How long will Yamuna weep?

Children wetting their hand in the black, mucky sewer water as if trying to find some hidden treasures; an old muslim man crying in grief; a paagal baba proclaiming that he would cut his dreadlocks if somebody could prove the garden maintained by the Delhi government was better than the one nurtured by him; These are some of the images that come to mind when I recall Yamuna Gently Weeps, which I had the opportunity to see a couple of weeks ago.

The one-hour film, I must say, was quiet thought provoking. Though the last 15 minutes were prolonged and could have been edited, the documentry certainly made its point very clear. The film talks about the eviction of slumdwellers in Delhi’s Yamuna Pushta. But I think the issue is prevalent in every city and therefore urban folks can relate to it (atleast I hope they do). It stresses on how slum rehabilitation is a mere eye-wash and a mass-scale legalized human rights violation takes place during slum clearance. Children loose the security of their make-shift homes, the toiling, grassroot level people have to again build their lives. I am sure it will be quiet frustrating. And what’s more saddening is the fact that the selfish middle-class seems to be oblivious to all this. This does not mean that the better-offs should feel guilty because they are born in financially stable families. But a little empathy and help to the deprived has never harmed anyone.

Yes, slums should be erased; they are ugly spots, acnes on the high-rising, developing cities. But if that’s so, why are they allowed to grow in the first place? Why don’t we ban the poor and the have-nots from entering the cities? This is because the rich and those who can afford the luxuries of life require the poor to do the menial, dirty work. We need the kachrawallas, bais, ayahs, richshaw wallahs and so on.

The politicians won’t do anything about this because ultimately, they get elected thanks to these ignorant, poor people. Soon after the election, though, the same politicians pick them up like flies fallen in a teacup and thrown them in barren outskirts of the cities, where there’s no electricity, transport or any means of earning a livelihood. Even basic necessary like water and toilets are hard to find.

The documentary struck a chord in me. The situation has close resemblence to what happened in Mumbai a couple of years back. However, it was only a headline. I didn’t realise how serious the issue was.
After watching the documentary I cam to two conclusions: one, the government should not destroy the present slum because they don’t have any proper plan to rehabilitate them. If they want to stop the slums from growing, they should throttle new slums in their infancy and give those slum dwellers another area to stay in. Second and I don’t know how viable this option will be, but show such kind of documentaries in schools and colleges. Showing it to middle-aged and old people is not going to help. However, screening it to youngsters will at least sow the seeds of a possible change.