Carterpuri wants back its old name

James Earl Carter, the 39th President of the US, was on a nine-day, seven-nation tour of Europe, the Middle East and India in 1978 when he visited the tiny hamlet of Daulatpur Nasirabad,just a few kilometres from the Capital, on January 3. Accompanied by the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai and Chief Minister of Haryana Chaudhary Devi Lal, the US President arrived at the village to enliven the memories of his mother’s association with Nasirabad.

Carter’s mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, who was an active volunteer in the US Peace Corps, came to India in the 1960s. And it was in Nasirabad that she stayed and worked as a nurse. Recalls Ram Meher, a villager, "Madam used to stay at Jaildar Sarfaraz Ali’s haveli. My father used to tell me that she was a nurse serving at a hospital in the town. Since the American President had an association of sorts with the village, he wanted to rename it."

Jimmy Carter not only wanted to change the name of Daulatpur Nasirabad to Carterpuri but also make it a model village. He even promised to extend his support and co-operation to the Indian government for the purpose. Carter’s announcement stirred the hopes and aspirations of the villagers and DaulatpurNasirabad was named Carterpuri.

Now, the place shows the ugly marks of government apathy, besetted with problems familiar to almost every Indian village. "Carter’s offer was taken indifferently by the Indian government and Devi Lal thumped down his claim of doing all the development work in the village himself. But things didn’t change for us," says Yaad Ram Yadav. "Sanitation problems, a poor drainage system, loss of agricultural land — this is all that we have got. The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has acquired land around the village, blocking our passage and literally choking us."

Recalling the US President’s visit, another villager Bane Singh said, "The whole village was whitewashed, even the upalas (dried manure used as cooking fuel) were not spared, the entire pathway was cleaned and demarcated. The mood was festive and the villagers enthused."

A former panchayat member remembers how the First Lady, Rosalynn Smith Carter, participated in village rituals like Kuan Poojan (theworship of the village well).

Now, surrounded by the vacant plots of Sector 23 A on one side and the burgeoning Palam Vihar on the other, Carterpuri waits for someone to pay attention to its decay.