Goodbye to Akhand Bharat

It is true that the ever-burgeoning population of Delhi has crossed the danger mark and its infrastructure facilities are inadequate to cope with the pressure. But who is to blame? No effort has been made in the 50 years of independence to decongest the city save by the Supreme Court, which ordered the shifting of all polluting industries from the Capital. In these days of Internet and instant communication, there is no reason why a large number of offices should be located in the Capital. Shifting them will not only decongest the city but will also give a push to the development of the areas where the relocated offices will be situated. Ideally, the Pusa farm institute should go back to Pusa in Bihar, from where it was transplanted, and the Coastguards Organisation should be closer to the coastline and not in Delhi, from where the nearest coast is at least 1,500 km away. There is no reason why the Indira Gandhi National Open University can’t function with as much efficiency from say, Kakinada, as from Delhi.

After all, Delhi’s sole claim to fame is as Capital. The world over the effort is to keep national capitals just the seats of power rather than industrial conglomerates, as any visitor to Islamabad or Washington would vouchsafe. Delhi is, perhaps, the only city in the world where the industry minister ran an illegal and hazardous factory from the basement of his own house. It is the existence of such units that enables newcomers to find jobs. Once jobs are unavailable, migration will stop.

But is that the real intention of the government? Unlikely, as it only wants power to harass people. It is fashionable in cocktail circuits to blame slum-dwellers for the dirt and filth in the Capital, little realising that it is the rag-picker from the neigbouring slum and not the fatted safai karmachari of the MCD who keeps the roads clean. For all one knows, it may be his sister or mother who dutifully collects garbage from your home every day. They are certainly not the ones who put a burden on the state’s resources. For instance, the amount of water and fuel that the rich consume to live in air-conditioned comfort is several times more than what the poor would consume. Or take the case of roads. The rich move in limousines occupying at least 60-70 times more road space than one who travels in a Blueline bus. And what has the state done for the poor? The number of buses has only decreased over the last two decades, forcing many to go in for their own vehicles causing endless traffic jams.

But it is the job-seekers who are blamed for the congestion. And it is they who will be harassed by policemen in the name of registration. As an aside, despite all the certificates showing that my ward passed out from a Delhi school and fulfilling all the requirements for a domicile certificate, he is yet to get it even after six months of applying just because he was not prepared to pay the money demanded. If this is the experience of a `bona fide resident,’ the extent of harassment that the poor can be subjected to can be imagined.

The very term `bona fide resident’ is utterly misleading. Delhi is a city of migrants. The very people who want restrictions imposed on the new arrivals forget that they themselves came in much the same manner. No city can exist on its own. The very thought that vegetables from Haryana are welcome but not the Haryanvis who bring them is repugnant, to say the least. Just as Turks were needed for the reconstruction of war-ravaged Germany, Delhi owes a lot to its migrants. Despite his sophistry, Verma’s real intentions are not difficult to fathom.

The Shiv Sena movement owes its origin to the campaign unleashed against `Madrasis’ who contributed no less than Maharashtrians to the growth of Mumbai. A campaign against aliens is the rock on which many a rightist political platform is built. It is by attacking the Turks that supremacists in Germany periodically make their presence felt and it is with this slogan that the ultra-rightwing Joerg Haider is trying to capture power in Austria.

Despite all the loud talk about Bangladeshis in Delhi and Mumbai, the government has not been able to identify, let alone deport them. But in the name of spotting them, the police have been lining their pockets with illegal gratification from every Bengali-speaking Muslim. The registration scheme will prove a goldmine for the police. It is amazing that Verma believes that the police will be able to maintain the register of `bona fide residents’ when his government has not been able to issue a voter’s identity card to every voter despite spending hundreds of crores.

The Chief Minister’s Delhi-for-Delhiites slogan runs counter to his party’s own campaign against Article 370, not to talk of Akhand Bharat. Given the fact that the BJP leadership had to intervene to rein in Verma on his controversial statement about banning English from primary classes when he was Education Minister, it is doubtful whether the party has really given a thought to the whole issue which can cut at the roots of its support base. Or should one presume that this is the real agenda of the BJP? More so when the Kalyan Singh Government insists that all primary classes should begin the day with a worship of Bharat Mata and that Vande Mataram should substitute ‘Yes Sir’ during roll call. The divisive agenda is bound to antagonise large sections of the voters unless the BJP cries a halt to it and restores its credibility as a forward-looking party in the ascendant. It is now or never.