Lok Sabha elections 2019: The walled city fights back
Many youngsters in the walled city have quit their cushy jobs to start NGOs and civil society groups that work in the sphere of health, education, cleanliness, rehabilitation of the homeless.
Sagheer Akhtar calls the walled city a ‘disabled city’, and before you could ask why, he elaborates. “The civic system has collapsed here; nothing works and no one cares,” says Akhtar, a teacher who lives in Shahganj. It is close to midnight, and Akhtar and about two dozen others have gathered at the Hazrat Shah Waliullah Public Library, located in a narrow steep lane, to give the final touches to what they call the ‘Jan Ghoshna Patra’, or People’s Manifesto, prepared by a group of social activists and civil society leaders under the aegis of the Walled City Empowerment Movement, an umbrella organisation of NGOs in Old Delhi.
Everyone is sitting on a cushion on the floor around a large, low table. The brightly lit library’s white shelves boast rare books: Diwan-e-Zafar (Poems by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, printed at the royal press, Red Fort, 1885); a 600-year-old Arabic book on logic; Sair-ul-aqtab, among others.
The People’s Manifesto begins thus, “It is a matter of immense anguish and deep concern that all political parties have neglected the Walled City (Shahjahanabad) deliberately and didn’t mention/announce any development plan or package for the same in their election manifestoes for the forthcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2019.” The document, which charges the state, central government and parties with ‘discriminative acts, is copied to BJP president Amit Shah, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, among others.
“Everyone seems to have forgotten humans still inhabit the walled city, and they need some basic facilities to survive,” says Mohamed Anas Faizi, 34, a radio jockey, who lives in Ballimaran and is part of the meeting.
Faizi is not exaggerating. Shahjahanabad, once the capital of the Mughal empire and a flourishing centre of art, culture, and poetry, is bursting at the seams with crumbling buildings, traffic jams, unauthorised constructions, and no civic infrastructure to speak of. And the election is the only opportunity for the beleaguered residents to confront the politicians and their representatives whose concerns about the walled city, a part of the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency, they say, have never gone beyond empty promises.
“There are no health facilities and the government schools here are in a mess. There are no private schools, and most private schools outside the walled city do not want to admit children living here. The MCD has shut at least 25 schools, and the Delhi government’s so-called education revolution has not reached the walled City,” says Farhan Baig, 34, who is also a teacher in a government school. “Because the government and civic agencies have ignored our problems for years, now we are trying to change things on our own. We cannot allow the city to die.”
Many youngsters in the walled city have set up several NGOs and civil society groups that work in the sphere of health, education, cleanliness, rehabilitation of the homeless. The Delhi Youth Welfare Organisation, for example, finances studies of poor children, distributes free course books to thousands, provides coaching and organises career counselling sessions. “In the last one month alone, we have distributed course books to about 700 children in the walled city. A large number of people are poor and they cannot afford their children’s education, which is the biggest roadblock in the social and economic progress of the people here,” says Muhammad Naeem, co-founder of the organisation, which, like other such bodies in the walled city, gets donation from its members and patrons, mostly the businessmen in the locality. “The donations range from Rs 5,000 to Rs20,000 on an average,” adds Naeem, a resident of Pahari Imli.
Irtiza Quraishi, 33, quit his job with a multinational bank to start Marham in 2014, an organisation working for the empowerment of youths of the minority community. “You will not find any parallel of the horrific traffic situation here. People die on their way to hospital, and there have been instances when women gave birth in rickshaws as they could not reach the hospital on time. There is an urgent need for health centres and motorcycle ambulances. The maddening congestion has crippled our lives,” says Qurashi, who lives in Matia Mahal.
In January, his organisation launched a massive cleanliness drive, distributing dustbins, painting the walls with slogans about the importance of cleanliness, and creating vertical gardens in many narrow congested streets. “There is
no way trees can be planted here in these narrow streets, so we are trying vertical gardens to bring some greenery,” says Quraishi.
Many local youngsters are also working to save and promote the heritage, cuisine, culture of the walled city. Abu Sufiyan, 28, who lives in Suiwalan, for example, started a Facebook page called Purani Dilli Walon Ki Baatein, which has now morphed into an organisation of the same name that works both offline and online. “I went to study engineering in Chandigarh and did not want to return to the walled city. I did not like the way people behaved and talked,” says Sufiyan, who last year quit his job as a data analyst at a multinational e-commerce company.
“The idea behind the Facebook page was to put out my satirical takes on life in the walled city. But then people started liking the posts, started asking questions about the city, and it became a platform to tell lesser-known stories about the walled city, its people and culture,” he adds. The organisation, he says, is creating a
digital record of all monuments and havelis with 360 degree photographs and also organises heritage walks, and other cultural events.
There are many youngsters here who believe that their address comes in the way of their getting decent employment. Fardeen Khan, 22, a graduate from Delhi University, for example, says he has appeared for 12 jobs interviews in the past couple of weeks, but has not got a callback. “I think it has to do with the fact that I live in Delhi-6. The perception is people in the walled city lack sophistication. Employment is the biggest issue for me in the elections,” says Khan.
His friend Zubair Khan, also 22 and a resident of the walled city, regrets no one in his family taught him the importance of education. “Education has not been a priority of parents here. They just want their children to do any kind of job and earn, probably it is because they are poor,” says Zubair, who has done matriculation and works as a wedding photographer and hopes to start a studio someday in east Delhi or Noida, where he says, a lot of people in the walled city are shifting. “Very few boys here get marriage proposals because no one wants their daughter to marry a boy living in the walled city, which they consider filthy ,” says Naeem.
Interestingly, Khalil Ahmad, a businessman and also manager at a school in the locality, traces the problems of the walled city to a not-so-well-known fact. The entire area of the walled city and its extension, he says, are notified as Slum Designated Area (SDA) under the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act 1956. “And that is probably why we have been treated so shabbily and proper schools and hospitals have not been developed here,” says Ahmad. Talking of who the community is going to support in the elections, he says, sarcastically, “There are three leaders in every street, and so our votes are divided”.
Back at the library, it is 1.30 am and Sagheer Akhtar has finalised the Jan Ghoshna Patra. He is now matching it with a similar manifesto the community had come up with before the 2015 assembly elections. But much to his dismay, he realises he has had to repeat all the demands— new schools, hospitals, health centres, congestion-free roads -- they made four years back. “This shows the apathy of the political parties to us. But we will persist,” he says.
Outside, in Pahari Imli and Matia Mahal, the streets are still pulsating with life—all the shops are open and teeming with customers, eateries are filled with diners; youngsters are standing in groups in paan shops, many people are playing carrom, their faces glowing in the light of the canopied bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
