Baba Ramdev and the Tower of Garbage

There are many parts of India that do not give a damn about Baba Ramdev (and perhaps it is poetic justice that the mainstream media, especially of the noisy electronic kind, reciprocate on the Baba’s behalf by not caring about them).

One of these is Rafiq Nagar part II, a slum that does not exist in government records or on Google Maps, situated at the periphery of a massive Mumbai dump in Mankhurd. In stark contrast to the city’s newest tourist attraction, the Tower of Mukesh, all you will find here is a Tower of Garbage.

This Tower of Garbage may not be 27 stories high (or 60 stories high actually) but like the Tower of Mukesh it is occupied by rich people, if you go by what the Planning Commission told the Supreme Court last month: that anyone earning Rs20 or more a day is above the poverty line. It was the kind of submission that reminds you of what the late Rajiv Gandhi said about the Commission: that it comprised a bunch of jokers. (Former Home Secretary and Commission Secretary CG Somiah noted in his memoirs that the then Deputy Chairman of the Commission was so hurt by Rajiv’s comments that he contemplated resigning. This sensitive soul was one Dr Manmohan Singh.) Thus, even if your livelihood involves picking stuff out of the Tower of Garbage for recycling, you’re bound to earn just a bit more than Rs20 a day, and that means you’re above the poverty line; and yet despite this remarkable number the Government of India is still to get a fix on how much of India is poor. Estimates range from 37 per cent (Suresh Tendulkar committee) to 77 per cent (Arjun Sengupta committee).

I told a friend about my visit to Rafiq Nagar and short of shouting “you commie!” he angrily said the problem with India since Independence is that intellectuals have been looking for poverty instead of looking for ways of generating growth to eradicate poverty. Hmm. The Tower of Mukesh seems evidence enough that India has found plenty of ways of generating growth. When I drive around Mumbai, it seems even lesser mortals are trying to ape that giant phallic symbol in the middle of town; you could name a dozen industrialists who are building miniature versions. So, as we say in India, wealth is there. Problem is that the Rafiq Nagars just don’t go away; they grow and grow, much to the discomfort of the millions who are learning shav-asana from Baba Ramdev.

Wealth is also in Rafiq Nagar. This is apparent at least to United Phosphorus Limited, a company which has been given the dump land (apparently for a song, but then that is characteristic of our wealth-generating politicians whether it be Orissa, Tamil Nadu or Gujarat). Earlier, the people in the slums used to pick out the cloth or the rubber or the plastics out of the Tower of Garbage and recycle it. Now it’s done by UPL, which has built a big wall around one section of the dump, and which wants the huts removed, presumably to take ownership of the land and, as is the rage nowadays in Mumbai, redevelop it. No guesses as to whose side the local politician is on.

Thus, around 200 huts were demolished last week (it was the third round of demolitions of jhuggis in the last decade). Not that there was a lot to bulldoze: each hut is a bamboo structure with political posters for walls and a torn tarp for a ceiling. Walking down the lanes means walking through clouds of flies. The women never leave these huts, even to give birth, because whatever belongings they own would be stolen (yes, isn’t it shameful what poor neighbours the poor make?). Then there’s a practical problem: even if, in the name of development, you wanted to evict these people, where would they go? After all, one of the women we spoke to came from an unauthorised slum in Kanpur. No amenities, no communication, no contact, no identity: such is the life of three-quarters of our fellow Indians (or one-third, I can never be sure).

If you climb the Tower of Garbage (admission is free and you don’t need a Vaastu-compliant entrance like the Tower of Mukesh) you get a panoramic view of the surrounding areas and the vertical slums that the government has constructed (some of which stand empty because no one has decided which poor people to dump there, there being so many). The locals here couldn’t care less about Baba Ramdev. Maybe it’s because his fast for the return of black money is not going to better their lives one iota. Or maybe they sense that Baba Ramdev would never visit Rafiq Nagar part II, sit atop the Tower of Garbage, and do pranayama; for no matter how black the money, it can never have the stench of the poor.

The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, DNA,
based in Mumbai