lalla in the judgement, is to be treated as
a minor (was this the only reason He did not appear
in court himself?) where else would you find the Court
awarding land rights to his ''next friend'', a contemporary
human and a trust that human is associated with?
For residents of Delhi, there have been other recent
signs of our Indian incredibleness. The Commonwealth
Games have thrown up different aspects of this almost
continuously in the past few months. Of course, it could
be argued that by now ordinary Indians should be inured
to the spectacles of corruption and incompetence to
which we have been exposed around this event. Even so,
our rulers retain the capacity to surprise us.
Possibly the most startling relatively new thing that
has come to attention in Delhi is the emergence of a
generalised ''purdah'' around those parts of the city
that have been deemed to be unsightly for visitors'
eyes, and therefore to be rendered invisible. In the
week prior to the opening ceremony of the by-then dreaded
Commonwealth Games, new temporary screens pasted with
large posters suddenly sprang up all over different
roads in Delhi. The posters blazoned the CWG logo and
depicted the tiger mascot Shera inviting us to ''come
out and play''. The funny thing is that these were not
on billboards that would have been widely visible, but
ground level, on pavements and the sides of roads, often
restricting pedestrian access, and always adding to
an overall sense of constriction and even clutter.
If the idea was to advertise the Games, it was surely
a most inefficient way of doing so. But no, advertising
the Games was only a minor part of their purpose. So
what were they actually for? It turns out that these
strange objects are ''view-cutters'' - which must be the
latest proud Indian addition to the ever-mutating English
language - designed to conceal the dirtier and more
sordid aspects of metropolitan Delhi from foreign visitors.
The idea is simply breathtaking - and it could only
happen in India. Other countries and cities bid to host
international events with a view to improving the infrastructure
and facilities available for residents, and increasingly
urban renewal has become an important element of this.
For example, London's successful bid to host the next
Olympic Games was predicated on its promise to develop
the run-down inner city areas and clean up and regenerate
the deprived zones by providing new urban utilities
and services.
By contrast, what has Delhi done for the bulk of its
residents, more than a quarter of whom still reside
in chaotic, congested and deprived slum settlements?
Most of these slums lack proper drainage, piped water
supply, and even basic sanitation and toilet facilities
that would be minimally adequate for a healthy life.
In these settlements, people are cramped together in
tiny and precarious housing of such poor quality that
the recent rains have rendered many of them uninhabitable;
electrical connections are often random and illegal;
street lighting is patchy and inadequate; other services
simply do not exist. The question of periodic cleaning
of such areas by the municipal authorities is rarely,
if ever, addressed.
So did the run-up to the Commonwealth Games involve
some attempts to provide more infrastructure and better
facilities in slums and other congested areas? Since
this is all about games, after all, and Shera wants
us to come out and play, did the planners even consider
the matter of providing playgrounds to children who
now have nowhere at all to play in large parts of the
city? Was there any attempt to democratise the sports
facilities that are being created so that ordinary children
will also have access?
Unfortunately, none of this was even thought of, much
less attempted. Instead, the so-called beautification
of the city has all been about exclusion and destruction
of livelihoods. In the name of ''streetscaping'' (most
of which reveals an aesthetic that is problematic in
the extreme) street vendors have been removed with no
compensation, and locals have been deprived of the conveniences
such vendors provided. The rubble created by new construction
has been pushed into side streets, shifting the problem
onto residents.
And now on top of all the injury comes this unparalleled
insult: that the poor are not to be visible, because
the squalor, filth and congestion in which they are
forced to live will create a bad impression for foreigners.
We can't or won't try to fix it, but we can hide it,
seems to be the motto. So up come the view-cutters.
Typically, even this matter has been handled incompetently,
so that attempts at drawing attention away from the
dirty mess actually end up revealing it, as the makeshift
huts of the poor rise jauntily above some of the screens,
or as piles of rubble and dirt spill under other screens,
or as gaps in the barriers expose the pathetic reality
of the urban squalor that lurks behind the shiny new
facades.
This extraordinary act of trying to conceal an unpleasant
reality instead of dealing with it and attempting to
improve it may indeed seem incredible to the foreigners
visiting the city during the Games. Meanwhile, in some
areas jhuggi dwellers have already taken matters (and
view-cutters) into their own hands and put these strange
objects to the best possible use: as covers for their
fragile homes. So all this will certainly add another
dimension to incredible India.
But for those who are familiar with the long-lived and
wretchedly persistent tolerance of inequality that seems
to be ingrained in Indian society, this may be only
too credible. Among the more disgusting historical caste
practices in the subcontinent was one that rendered
certain castes - and even their shadows - ''unseeable''
by the higher castes. Those notions of pollution and
purity have surely been abandoned by most of the population
for some time now. But what we are seeing in Delhi now
is really another version of this, whereby the poor
and the dreadful conditions in which they have to live
are to be rendered unseeable by foreigners, so as to
preserve what we fondly think of as our positive external
image. Even more than the actual reality, it is this
ultimately ineffectual duplicity which should be a source
of national shame.
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