People Without History Seabrook T02250 00 pre 1 24/12/2010 10:45 Seabrook T02250 00 pre 2 24/12/2010 10:45 People Without History India’s Muslim Ghettos Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui Seabrook T02250 00 pre 3 24/12/2010 10:45 First published 2011 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 www.plutobooks.com Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui 2011 The right of Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 3114 0 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3113 3 Paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, 33 Livonia Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9JB, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the USA Seabrook T02250 00 pre 4 24/12/2010 10:45 Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1. Topsia 9 2. Injustice 77 3. Beniapukur 89 4. Defining Slums 117 5. Tiljala Road 122 6. Victimisation 196 7. Tangra 200 8. Postscript: A Servant’s Story 250 Notes 255 Seabrook T02250 00 pre 5 24/12/2010 10:45 Acknowledgements This book is about life in the inner-city areas of Kolkata’s poor, mainly Muslim settlements. The reason for this focus is twofold: the growing separation of Muslims in India from the Hindu mainstream; and the isolation of the poor from the image of contemporary India, which has successfully been projected to the world, embodied in cliches about the ‘powerhouse of tomorrow’, ‘waking giant’ and ‘future superpower.’ The rulers of India have become complacent as a result of the flattery they have received, much of it from their erstwhile imperial masters, and the fate of the poor in the euphoria of high economic growth figures has become a marginal concern. No longer responsive to injustice and inequality, the government of India appears content to attribute gratuitous malevolence to those who resist; and although the Maoists are currently the principal public enemy, Muslims are rarely far behind, since it is believed that they will not hesitate to use violence and terror as means of securing their aim – an aim which the Hindu Right sees, absurdly, distortedly, as dominance. The Muslim minority – some 150 million people – is perceived by many in India as a population of doubtful belonging and uncertain allegiance to the state. This book is the result of an effort in which many people have participated and, although Imran Ahmed Siddiqui and Jeremy Seabrook are acknowledged as the principal authors and collaborators, it reflects the contribution of many people living and working in some of the city’s most forlorn vi Seabrook T02250 00 pre 6 24/12/2010 10:45 Acknowledgements vii communities. It deals predominantly – though not exclusively – with areas covered by Tiljala-SHED, an organisation which has worked with the urban poor for almost three decades.1 It does not reflect the opinions of those associated with this non-government organisation, but evokes the atmosphere of the poorest places in the city – the vulnerability, the poverty and the hopes of a majority of Kolkata’s Muslims, who make up 25 per cent of the city population. Tiljala-SHED reflects both the possibilities and the limitations of what can be achieved within existing power-relationships, without changing the structural division between rich and poor. Welfare, reform and mitigation, certainly – and these mean dramatic improvements in the experience of poor people – but against the great movements of globalism and geo-political polarisation, against corruption and power, the voices of humanity and tolerance are easily drowned out. We are grateful to Mohammad Alamgir of Tiljala-SHED, who was intermittently part of the ‘we’ referred to in the text. Also part of this first person plural was Haider Ali, who also grew up and has spent his 35 years in the area; Jabeen Arif, who has worked in the most wretched part of Topsia for over a decade; and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui who, like many of the residents of the inner city areas, comes from an Urdu-speaking background in Uttar Pradesh and now works with the Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata. We would also like to acknowledge the support of all at Tiljala-SHED, especially Salma Khatoon, Rubina Hussein and the other Haider Ali (no relation). We would like to express thanks for financial help from the Network for Social Change in producing this book, which is part of a wider project on ‘Cities of Hunger’. We are also grateful to Kamini Adhikari, Dr A. K. M. Siddiqui in Kolkata, Rifat Faridi of the Calcutta Muslim Seabrook T02250 00 pre 7 24/12/2010 10:45 viii People Without History Orphanage, Murtaza Shibli in London, and especially to the people of Topsia, Tangra, Tiljala, Beniapukur and other Muslim communities, for their generosity in sharing with us their stories of life and labour in Kolkata in 2010, their sense of distance from those who govern and, not infrequently, harass and abuse them. Theirs is indeed a life apart, largely uncelebrated and for the most part, unrecorded; which is a pity, for it illuminates the condition of those about whose lives the rich and powerful weave their cruel fantasies of terror and violence, but who, overwhelmingly, struggle, like poor people everywhere, simply to live and to survive another day. Note 1. Tiljala-SHED (Tiljala Society for Human and Educational Development) was established in 1987 and registered in 1993 under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act of 1961. Its primary purpose was the improvement of the slums of Tiljala, but it has since extended its reach to a wide arc of mainly Muslim settlements in central Kolkata and its activities include slum, squatter and pavement dwellers. It has been funded by a number of European agencies including MISEREOR (Germany), which finances improvements in the conditions of rag-pickers and their families. This includes setting up a link between the corporate sector and collection of recyclable solid waste at source. There is a sponsorship programme for the education of poor girls (supported by AIDOS from Italy – see below). The project aims at the education of girls, since this is the surest way to ensure a wider dissemination of progressive ideas in society, as well as providing protection for some of the most vulnerable in fighting exploitation, early marriage and exposure to harmful environments. There are in addition micro-finance programmes (Trickle-Up Program), an Integrated Programme for Street Children (supported by the Indian Government Ministry of Women and Child Development), which is designed for children living on the street, beside railway lines Seabrook T02250 00 pre 8 24/12/2010 10:45 Acknowledgements ix and the banks of canals; the objective being the integration of such children into the formal education system. Tiljala-SHED also participates in Shikshalaya Prakalpa, a government initiative to bring destitute children of primary school age into education; while the Kolkata National Child Labour Project, supported by the Ministry of Labour is to withdraw child workers from hazardous enterprises and to work towards their inclusion in the educational system. A cultural unit of T-SHED helps poor children to display their singing, acting and dancing talent. All offers of support and help are welcome. Please contact: TILJALA SHED 6C and 6D Rifle Range Road Kolkata 700019 India Tel. 0091-33-22802681 / 22817392 / 22831084 e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Seabrook T02250 00 pre 9 24/12/2010 10:45 Main kis kay hath pay apna lahoo talaash karoon Tamam shehar ne pahney huay hain dastaney. On whose hands shall I look for my blood When the whole city is wearing gloves? (Ahmed Faraz, 1931–2007) Tiljala Road (© Nilratan Maity) Seabrook T02250 00 pre 10 24/12/2010 10:45 Introduction Taqdeer kay qazi ka hai fatwa yeh azal say Hei jurm-e-zaeefi ki saza marg mafajaat Fate has decreed from antiquity That those who commit the crime of powerlessness must die (Faiz Ahmed Faiz, 1911–1984) The non-Muslim world has become obsessed with Muslims, but almost entirely in relation to their religious identity and beliefs, especially insofar as these are perceived as ‘moderate’ or ‘extreme’. In particular, since the attacks on the United States in 2001, Spain in 2004, Britain in 2005 and across the world including Mumbai in 2008, Muslims have been defined solely by their faith, as though this penetrated their every action and thought. This shallow, ostensibly ‘spiritual’, concern has had some unfortunate consequences. There is an obvious dissonance between the avowed preoccupation with ‘winning hearts and minds’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries where ‘alienated’ Muslims are believed to be found, and the disregard for everything that relates to the heart and mind of actually existing humanity. This response is counter-productive, because it omits most areas of experience in which the common interests of Muslims and all other human beings might be affirmed and strengthened.