Case of National Pride or Bruised Vanity?
Madhu Purnima Kishwar
It is hard to comprehend why our national media is displaying so much shock and
outrage with banner headlines like “Commonwealth Games, India’s Shame”, as if
something extraordinary has happened in India. Is it because they had earlier
swallowed the pompous claims made by the Governmentthat the City would host the
most spectacular games ever, that the CWG preparations would transform Delhiinto
a world class city and showcase India as an emerging global power, a top notch
tourist destination? The media played along till such time as it became obvious
that despite having spent thousands of crores, we have a disaster on our hand.
Tilla few weeks ago, many in the media made common cause with Sports Minister,
M.S Gill and Sheila Dixit both of whom tirelessly sermonized us that all of us
must put in their bit to make the Commonwealth games a success and celebrate it
as a big festival, since making the event work well was a matter of “national
honour and pride”. The Art of Living guru was roped in to make a huge song and
dance about mobilizing citizens to pick up garbage in their respective
neighborhoods and clean up the stinking filth choking banks of Yamuna-- with the
slogan "Meri Dilli, Meri Shaan"--(My Delhi, My pride) .
History is replete with examples of how the most venal and corrupt among
politicians tend to wrap themselves in the national flag in order to cover their
misdeeds.
None of us ordinary citizens are surprised or shocked collapsing bridges, roofs
falling off, leaking stadia, filthy toilets, stagnant water pools for breeding
mosquitoes around the Games Village because we knew that our Government would
deliver its “best performance”. We also know that “best” does not come out
overnight. It comes from routine practice. What are the arts our politicians and
bureaucrats perfected? Corruption, mismanagement, working at cross purposes to
mess up whatever they undertake, shameless delays, callousness, and the ability
to remain unruffled even when people are angry enough to want to publicly lynch
them!
Why this phoney outrage at Lalit Bhanot brazenly admitting on TV that our sense
of hygiene and sanitation is different from that of 1st world or even 2nd world
countries? It is evident anywhere you look. Even those of us who buy expensive
properties in elite neighborhoods live surrounded by garbage piles, filthy and
open sewage drains flowing in the middle of our colonies, broken down or
nonexistent footpaths and sewage water routinely getting mixed with drinking
water supply because of rusty, leaky pipes.
Our tolerance level for filth, squalor and disease is so magnanimous that far
from matching First World standards, even in comparison to Third World
countries, India qualifies as the dirtiest and filthiest in terms of its public
hygiene.
Why are we ashamed at leaking roofs shoddy construction and squalor around the
Games village? All our ministerial buildings, government offices, government
built housing complexes are witness to the sarkari genius of creating slummy
conditions even after spending crores. Think of the wretched flats we all queue
up to buy from DDA. Why should DDA feel obliged to very differently for a two
week tamasha?
Why are we so touchy about the real face of India and the story of its
malgovernance being revealed in full glory to the world?
Uniqueness of Corruption in India
Corruption is not unique to India. Even China which has become our new benchmark
of success is notorious for corrupt practices and kickback culture. However,
there are unique features to the many splendored saga of Indian corruption. In
other countries; corruption may involve a 10-20% leakage but people don’t lose
focus of the work for which the money has been sanctioned. In India, the work
is either incidental or inconsequential. Many of our roads exist on paper;
development projects are recognizable only by the foundation stones. Bridges
collapse before they are constructed. No one starts any work till they have
figured out who will pocket how much and the ways and means through which the
money is to be siphoned off.
If we were to do an honest cost benefit analysis and audit, we will discover
that for our politicians and bureaucrats every infrastructure project, every
poverty alleviation program, every hydro electric project, every mining lease is
mainly about loot of public resources. That is why no power project, no
development or welfare program delivers a fraction of what it promises.
The main purpose of CWG has been served. Money has reached safely in the
accounts of those it was meant to. The rest was incidental. Those in charge of
organizing know very well—Games ho gayein to thheek, nahin to na sahi! (If the
Games take place fine, if not, so be it.).
Let us have no illusions, no heads are likely to roll because the loot has been
shared from top to bottom of the bureaucratic and political establishment—with
Congress at the helm of affairs in the state government and BJP contributing its
due share in the scam on account of heading the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Our politicians have developed the fine art of making people forget the most
horrendous scams by unleashing a new spate of scam to make people forget the
previous ones. They know the media will soon look for newer excitement so all
they have to do is to wait for the issue to lose its sex appeal and TRP ratings.
In any case, they have reduced people's expectations to such a bottom pit that
even if the Games are 20% successful, they will appear as a great achievment.
Hurt National Pride or Bruised Vanity?
The corruption and mismanagement of CWG has only recently and temporarily become
a cause célèbre with the media and section of the urban elite because they have
developed delusions of grandeur and learnt to mistake their own growing
prosperity, wealth and clout with “national progress.” They feel let down
because they feel their new found and fragile “national pride” is being given a
massive drubbing in front of foreigners, the only ones they wish to impress, but
don’t really know how to.
Their “national pride” was not wounded when the jhuggis of lakhs of urban self
employed poor who provide us valuable services as masons, carpenters, rickshaw
pullers, mechanics, road side barbers, cooks, maalis, cleaners, garbage pickers,
tailors and a host of poorly paid craftsmen—were demolished with vengeance in
order to “beautify” Delhi for the Games. We dare not show the world the
subhuman conditions in which the hard working poor of India are condemned to
live. So better remove them from sight. This could happen only because the urban
elite applaud every time slums are demolished and urban poor face clearance
operations.
Their “national pride” was not wounded when lakhs of poor street vendors from
whom we buy our vegetables, fruits and other daily necessities were hounded out
of Delhi through brute police action just so that Delhi could look “world
class”. This despite the fact that the National Policy for Street vendors
adopted by the Central Cabinet way back in 2004 mandates that street vendors
should not be evicted under the guise of beautification. Instead, hawking zones
should be included in the city’s rejuvenation plans. The modest gains made by
Manushi in the last 15 years seeking policy reform for street vendors, including
legalizing their status, went down the drain as we witnessed lakhs of vendors
forced out of Delhi and their stalls razed to the ground, their goods
confiscated through the most illegal means. The MCD and Delhi Police did not
spare even those who had valid licenses.
Their “national pride” was not hurt to see the miserable conditions under which
men, women and children who were brought in from impoverished villages to work
for constructing the CWG infrastructure were forced to work and live. They too
will be seen as unwanted nuisance and in all probability beaten out of Delhi
once their purpose is served.
Their “national pride” was not hit when we see the city government install view
cutters walls to hide from view large parts of Delhi, including middle and lower
middle class neighborhoods, lest the delegates witness the dilapidated civic
infrastructure and piles of garbage that characterize Indian cities, including
the national capital.
This insensitivity is not unique to Delhi. Even in the rest of India, the
‘national pride” of our elite is not hurt when thousands of poor people and
their children die every year from a host of easily preventable diseases like
malaria, diarrhea and jaundice—all due to the appalling insanitary conditions
prevailing in the country. We invoke national pride only when dengue threatens
to mar the games because mosquitoes cannot tell the difference between Indians
and foreigners. We squirm only when foreign governments issue advisories to
their citizens warning them against health hazards in Delhi and recommend that
they keep their mouths tightly sealed when taking a shower lest they swallow a
couple of drops of polluted, disease ridden water supplied by ourmunicipal
agencies.
Their “national pride” remains intact despite our rivers, including those like
Ganga and Yamuna believed to be sacred symbols of our ancient culture and
civilization, are converted into filthy disgusting sewers—with municipalities
pouring all our domestic and industrial sewage into them. Our pride is hurt only
when we realize belatedly that foreign participants will witness the filth laden
river, its banks overflowing with garbage providing a happy breeding ground for
mosquitoes and other disease bugs.
Their 'national pride' has survived the frequent deaths of our municipal
sweepers who are made to descend into filthy sewers and remove blockages with
their bare bodies and hands without any protective gear or masks given to
protect themselves from noxious gases that many die inhaling. They themselves in
sub human conditions and treated as untouchables. Do their working and living
conditions not prove that our hygiene standards are indeed different? (See
attached pictures 1&2).
A few months ago, when the Sports Minister saw how much foul smell emanated from
Yamuna and how wretched it looked, he had suggested in all seriousness that the
government should considering covering up the river in order to hide it from
public view!
Their “national pride” remains dormant when our police harasses, tyrannizes and
fleeces ordinary citizens as their primary routine so that our cops are left
with hardly any time or energy to book criminals and terrorists. But their
“national pride” gets charged when foreign players start withdrawing from the
Games citing security concern.
Their “national pride” was not touched when large tracts of the Yamuna flood
plains were illegally taken over by the powerful political mafia of Delhi to
build the Games Village, in clear violation of environmental laws. Delhi High
Court had ruled that the construction of the Games Village on the flood plains
of Yamuna was ecologically unsound and violated all possible environmental laws
of the country. However, the kingpins behind the CWG bonanza bulldozed their way
through and got a pliable Supreme Court bench to give a go ahead.
The hoopla of “national pride” and the jingoism surrounding the Games gave them
a grand opportunity for a massive land grab operation by converting the flood
plains of Yamuna into prime real estate, even if it meant flouting every law of
the land. They don’t care if the Games Village is ready in time for the sports
person for whom it was ostensibly built. They are just waiting for end of
October so that these flats can be sold for several crores each or gifted to
their patrons.
Malgovernance: Biggest threat to Our Safety and Well Being
The Australian discus champion said it all when she said she has decided to
withdraw her participation because the CWG represents a potential threat to her
safety, health and well being. The bald truth is our ruling establishment and
governance machinery represent the most lethal threat to the collective well
being, safety and health of all Indians. No wonder people are today seriously
proposing that we outsource governance.
It is time we asked ourselves:
* Can a country become tourism friendly if it is hostile to its own citizens?
* Can a country become a global power if its ruling elite and its governance
machinery are at constant war with its own people?
* Can a country provide safety to foreign tourists if its own police have
become the biggest threat to safety and well being of its own people?
* Can a country become world class if its government awakens to the need for
basic civic amenities like usable motorable roads, footpaths and street lights
only for impressing foreign visitors and that too only in those parts of the
city which lead to select stadia?
* Can a country provide a safe and healthy environment for tourists if it does
not do so for its own citizens?
* Can the municipal sweepers deliver world class cleanliness and hygiene at the
Games Village if they have never been properly trained nor given the requisite
equipment for routine cleaning of the City?
* Can a country be attractive to tourists if the Government needs to hide the
living conditions of the vast majority of its people from international gaze?
* Can a country be tourism worthy, if its rivers are so foul that they deserve
to be hidden from public view?
These Games were destined to be a disaster because its organizers invited upon
themselves the curses of the lakhs of uprooted people who were hounded out of
the city. The vengeance with which the rain god, Indra Dev, exposed the
corruption and fraud in the CWG infrastructure indicates that the curses of the
hapless victims of these Games have been heard by the powers above.
Instead of indulging in pious harangues against the publicly visible faces of
this scam, the all important lesson to be learnt from the CWG Disaster is
thatHealth, Wellbeing and Safety are Indivisible. Those who think they can
create islands of prosperity and safety for themselves or for videshi tourists
better realize that mosquitoes and disease bugs cannot be kept out of our lives
by building gated communities.
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