August 2007 Edition
Civil Society News
New Delhi
SUMER Singh and his fellow Ods assemble grimly under the shade of a green, leafy tree. Dark clouds hover in the sky. No one notices the rain. It is the rumble of the bulldozer villagers here dread, not the thunder in the sky. “We have worked with our sweat and blood for this country. We built the Bhakra Nangal Dam, the Indira canal, traditional tanks, wells and ponds in Rajasthan. We slaved in the Bhatti mines. We built for the Asian Games, working all night. And now, just see, we are being thrown out of our village by the government, ”says Sumer Singh, bitterly. The village, called Bhagirath Nagar or Sanjay Colony, is in the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary on the south east fringes of Delhi. The Ods are a nomadic community with traditional skills in water harvesting and earth digging who now work in Delhi’s construction industry.
The Od community fled to India from Pakistan in 1947. They have lived in
Bhagirath Nagar for over 40 years. Yet their village faces eviction by the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The root of their problem lies in the MC Mehta vs Union of India case. In
1996, the ‘green’ lawyer in his submission to the court described Sanjay
Colony as an encroachment on the Southern Ridge, Delhi’s green belt, a reserved forest area. The Supreme Court ordered
all encroachments on the Ridge be removed.
The Ods had never heard of MC Mehta. But if you
go to Sanjay Colony you will see it is not an encroachment
or a slum. It is a village. Neither is it located on
the Ridge. It is in the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary area.
The village nestles at the sanctuary gate.
Residents have pattas or ownership titles to their land. They were part of
the Bhatti gram sabha. Six Ods won panchayat elections in 1983. Saifal Ram,
an Od, became the Head Pradhan. “The Supreme Court was not correctly informed,” says Sanjay Upadhyaya, a
lawyer who has now taken up this case. Government officials did not tell the
court either.
Lurking beneath this apparent inefficiency is the unspoken truth: government
officials, builders, politicians and others connived to change the status
of the village into a slum and to obfuscate its location so that village land
could be grabbed without paying an iota of compensation.
Delhi has expanded by gobbling its villages. They are stripped of status, rights and land. No resettlement is ever done. Villagers used to spacious homes and greenery are hemmed into cramped homes. Trees, grazing land, that patch for a tractor vanish. Their cows and buffaloes roam the streets. The village loses its old identity and acquires a new one: a slum infested with criminals. SA Azad and his small NGO, Prasar, which fought relentlessly for the rights of Bhatti mine workers left to die of silicosis, used the right to information law, to dig up a thick file of evidence from government departments on the correct status of Bhagirath Nagar or Sanjay Colony and how government officials follow no legal procedure when it comes to eviction. The Ods came to work in the Bhatti Mines owned by the Delhi administration and leased out to the Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation (DSIDC) from 1975 to 1984 and later to the Delhi State Mineral Development Corporation (DSMDC) from 1985 to 1990.
In 1976 the DSIDC constructed around 206 dwelling houses for them. The land was leased from the revenue village of Bhatti. “The late Sanjay Gandhi laid the foundation stone of our village, then called Sanjay Colony, in 1975,” recalls Ganga Ram an Od. The village has schools, dispensaries, electricity, a police post, veterinary hospital and a community centre made by the administration. The Ods have ration cards, telephone bills and pattas. Their population is now around 1200. In 1983 when they contested panchayat elections, the village, say the Ods, was rechristened Bhagirath Nagar. If further proof is needed, electoral rolls can be checked. The name of the village and its voters are there. In 1987 under the Prime Minister’s 20 point programme, patta land was distributed by Chaudhury Prem Singh, Speaker, Delhi Vidhan Sabha. At that time he was Executive Councillor (Development). He distributed plots of 120 square yards to the Ods for residential purposes in the presence of senior officials.
When the Ods told Prem Singh they were facing eviction, he wrote to the minister for urban affairs and stated: “The land belonged to the DC office, director, (panchayat), Delhi administration. Hence no question arises of displacing them.” From 1989, villages in Delhi began to systematically lose their rights and status. Delhi’s BJP government abolished Panchayati Raj. The demand came from former chief ministers Madan Lal Khurana and late Sahib Singh Verma. “We had in 1993 itself sought to end Panchayati Raj and replace it with a three tier system of governance under the MCD,” Sahib Singh said. “We wanted this because villagers are more interested in selling their land in the wake of rapid industrialisation of rural areas,” he claimed. “So we wanted to finish the Delhi Panchayati Raj Act of 1954 and make necessary amendments in the Delhi Land Reform Act of 1954.” Panchayats and gram sabhas became defunct overnight. Villages now came directly under the MCD and ward committees were formed.
In 1990, seven Ods died buried under the rubble in the Bhatti mines, infamous for its lousy working conditions. The news made headlines. The mines were hurriedly shut and even dues were not settled. The Ods lost their livelihood. The village had been included as part of the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary in 1991 by the deputy secretary, forests, Delhi administration. But in 1994 the same village was declared as being part of the Ridge ‘reserve forest’ and a notification was issued under Section 4 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927. “You can’t all of a sudden turn a sanctuary area into a reserved forest area. It has to first be denotifed as a sanctuary,” explains Sanjay Upadhyaya. When the Supreme Court ordered encroachments removed in the Ridge area, the Od community was surprised to learn their village had been included. “There was no intimation,” says Chandrapal. “We came to know through newspapers and TV that our village was going to be demolished.” Yet rich farmhouses within the sanctuary area or those who had built on agricultural land were left alone. Besides, by law, villages in sanctuaries or reserve forest areas cannot be arbitrarily evicted. Since Sanjay Colony is in the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary, the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972 should have been applied.
Under section 19 to 26 of the WPA, the rights and claims of local villages have to be settled first. A public notification has to be issued. The Collector is expected to examine claims, determine rights and arrange for payment of compensation. Villages can also be permitted to live in the sanctuary area. A process has been laid down. In a ‘reserved forest’ area, the provisions of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 apply. A Forest Settlement Officer is appointed by the state government to conduct the process of settlement before acquiring village land. Yet none of these norms were followed. “The Supreme Court has said categorically in the Narmada Dam case that landless people should be rehabilitated. Two acres must be given to agricultural workers. Then the same rule should be applied in cities,” says Azad. Residents of Bhagirath Nagar were to be relocated to Jaunapur, about 5 km away. Around Rs 20 crore was allocated for this resettlement. But the Association of Farm House Owners objected since they did not want poor neighbours. Instead of getting a small 170 square foot home in Jaunapur with facilities, the community was told to go to the hellish ‘resettlement’ colonies of Holambi Kalan or Bawana. “Why should we go to Bawana or Holambi Kalan. For illegal slums they fixed 1990 as the cut off date. We are living in this legal village since late 1960s,” says Chandrapal.
The Jaunapur project was quietly scrapped. “What has happened to all that money,” asks Azad. “There must be an independent inquiry.” “The panchayat and gram sabha are the best solution. There should be an inquiry into the bungling that has taken place for our village. The government and its administration cannot harass poor people in this way,” says Chandrapal. In the eyes of government officials if you live in a village, you are automatically a slum dweller. “If you renew an old ration card or get a new one the word jhuggi jhonpri will be stamped on it,” says Chandrapal with a shudder. Dhara Singh, an Od, who stood for elections for the post of councillor recently, says he lost narrowly since not all villagers had voter identity cards. To get such a card takes a long time, he explained patiently. In the crowded Chattarpur voter identity card office, Rajendra Minz, the officer in charge is famous for tearing up forms and threatening Od women. The Delhi government now wants to revive Panchayati Raj. Villages would then get the right to collect revenue, levy taxes, make their own development plans and preserve their identity all of which they can do intelligently.The Ods, for instance, have planted shady trees and made water harvesting structures in Bhagirath Nagar.
They are astonished by the management of the Asola Sanctuary. It is covered with keekar trees. “These vilayati keekars are bad for Delhi because they suck groundwater,” say Chandrapal and Dhara Singh. “Besides, forest officials have ‘resettled’ monkeys here. But they didn’t grow trees that would provide food for them. So the monkeys bite children and are a nuisance.” When Civil Society pointed this out to Delhi’s environment secretary JK Dadoo and asked him if Asola Sanctuary had a management plan he refused to answer the question. The sad state of sanctuaries, the disappearing tiger, the corruption and ineptness of the forest bureaucracy are well known. It is now globally recognised that communities manage forests better than bureaucrats. “We can make this a model wildlife sanctuary in India,” says Chandrapal. “The sanctuary should be contracted to the Od community. They have the skills to manage it and revive Delhi’s groundwater table,” says Anita Soni, a sociologist who has studied the community for years. “Our village is the centre of Od culture in India. We could make it an amazing attraction with our skills in mud construction,” says Chandrapal. Instead, their mud huts are dismissed as jhuggis by government officials. “What do we do about the bureaucratic mindset?” asks Soni.
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