THE BASTI TRANSFORMS !
It was not yet summer. Towards the end of March (this is 2012), it is still supposed to be spring time. But by the time we got to the Bajrangnagar community in Indore, it was quite warm and the hall which was the venue of our meeting with the community was packed, mostly by women. We had come to meet this community as part of the WaterAid team, where our partner NGO, BGMS (Bhartiaya Grameen Mahila Sansthan) had been working for several years on various community development initiatives. It was an organization formed by women for women, but their work benefited the entire community, and the children in particular.
“I came here because I had fallen in love with a young man from this community and got married to him. But when I came here to live after my marriage, I wondered if I had been stupid to do so” said Sunita, rather nonchalantly ! There was considerable mirth around her frank confession. “This was quite sometime back. I lived in a reasonable neighbourhood but I was appalled by the conditions that people lived in. The worst thing was that there were no toilets. I was not used to relieving myself in the open – and that was very difficult for me to come to terms with. But I realized that at that time, I did not have an alternative ! That is when I decided to work with BGMS team and see what I could do to support development here. During this period, I studied hard, got my degree, completed my post graduation and am now working as a teacher. But I am still involved with BGSS on a voluntary basis” she said.
It was a fascinating story of change. From a typical slum, over two decades with support from BGSS, the community had succeeded in transforming the settlement from a lowly slum to a well developed community, pretty much like a middle class settlement. Houses had been renovated, there were good cement-and-concrete roads, drains were well laid out and overall, it was quite clean compared with the general standards of cleanliness that one would expect to see in a similar neighbourhood in an Indian city.
Sunita’s personal testimonial became a trigger for many women to narrate their own stories and experiences. The narrative was quite similar – they had been contacted and encouraged by BGMS, the BGMS team came and trained them to be community workers, they mobilized women in their neighbourhood, savings were collected, loans were given, life had changed and they are now looking forward to much brighter future for their children. Women from different communities in the city of Indore, with different backgrounds, many from the tribal community called the Bhils who had migrated to the city in search of livelihoods from the rural hinterland that was affected by drought and failing agriculture or related livelihoods.
Through all this, one of the women, who must have been in her mid-fifties, listened intently. She appeared to be in no mood to speak, but to listen and to relive for herself her own past life in the community. Dressed in a blue sari with her head covered, the stories that other women were saying seemed to resonate with her. She was nodding in agreement, smiling occasionally, but sitting very quiet. And suddenly, she raised her hand, indicating her intention to speak. And speak, she did – her story and what she had seen and experienced.
“My name is Vasanti Jodha. I am from the Bhil community. I came here several years ago. I had 3 children then and the youngest one was just a few days old. The situation here was horrible. From the main road, we had to balance ourselves on a log of wood to cross a dirty stream into which all waste, human and solid waste, was emptied. The sight was disgusting, the stench was awful. It was quite a task to balance ourselves on the log of wood as we tried to cross the stream without falling. Many children had fallen, some died, some were wounded. But that was the only way in which we could access our settlement. All the houses were temporary in nature, built with bamboo poles and draped with rags, jute bags or anything that we could lay our hands on. The whole place was dirty. Children were regularly falling ill.”
“No one cared for us. On the contrary, we were victims of anything that happened in the city. If there was a burglary, the police would come looking for us as if we were responsible for any crime in the city. When the police came, we had to run for cover – as we didn’t know whose husband, brother or son was going to be arrested. They would be gone for days and we would not know what fate awaited them. We were considered as dirty, unwelcome people, petty criminals. When we went to the local office of the municipality to ask for support for some jobs, health or education, we were shooed away. But a few weeks before the elections, once in every five years, we would have politicians coming in asking for votes, saying that all our problems would be sorted. We used to wonder – how come they are discovering us now. Where were they all these years ? Falling into the trap of their promises, we would vote for those who we seemed to trust. And once elected, we would go to greet the successful candidate – only to be shooed away again. ‘Sahab is busy’ we were told ‘and he cannot meet you’. Well, he came to ask for votes, we voted for him, so why would he not see us, we often wondered. But we thought that was our fate and we were destined to live a life like this – neglected, wretched and poor”.
“And then, we had the team from BGMS. When they came, we thought that they too were like any other outsider, coming in for their own gains. We had many people coming here offering us various things and making all kinds of promises and we had learnt not to trust them anymore. Why would BGMS be different ? In fact, we would avoid them. But they persisted. They kept coming back and saying that we need to work together to solve our problems. They started talking to us about education, why we should educate our children. They wanted our children to be immunized. Since they were all women, they would speak to the women and ask them to get organized. They encouraged us to save a little so that we could revolve it amongst ourselves when in need. They offered us small loans. Slowly, things started changing.”
“Some of us started small businesses – vegetable and fruit vending, tailoring, small livestock, small scale trading. Initially, our husbands wondered what we are upto. We were scolded and ridiculed for spending time in meetings. But when they started seeing the results, they realized that we were doing something very important. Gradually, we started looking at issues of cleanliness and of waste. Our settlement was very dirty. There were no toilets. Water supply was completely lacking. We were fetching dirty water from nearby sources or buying it which was very expensive. What BGMS did was to take us to the municipal corporation to demand water supply and support for construction of toilets. It was not easy. We kept going regularly. We asked them to come to our settlement and see our conditions”.
“Eventually, things started happening. They came and saw our problems but also saw that there was so much self-help happening through women’s groups. We said we would contribute to the water project, which we did. We also said that we will ensure that it is well maintained and that we paid our dues on a regular basis. We were also granted support for construction of toilets”.
“This led to an increase in our confidence. We started going to the municipal corporation on our own without BGMS. We negotiated with them on waste collection. A system was put in place because of which solid waste is collected every day. Under the programme for urban development, we negotiated and eventually were granted a project to build cement and concrete roads in our neighbourhood. All this further increased our confidence. Women started doing more for their own livelihood. They grew their businesses. We now have reasonable incomes to take care of our families or make a big contribution to our family income. We also have a woman building contractor (pointing out to a woman about her age sitting nearby) who started by building toilets after getting trained in basic masonary skills. Now she constructs houses – she has also taken up contracts for building two-storeyed houses in this and other settlements”. You could sense the vicarious pride that Vasanti experienced narrating this last bit !
“We were poor and living with no dignity. But today, we are respected. People come to visit us. Officials and politicians listen to us. The police cannot harass us any longer. We may still be poor, but we feel confident and empowered. And we do feel confident that our children will never see the days that we have, will never experience the vulnerability and indignity that we faced!”.
It was not yet summer. Towards the end of March (this is 2012), it is still supposed to be spring time. But by the time we got to the Bajrangnagar community in Indore, it was quite warm and the hall which was the venue of our meeting with the community was packed, mostly by women. We had come to meet this community as part of the WaterAid team, where our partner NGO, BGMS (Bhartiaya Grameen Mahila Sansthan) had been working for several years on various community development initiatives. It was an organization formed by women for women, but their work benefited the entire community, and the children in particular.
“I came here because I had fallen in love with a young man from this community and got married to him. But when I came here to live after my marriage, I wondered if I had been stupid to do so” said Sunita, rather nonchalantly ! There was considerable mirth around her frank confession. “This was quite sometime back. I lived in a reasonable neighbourhood but I was appalled by the conditions that people lived in. The worst thing was that there were no toilets. I was not used to relieving myself in the open – and that was very difficult for me to come to terms with. But I realized that at that time, I did not have an alternative ! That is when I decided to work with BGMS team and see what I could do to support development here. During this period, I studied hard, got my degree, completed my post graduation and am now working as a teacher. But I am still involved with BGSS on a voluntary basis” she said.
It was a fascinating story of change. From a typical slum, over two decades with support from BGSS, the community had succeeded in transforming the settlement from a lowly slum to a well developed community, pretty much like a middle class settlement. Houses had been renovated, there were good cement-and-concrete roads, drains were well laid out and overall, it was quite clean compared with the general standards of cleanliness that one would expect to see in a similar neighbourhood in an Indian city.
Sunita’s personal testimonial became a trigger for many women to narrate their own stories and experiences. The narrative was quite similar – they had been contacted and encouraged by BGMS, the BGMS team came and trained them to be community workers, they mobilized women in their neighbourhood, savings were collected, loans were given, life had changed and they are now looking forward to much brighter future for their children. Women from different communities in the city of Indore, with different backgrounds, many from the tribal community called the Bhils who had migrated to the city in search of livelihoods from the rural hinterland that was affected by drought and failing agriculture or related livelihoods.
Through all this, one of the women, who must have been in her mid-fifties, listened intently. She appeared to be in no mood to speak, but to listen and to relive for herself her own past life in the community. Dressed in a blue sari with her head covered, the stories that other women were saying seemed to resonate with her. She was nodding in agreement, smiling occasionally, but sitting very quiet. And suddenly, she raised her hand, indicating her intention to speak. And speak, she did – her story and what she had seen and experienced.
“My name is Vasanti Jodha. I am from the Bhil community. I came here several years ago. I had 3 children then and the youngest one was just a few days old. The situation here was horrible. From the main road, we had to balance ourselves on a log of wood to cross a dirty stream into which all waste, human and solid waste, was emptied. The sight was disgusting, the stench was awful. It was quite a task to balance ourselves on the log of wood as we tried to cross the stream without falling. Many children had fallen, some died, some were wounded. But that was the only way in which we could access our settlement. All the houses were temporary in nature, built with bamboo poles and draped with rags, jute bags or anything that we could lay our hands on. The whole place was dirty. Children were regularly falling ill.”
“No one cared for us. On the contrary, we were victims of anything that happened in the city. If there was a burglary, the police would come looking for us as if we were responsible for any crime in the city. When the police came, we had to run for cover – as we didn’t know whose husband, brother or son was going to be arrested. They would be gone for days and we would not know what fate awaited them. We were considered as dirty, unwelcome people, petty criminals. When we went to the local office of the municipality to ask for support for some jobs, health or education, we were shooed away. But a few weeks before the elections, once in every five years, we would have politicians coming in asking for votes, saying that all our problems would be sorted. We used to wonder – how come they are discovering us now. Where were they all these years ? Falling into the trap of their promises, we would vote for those who we seemed to trust. And once elected, we would go to greet the successful candidate – only to be shooed away again. ‘Sahab is busy’ we were told ‘and he cannot meet you’. Well, he came to ask for votes, we voted for him, so why would he not see us, we often wondered. But we thought that was our fate and we were destined to live a life like this – neglected, wretched and poor”.
“And then, we had the team from BGMS. When they came, we thought that they too were like any other outsider, coming in for their own gains. We had many people coming here offering us various things and making all kinds of promises and we had learnt not to trust them anymore. Why would BGMS be different ? In fact, we would avoid them. But they persisted. They kept coming back and saying that we need to work together to solve our problems. They started talking to us about education, why we should educate our children. They wanted our children to be immunized. Since they were all women, they would speak to the women and ask them to get organized. They encouraged us to save a little so that we could revolve it amongst ourselves when in need. They offered us small loans. Slowly, things started changing.”
“Some of us started small businesses – vegetable and fruit vending, tailoring, small livestock, small scale trading. Initially, our husbands wondered what we are upto. We were scolded and ridiculed for spending time in meetings. But when they started seeing the results, they realized that we were doing something very important. Gradually, we started looking at issues of cleanliness and of waste. Our settlement was very dirty. There were no toilets. Water supply was completely lacking. We were fetching dirty water from nearby sources or buying it which was very expensive. What BGMS did was to take us to the municipal corporation to demand water supply and support for construction of toilets. It was not easy. We kept going regularly. We asked them to come to our settlement and see our conditions”.
“Eventually, things started happening. They came and saw our problems but also saw that there was so much self-help happening through women’s groups. We said we would contribute to the water project, which we did. We also said that we will ensure that it is well maintained and that we paid our dues on a regular basis. We were also granted support for construction of toilets”.
“This led to an increase in our confidence. We started going to the municipal corporation on our own without BGMS. We negotiated with them on waste collection. A system was put in place because of which solid waste is collected every day. Under the programme for urban development, we negotiated and eventually were granted a project to build cement and concrete roads in our neighbourhood. All this further increased our confidence. Women started doing more for their own livelihood. They grew their businesses. We now have reasonable incomes to take care of our families or make a big contribution to our family income. We also have a woman building contractor (pointing out to a woman about her age sitting nearby) who started by building toilets after getting trained in basic masonary skills. Now she constructs houses – she has also taken up contracts for building two-storeyed houses in this and other settlements”. You could sense the vicarious pride that Vasanti experienced narrating this last bit !
“We were poor and living with no dignity. But today, we are respected. People come to visit us. Officials and politicians listen to us. The police cannot harass us any longer. We may still be poor, but we feel confident and empowered. And we do feel confident that our children will never see the days that we have, will never experience the vulnerability and indignity that we faced!”.
