Tag: india

15May

The voice of the non-voter: why some 264 million did not queue up

Photo: rajkumar1220, Flickr CC

The 2014 Lok Sabha elections was special for more than one reason. The largest democracy in the world fielded the highest number of candidates to the largest electorate in history. On an average, more than 15 candidates in 543 Parliamentary seats tried to convince their electorate from among India’s 815 million eligible voters to attest their candidature. And for the first time, Indians could also use NOTA, or the None Of The Above option.

While 66.38 per cent — 551 million — exercised their democratic right across the 190,000 polling booths across India, and 32 of the 35 Indian states and Union Territories saw a higher turnout than in 2009, 33.62 per cent Indians did not vote.

That is 264 million voters — six times the population of UK — who did not get inked.

The top performers in the elections were the smaller states: Nagaland (88.6 per cent turnout), Lakshadweep (86.8 per cent) and Tripura (84.3 per cent). And in Goa, Punjab, Chandigarh and 13 more states and Union Territories, the female turnout was higher than that of males.

As for the most populous states, many performed poorly. In Bihar, 43.5 per cent did not vote. And from among the 200 million voters of Uttar Pradesh, 41.4 per cent did not — or could not — vote.

Project India reporters spoke to voters in several constituencies to get a sense of why they did not cast their votes — and what they would like in future elections. Here’re some voices:

Somipoem Keshing, Manipur: ‘It’s all a big scam’

Indian election is a big scam. Most people are simple-minded and they are easily influenced by politicians hunting for votes. Democracy is a beautiful system, but it is easily twisted by political strategy. Democracy says a government for the people.  Unfortunately, that is not what happens. The government is monopolised by the powerful candidates. The rich candidate comes to power again and again. The poor remain poor – again and again. There is a deep contradiction between the real politician and the politician who appears on your TV screen. They are not the same. It’s all a big scam.

Komal Sheth, Pune: ‘An online voting system is the answer’

Komal ShethI moved from Kolkata to Pune two years ago. My voter ID was already made in Kolkata and there was no provision for me to transfer the voting constituency to Pune. My hectic college and work schedules didn’t let me travel to vote in my constituency. I had prepared to vote and created my photo ID, but I didn’t get the chance. I feel bad and disappointed. It would have been more satisfactory if there is better provision for people who move due to work or education. An online voting system is definitely an answer, but we still need to figure out how it would work.

Hari Gaurav, Chennai: ‘My vote is not going to change anything’

I have completed my BE from a city college. I didn’t vote. I opted not to vote because none of the parties have promised free education for financially poor students. None of the parties have promised to develop the quality of education in India. I prefer to be a non-voter than vote. My vote is not going to change anything.

Eric Kapadia, Mumbai: ‘It didn’t make the slightest difference to my life’

Eric Kolpada

Having lived in Canada for the past two years now, this was the first time I was away during elections. Although I couldn’t come home to vote, it didn’t make the slightest difference to my life. All these politicians only focus on places where they know they will get a large number of votes. Maybe that’s why nobody votes in South Bombay – not because we’re snobs, but because if they don’t seem to care about us, then why should we care about them? But the day a leader rises and has the courage to talk about issues that are swept under the rug in India, that’s a day I would look forward to voting.

Arsilan Lone, Srinagar: ‘I will not betray the martyrs’

Arsilan LoneI will never vote for any pro-Indian politician in Kashmir. They are nothing but stooges of New Delhi and just strengthening the brutal occupation by India. I am part of the future of Kashmir and I will not start my life by kissing the hands that are red with the blood of our brothers and sisters. I will not betray the martyrs. It doesn’t matter whether pro-freedom leaders give election boycott call or not, I know my moral responsibility very well. I was born in an occupied nation but my mind and heart have never accepted that.

Rahul Shah, Mumbai: ‘Why aren’t the roads fixed?’

Rahul ShahIf I was interested in politics, I would have voted. Nobody within the political sphere seems to care much about the political good. If I’m not wrong, this is one of the constituencies that gets the largest share of funds. So why aren’t the roads fixed? What is happening to the filth everywhere? Nothing.So what difference would it have made if I voted? I have my voter’s ID and the polling booth was just opposite my house. Still, I chose to go for a holiday.

Rishabh Gupta, New Delhi: ‘If only the EC had been more efficient’

Rishab Gupta

I would have voted for first time in this election if the Election Commission had eased out the ways to register for the voter ID card. I had registered myself with all my details on Election Commission’s website but nobody came to verify the details at my home. When I enquired from officials who distribute voter ID cards they told me to visit the regional office but I was not able to visit due to my college. I am very sad that I was not able to vote in this transformative election. I wish I could have voted. If only the election commission had been more efficient.

Nandini (not her real name), Mumbai: ‘I didn’t vote because I don’t want to give them power’

Being an 80-year- old woman, I have been a part of Indian history. I was there when the first general elections took place. I’m not proud of the fact that I didn’t vote, but it doesn’t bother me. Every day there are the same news: One politician says something to another, so the party gets angry. Everyone starts shouting, not allowing other people to speak. Tell me, how am I supposed to take these people seriously? I didn’t vote because I don’t want to give them power. I think the entire concept of elections is beautiful. One citizen giving power to another. But as soon as the power is given, some people then do nothing. Instead, they take my money and build themselves big fancy homes. And this merry-go-round has been happening for years. So if I vote, I will help turn the merry-go-round, reinforcing the cycle. Now that’s something that would bother me.

With inputs from: Zulkarnain Banday, Rachitaa Gupta, Manolakshmi Pandiarajan, Jehan Lalkaka, Anshul Gupta, and Deepa Venkatesan.

Photo: rajkumar1220, Flickr CC

15May

Why India won’t see enough women in Parliament for a long time

Women in India at a rally in Mumbai. Photo: Al Jazeera English, CC

“You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.”
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India

“Politicians only address men. We, the women of the village, are told by our husbands which symbol to vote for. We don’t think, we vote.”
Nirmala Devi from Sarhera village, Haryana, speaking to Project India

It is all over bar the counting. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections are done. Figures available from the Election Commission of India show the total turnout of voters was 66.38 per cent , which means that 551.3 million people stood in line at polling booths all over the country and pressed the button of their choice on electronic voting machines.

By the evening of Friday, May 16, 2014, India will know who will lead its new government at the centre. Or, if the votes are too divided for a clear leader to emerge, have at least an inkling of what to expect over the next five years. Everyone, however politically apathetic they may be, expects change.

But one thing will not change, or at least not by a great extent. And that is the number of women among the elected Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, the lower of the two houses of Parliament, literally translated into English as ‘the House of the People’. Come June 1, when the new government begins to function, 543 MPs will occupy seats in the Lok Sabha, but less than a hundred of them will be women.

It’s possible to know this already. Women composed just eight per cent of all the candidates from all the political parties that contested the elections this time. That is, only 632 women ran for election, as opposed to 7,527 men.

In the last Lok Sabha that came into power in 2009, there were 59 women MPs, meaning they occupied about 11 per cent of the seats. To maintain or beat these numbers in the 2014 elections, the women candidates, though wildly outnumbered, need to be more electorally successful than the men.

Is this proportional representation in the world’s largest democracy? Hardly.

You’d imagine that, at least in these elections, there would be more women candidates than ever before. Since the horrific gang rape in New Delhi in December 2012, women’s concerns about safety, sexual insecurity and gender discrimination have been in the media spotlight consistently, leading to discussions, arguments, introspection and a clearer picture of the strongly patriarchal society that is India. The fact that the ruling Congress lost the Assembly elections in New Delhi in 2013 can be partly attributed to the way it behaved after the December 2012 gang rape: these issues are believed to have motivated a good proportion of the female electorate to go out and vote. And women compose half the population of the country. So how come political parties didn’t think it important to nominate and support more women candidates?

This is because women are not seen as winners, according to a study by Dr Carole Spary of the University of York, England. In a paper titled Women Candidates and Party Nomination Trends in India – Evidence from the 2009 General Election, she writes that  political parties in India tend to see women as less likely to win elections than men, and therefore prefer not to take risks with seats they could conceivably win. The perception that ‘winnability’ is based on gender is very strong, even though, if you break up the electoral success rate by sexes, the women who do win elections are proportionally far more successful than the men who win, given the huge number of men they have to beat.

The 2009 general election, which made 59 women MPs, was a record-breaker as far as women’s representation was concerned. Before that, women tended to occupy about eight to nine per cent of the Lok Sabha’s seats. But the fact that more women got to Parliament in 2009 did not mean that political parties nominated more women in 2009. It was just that more women beat more men. So it is fairly clear that political parties continue to lack faith in women as winners, which makes it difficult for women to participate in politics at all. Add to this the fact that, compared to men, women are less likely to stand for elections as independent candidates (in the 2009 elections, slightly more than a third of female candidates ran as independents while nearly half the male candidates did the same) for various reasons including a lack of finances for an effective campaign, and you begin to see why there aren’t many more women in the electoral field.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi

It’s true that India is not the only nation with such a low proportion of women among its popularly elected legislators. In the West, even countries with far longer and deeper traditions of democracy and gender equality are struggling to deal with the same problem. So you could argue that a democracy that is still less than 70 years old is not doing too badly. While the proportion of women in the Lok Sabha was 11 per cent at its best so far, in the US House of Representatives, it was 18.3 per cent, and in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons at this time, it is 22.6 per cent. These proportions remain about the same in the upper houses of India, the USA and the UK’s legislative bodies.

Among its neighbours, however, India falls somewhere in the middle of the scale of women’s participation in politics. More than 20 per cent of the lower houses of Pakistan, Nepal and China’s national legislative bodies are women, while only five to six per cent of Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka’s national legislative bodies are female.

But comparisons are meaningless — just because one nation does better or worse than another, it does not mean that that nation does not have a problem.

And the problem with women’s participation in politics in India, it could be argued, has much to do with the country’s patriarchal attitude. In 2014, male children are still preferred and though prenatal sex determination was banned in 1996, female foetuses are still aborted in high numbers, and girl children who are born tend to be given poorer care than boys. This attitude is so deeply rooted that according to the 2011 Census, India now has 37 million fewer women than men (586.5 million women to 623.7 million men).

A good indication of how little regard girls tend to get in India is the literacy rate. For men, the literacy rate is 76 per cent, but only 54 per cent of women are literate. This means their opportunities are limited.

All these issues and more have been in the media spotlight since the Delhi gang rape. But even though sexual violence and the state of women’s safety in Delhi was one of the reasons why the ruling Congress was wiped out in the Assembly elections last December, public anger over the lack of safety for women does not seem to have a national resonance yet. Even many women, the victims of patriarchy, seem not to understand the insidiousness of the social system, as India learnt when Asha Mirje, a politician from the National Congress Party and a member of the National Women’s Commission, said at the beginning of this year that the victims of gang rapes might have invited the attacks with their clothes, behaviour and their presence at inappropriate places.

So it seems unlikely that the change that is demanded in these Lok Sabha elections will include much-needed change for women in India.

But what of the future?

In 1947 after Independence, India became a democracy and, unlike many post-colonial states, has managed to stay a democracy so far. So the women of the nation still have hope. And it isn’t a weak hope. The way the public spontaneously mobilised itself against the establishment after the December 2012 gang rape in Delhi; the way the media took up the gang rape case and forced politicians and the establishment to address women’s concerns, show that women’s voices can and will be heard. So in the future, there could be many more women in Parliament.

Having more women in the Lok Sabha would not necessarily eliminate all the issues that the women of India face every day. But it would show half the nation that the other half of the nation is capable of being leaders, politicians and role models.

Photos: Al Jazeera English CC

This story was also published on Rediff.com, our media partner.

12May

As polling ends, a profile of the men and women who fought for your votes

On the final day of polling in the world’s biggest election, voters in 41 constituencies across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal will cast their votes, and, of course, post photos of inked fingers on social media. The 8,234 candidates who  submitted themselves to the electorate over the past month were obliged to declare their education, assets, and a range of other details. Based on that information, here is a quick profile of the candidates who fought for the 16th Lok Sabha seats.

Female candidates made up just 8% of the field. In the last Lok Sabha women occupied 11% of the seats. This means that in order to beat that figure, female candidates will need to be more electorally successful than their male counterparts this time around.

Most candidates were in their 40s, the average age being 47.

There were 52 candidates aged 25. The constitution states that anyone under the age of 25 may not sit in the Lok Sabha.

At 93 Ram Sundar Das is the oldest candidate — the only one in the 90s, in fact. He is running in Hajipur, Bihar for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Rishang Keishing, who is 94, currently holds the record for India’s and the world’s oldest MP. However, he is not seeking reelection this time. If Sundar Das is elected and serves a full term he will become the world’s oldest MP.

Just under one-third of the candidates are graduates, and over 40% declared that they are educated to a high school level.

Five per cent of candidates have no formal education.

The average candidate has assets totalling Rs 49,309,000 (approximately £488,000).

The wealthiest candidate is technology entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani, who declared total assets of Rs 77,102,957,219 (approximately £763,473,000), including Rs 1,166,057,978 (£11,546,000) currently deposited in the bank.

The majority of the candidate, 82%, have never been involved in any criminal cases.

Two candidates from the Aam Aadmi Party in Tamil Nadu came top of the list in terms of involvement in criminal cases.

Udayakumar S P declared in his sworn affidavit that he has been involved in 382 cases, which include 19 charges of attempted murder and 16 charges “related to waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India”.

M Pushparayan, came a close second, declaring he has been involved in 380 criminal case.

Data compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch, based on sworn affidavits from candidates.

10May

The youth of India have voted, and they have voted for world-class education

More than 100 million people are eligible to vote for the first time in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Some of these new voters are students. And for most of them the state of education in the country has been the greatest determinant of who they cast their votes for.

Young voters in Mumbai. Photo: Apekshita VarshneyShishir Samant, a 21-year-old management student of the Lala Lajpatran College of Commerce and Economics, says the only thing that matters to him and his friends is the state of education in the country.

“Economic issues do not influence us at the moment,” he said.

Like many other students, Samant is not happy with the state of affairs in the education sector. His college is affiliated with the Mumbai University and he thinks the government should take responsibility for anomalies in the system.

Supriya Bwivedi, 20, a medical student at the B J Government Medical College, had the same opinion as Shishir. She said: “Some things are been neglected, the funding to run hospitals and medical facilities is not there and the money people get is not equivalent to their work.”

Many others said the lack of infrastructure has made learning difficult; it has made many courses largely theoretical.

Sneha Murchavade, 20, a student of commercial art at Sophia College for Women thinks that with a little more practical classes the colleges in India should be able to compete globally.

Apart from providing the right environment, the students also expect a government that would be willing to review policies.

Proshant Chakraborty, a student of anthropology at St  Xavier’s College, says there is too much state control and censorship in education. “Books that are thought provocative by one person are dropped. Education has been politicised, so whoever comes to power controls it,” he said.

Not everyone though thinks the system is as bad or that the system needs to change drastically. Anshuman Preenza, 19, a student of Mechatronics at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies expressed satisfaction at the pace of progress.

“We are gradually turning to a more practical approach. Exams are now application-based questions. Five years back we didn’t have this amount of logistics. I think things are turning for good,” he said.

He was however quick to distance the government from any of this achievements and think a more proactive government would make things even better.

Koran Hemanp, a medical student at Rural Medical College in Kolkata, thinks that what is needed is dedication from student; tools and infrastructure don’t matter too much if there is no dedication from students. But even he thinks that things have to change. He, for example, finds the common entrance into the medical college unjustified.

Some students though felt that things other than the elections should influence their votes. Pankhil Mispry, 20, a student of the VJPI Engineering College, said: “I thought first about development. I wanted a leader who would give attention to the manufacturing sector, improve the railways and other forms of transportation.”

A majority of students have expressed discontent about the level of education especially its lack of practical classes. Some of this problem have been linked to government policies or , in some cases, inaction.

“I also had education in mind when I was deciding who to vote for. The kind of education that I like takes place only in private institution. Government colleges have the intellectual crowds that are not treated properly. Private institutions have the rich crowd. At the end there is no proper man-power,” Pankhil said.

The students linked the poor state of education to the government and most thought that a new government might make this better.

“I hope for a new government. This present government has had 10 years and has not worked. Nothing will change if they continue,” Sneha said.

Even Ansuman who thinks that the institutions are improving wants a new government. He said: “Change is always better. Let’s see what a new government can do. Let’s give other people a chance.” 

Photo: Apekshita Varshney. Student voters in Mumbai

This story also appeared on Rediff.com, our media partner.

7May

The recipe for democratic engagement

Mumbai voters

At the end of the day on which Mumbai got its collective finger inked, I was filming a selfie outside the gates of a school near the vegetable market in Byculla in Mumbai South. It was less narcissistic than it sounds – I was finishing off a day of intense live blogging.

It was going pretty smoothly, until I noticed the watchful glare of a police officer, who ambled over, and stood in front of me, his arms folded. I rushed through the remaining sentences, trying not to lapse into awkward gibberish as I did so, and put my phone in my pocket.

“What are you doing?” asked the young officer, gesturing at my pocket.

“I’m just…” I hesitated, “…filming.” I quickly added, “I’m a journalist covering the elections.” The policeman’s brow was still furrowed as he hit me with a follow-up.

“Are you here on a visa?” he asked. “Which one?”

We had a little back and forth like this until I realised it was inquisitiveness rather than inquisition. It turned out that he had been working nearly non-stop for 48 hours.

“So what do you think of democracy here?” he asked. I told him how much I was struck by the level of engagement, especially coming from Britain where voter turnout is generally far lower.

“People here are very proud,” he said. “Everybody votes. Why don’t they in Britain?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s because people think all the parties are the same?” I suggested. “There’s not that much difference between them.” My new friend thought for while, then came up with the answer.

“It’s probably because we have a real democracy and you have the Queen,” he said, pointedly. “We can choose for ourselves.”

Photo: Patrick Ward.

This story was also published on WoNoBo.com, our media partner.

5May

‘Of all parties, only the BJP is assured of the contempt of the 190 million Muslims of India. Yet it’s expected to win’

Manu Joseph, journalist, author

Manu Joseph, journalist, author

For me, elections assume different forms. At one level they are the revenge of the poor. Everybody talks about corruption; the branding of corruption is very strong. But the real voter is different from what political observers and the middle class perceive. He has issues more important than corruption. He is willing to condone corruption if he is impressed with the politician. Some even see it [corruption] as smartness, maybe as a sign of the ability to get things done.

I strongly feel that the AAP [the Aam Aadmi Party, which came into being in November 2012 as an anti-corruption party] has changed the political scenario more than the media realises and sometimes even more than they [the members of the AAP] themselves realise. They were exactly what people wanted, but the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] has managed to control most of the mainstream media very efficiently. Recently, a survey stated that Arvind Kejriwal [the founder of the AAP] has more media coverage [than Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate]. This is just media spin. Kejriwal has got a lot of bad publicity, which is not exactly the same as publicity. So if one is trying to spin media statistics, saying that Kejriwal has been favoured by the media, it is absolute rubbish. What Kejriwal has done is pressurise political parties to transform. For the first time, members of political parties who are corrupt and thug-like are being perceived as probable liabilities. This in itself is revolutionary.

The reason why all this is happening, in my opinion, is because the lure of emigrating abroad has died down. Culturally, a lot of Indians are happier living here than in the First World. By culturally, I mean India’s social pyramid, in which the middle class has a protected and cushy life. This has made ‘home’ very important. The middle class has a great power to disseminate information. Everything from cricket to culture to information has percolated the social pyramid mainly from this class. The need for meaningful politics is a middle class requirement. That is where this revolution began.

The ‘Modi wave’ as Narendra Modi’s popularity has been tagged, was first an exaggeration. But the media has succeeded in creating a wave. If one says there is no wave surrounding a person, it means that there is one. The ‘wave’ is an ‘investment’ in media. Not all media, but yes, a bit of it. And I am given to understand that Rahul Gandhi [the vice-president of the Congress party] had a strategy of governance that included alienating opportunists and cleaning up the system to some extent. This ensured that many businessmen went directly to Modi, instead of playing both cards.

Which brings us to the role of the regional parties. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, more than 350 parties contested. To some, this may seem a nuisance since it creates a lot of confusion for a national-level government, but the regional parties actually represent various factions and sections of society and serve as a pressure valve. There are no major uprisings in India because every group feels that it is politically represented — except for women. This is strange, because women constitute 50 per cent of society. All the other groups have a fair representation. But these ‘divisions’ lead to coalition politics.

Because Uttar Pradesh and Bihar form a large chunk of north India, the whole concept of what constitutes national interest is a bit skewed. I am from the southern part of India, and when I hear people talk about national politics, they largely talk about these two big states. This misconception has singlehandedly destroyed the concept of national politics. [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee [the former Prime Minister of India] once said, you cannot become a prime minister if you don’t pass UP. But this false perception has to change.

I think people vote because they strongly believe that it is important to do so. I also know that a section of society feels that voting is not all that important. Take Mumbai as an example. Most residents of Mumbai are migrants and the middle class, who live on rent and so have no ‘stake’ in the city. So they do not turn up to vote. It is all about individual personal gain. But this election has seen a considerably large voter turnout than the last one. Not because people have become more intelligent in the last five years, but simply because more people think it is important to vote. There is greater political consciousness this time around.

However, while the middle class and social media users have created a lot of noise that one might perceive as growing political interest, the majority of Indians are poor. We do not hear their voices and they are ones who NEED the government. So for the common man and woman, the most important aspect of an election is being able to pick the person who serves his or her interest better.

You and I can say, “Yeah, yeah, we need the government too,” but the poor man’s whole livelihood and quality of life depends on the government, from hospitals to schools to everything. The poor cannot live without the government, so their stakes are very high. They want quick improvement to their lives or at least a promise to that effect. This factor has always existed, though it is fulfilled very rarely. Yes, voting also involves communal factors, caste factors and so on, but increasingly, the caste factor is making less and less sense to the Indian voter.

What amuses me in this election is that the Muslim population of India is a state secret. It is presumed to be around 190 million, and that of all the political parties in the country, only the [Hindu nationalist] BJP is assured of the contempt of this huge chunk of the population. Yet it is also the BJP which is expected to win, though I am not entirely sure about that. I want to just wait and watch.

On a positive note, I think that everything is falling into place for India. We are more politically mature, and I think that in the next 10 years, there will be a place for a political party that focuses on women and women’s issues. I do not expect this to happen, but surely there is place. I am also expecting the AAP to be more and more influential in the coming years. They have some very capable and honest leaders, and they have the power to bring about positive changes.

Also, we will know this time how influential social media can be. The good part is that politics now matters to every section of society, from Mumbai socialites to the poor. So let us wait and see how this election unfolds.

As told to Vignesh Jeyaraman. This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Manu Joseph, a columnist for the New York Times and a former editor of OPEN magazine, is the author of Serious Men and The Illicit Happiness of Other People.

This story was also published on Rediff.com, our media partner.

5May

NGOs challenge the mystery of disappearing voters in Mumbai

Voters queuing up in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Photo: Goutam Roy/Al Jazeera English on Flickr cc

Two NGOs have filed a petition with the Bombay High Court to challenge the deletion of 200,000 names from the electoral list in Mumbai.

Some 6,500 people who say they had their names “illegally” removed from the list of electors came forward to support the petition, which was started by the Action for Good Governance and Networking in India and Birthright.

Mumbai’s election day on April 24 saw many voters unexpectedly being turned away from polling stations, despite having been able to vote in the previous general election as well as the 2011 civic polls.

The Election Commission of India has apologised, but the public interest litigation filed by the NGOs calls for a special ballot to be held before May 16 to correct the error.

The PIL suggests either dereliction of duty or political conspiracy as the cause of the names being deleted. It has called for the formation of a special investigations team to look into whether the names were deleted in line with correct procedure.

The PIL has been scheduled for a hearing on May 6, following a decision to do so by a bench headed by the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, Mohit Shah.

This is the second major controversy regarding the removal of names from electoral lists in this general election. A petition calling for an investigation into the removal of 100,000 names from lists in Pune was filed on April 21.

Photo: Goutam Roy/Al Jazeera English on Flickr cc

This story was also published on WoNoBo.com, our media partner.

2May

In the run-up to the elections, Dharavi spots rare birds: politicians

Photo: Jon Hurd on Flickr

For the residents of Dharavi in Mumbai, known to the world as Asia’s largest slum, the run-up to elections is special — it is one of the few occasions that they get to see a politician.

With about a million people, Dharavi was a key constituency for those wanting to get elected to the Lok Sabha this year. It’s also economically important, with an annual turnover of Rs 30 billion (and that’s just what’s declared).

Dharavi may be poor, but it sits on a prime location as far as property developers are concerned. Successive waves of politicians have attempted projects to move the slum’s residents into new housing, and allow private businesses to move in.

Ballaji, 24, works in the family trade, making flower chains for weddings and other celebrations. He has a six-week old son and is keen that his young family have a secure future. He is dismissive of the politicians who come for their votes. He said the election period is the only time government workers come to help clear the rubbish from inside the slum.

“The politicians ask them to clean up during the election,” said Ballaji. “That is to show them they are doing something, so they can get enough votes from people.”

Ballaji said he did see one politician visit the slum in the run up to the vote, but it was the first he had ever seen her. He didn’t even know who she was. “She was walking around the area,” he said. “I don’t know why she came here, maybe to gather our votes. I saw her only that time.

“Maybe I’ll see her again — maybe after five years.” he added.

Ballaji also works as a slum tour guide. He loves Dharavi, and spends his time showing tourists the richness of the community and its entrepreneurial ethos. But he had few kind words for politicians and developers.

“The government talks about a lot of development projects but we don’t see any proper development here,” he said. “Now we’ve just finished with the election, let’s see — maybe we’ll get the same government or maybe a different government. We are not sure what the government is going to do. Let us see.”

Ballaji said that times were hard for many of those trying to make a living in the slum. His flower business was no longer blooming.

“Business is going down. Nowadays no one wears flowers in their hair,” he said.

“India, of course, is growing, but I don’t know where the money is going. The poor are still struggling. We don’t have proper facilities.”

He added, “I think the money is growing in the politicians’ bank accounts.”

But Ballaji wants to stay in Dharavi with his family, as it has everything he needs. For him, the slum development schemes touted by politicians would just mean him being uprooted from his community.

“The new generation will never look for government support,” he said. “The government is not going to do anything, nothing for us. We work hard to do better.”

Photo: Jon Hurd on Flickr

This story was also published on WoNoBo.com, our media partner.

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