I think, I feel, I care

Year 2009 seems to be pretty good for me so far.
Actually, not only for me but for everything I stand for.

The latest bit of good news coming in the form of the highest number of women representatives in the Indian Parliament since Indian Independence in 1947. A lovely and promising first step.

However, there is something which is, at least in my opinion, significantly more important than the number. That something is how serious will these ladies be taken. Would their opinion be respected?

The reason of my saying so are reports (unfortunately I have no proof of validity of the reports) which state that more often than not many men push their respective wife to the forefront and use them as puppets to do what they wish to do.I wish I could confidently believe this to be false.

I would personally call it a victory even if there is only one woman representative in the parliament but that one woman is respected for her views, her standing and for her being a woman.

All I can do now is wait and watch if the Parliament would actually behave in a parliamentary fashion.

I'm elated to have read today that the Government of India intends to have a slum free India by 2012. Here are a few questions I am trying to think of answers to, to see how I can, how we can contribute to ensuring this project is completed. Also to see what are the complexities we can go around and how.

Some facts before the questions:
-the government has allocated roughly 3900+ crores while estimated construction cost of rehabilitation is approximately 3600+ crores.
-Several schemes,trusts,funds have been initiated since 1970s.
-The movement began around 1956.

Now the questions and some thoughts-
1. Many of the slum people themselves are not very willing to move out

2. Even if the slum people are willing to move, there is a ques of the time period required to construct the promised apartments

3. will the apartments actually increase the standard of living?

4. how will people much below poverty level maintain apartments?

5. with current high real estate prices (its rising) the question of using such land for this purpose seems unrealistic against alternate uses of land.

6. Inspite of 10% residential land allocated to this project, how well will the middle and upper class react if they had a complex of "slum people" live next door in apartments?

7. the chances of much of the money remaining unutilised or misused like in the case of education fund is high

8.though India now has more land thanks to the droughts which have dried up a vast number of lakes and rivers, this land can not be used for construction purposes. Agriculture is also ruled out if the monsoons continue to be sparce.Afforestation sounds like an answer but the long time involved in it and the possibility of the climate picking up later lessens it in its ranking as the best use of such land.

9. The limited time frame of 3 years may be an extremely difficult aim to achieve. However it emphasises the concern that this project has been around a bit tooooo long and needs quick, efficient action to be wound up.

10. How long will this project sustain? or would it be like most SHG which fix the prob but not maintain in good condition later leading to a vicious cycle of poverty and the slum concept?

11. We know most of the causes and the facts. What can be done by the govt/people to change/remedy the situation?What would be the optimal solution?

12. There is also a matter of people feeling that they are being "evicted" from their slums-their areas..for many its a matter of history with the place. How do we deal with it?

For the rest of the post, Im copying a long chat I had with a friend of mine on the issue with his permission

Sriram Murali: hmm.. fair questions there. imo if the govt is really concerned about the people under consideration, any kind of development should be inclusive and the population must be a self sustained one. efforts must be made on that front rather than keeping infrastructure the prima facie issue.As for not wanting to move out - a few reasons i could think of would be near to nil cost of land/rent, access to livelihood(like in case of fisherfolk). so identifying the specific issue in a micro environment is the key to solving issue #1. solutions i have a few in mind but a one stop solution wouldn't work for all

Snk: wat solutions do u have in mind?

Sriram Murali: 2. Time is not really a factor if you consider 3 years. Quite possible for relocational infrastructure to be built within 3 years

Snk: and where would the people be placed during construction time?

Sriram Murali: solutions - educating them about an alternative source of income, in case of people not wanting to switch due to a host of reasons they might have looking into other avenues to make the source more viable under the new conditions.

Snk: agreed. this is where education comes into play. you'd also have to consider not only them but the people who employ them..as far as i can remember, only 6 in my class of 55 including me were willing to clean our own washrooms! Middle/higher income families have increasingly grown dependent on the services provided by those in these slum areas.An alternate source of income which they can not only perform but also be accepted is the doubt- how flexible are we as middle income ppl?

Sriram Murali: well, i do agree with the history part of it but the change in that part of things should come from self. all that an external stimulus can do is to show that more than the history, a better avenue exists if they move out of there. "we have been here for 10 generations now, haven't had much improvement in life or education fronts, if we make this change our children might have better openings to education(as an example). so i would gladly trade in my history for my children' future" this change must come from them

Snk: this project had been launched in 1956 and has several funds,trusts,schemes initiated since the 1970's.. the slums are being talked to.. how much of a change can one see now? Im not saying its impossible but clearly only the talking isnt working..

Sriram Murali: change - change of mindset

Snk: There has got to be some other way to fix the rut..
Snk: Im referring to change of mindset only

Sriram Murali: I am totally against manual scavenging for that matter. as for people not being ready to clean the washrooms they use, my stand is "education is not only for the so called economically deprived but also for the other end of the spectrum too"

Snk: exactly and i didnt mean only manual scavenging but even domestic help

Sriram Murali: as for domestic help, it is not really a straight forward issue like others. not that it is impossible to sort things out, but just that things run a level more deep

Snk: thats known..my question is what can we start doing?

Sriram Murali: hmm.. does it not vary with each case, but the bottom line is identify the specific issues and micro manage them for the people, to start with. once the smaller bricks are in place, others should be fine

Snk: the issues have been identified havent they?

Sriram Murali: thought you were talking in s about domestic help.

Snk: no..those ques are the specific issues dealing with the slum people in general.the domestic help is one of their biggest source of revenue apart from fishing and perhaps veg/fruits/flower selling to the best of my knowledge

Sriram Murali: hmm.. i can't really say anything unless i get to interact with them. There are exceptions though

Snk: exceptions to?

Sriram Murali: domestic help being the major source of income, domestic helpers being from slums. Exception 1 being, the prevalence of domestic help is not wide spread to account for it being a major source(what % of people employ domestic helps if you consider TN and outside chennai, and even within chennai if you move to the outskirts i don't see a high %)
exception 2 is a specific case from what i see at my place, the domestic help at my place is affluent enough to educate her kids at a CBSE institution)but the second is not gonna count a lot in terms of numbers so you could ignore it for now

Snk: i was thinking so..to take it a small step further.Many of these people give their children education, a lot of trusts help them out too.. but iv seen more than a few of the kids not interested in it.. accepted iv seen some extremely enthusiastic,confident and smart children belonging to the sector as well..most go to govt schools most of which are by no means the best.. what i cant place is how the 1200crores left with the govt collected by way of education cess remains unused. Why hasnt it been used to upgrade these schools which really need upgrades?

Sriram Murali: yes, the alienation from education can be nullified only if the rotten apple in the lot is moved to somewhere else

Snk: the prob is one rotten apple in the basket soon rots the others.. enough not to be able to distinguish one from the other.the blame game is easy to play here.. so who is held accountable?

Sriram Murali:In my opinion, we are more accountable than anyone else

Snk: how so? I agree abt the idea if bribes werent paid/encouraged,it wouldnt have happened so..

Sriram Murali: that's true in a sense. but how long could we afford to be slow

Snk: not long..which is why im thinking what can be done..for which we will have to figure what has to be done and how..

Sriram Murali: as for the blame, does the constitution mandate us(The so called educated and the grads of the Crème de la crème) not to stand for the rights and not to vote for the right person ? change has to come from "us" too.

Snk: we are drifting off the main issue

Sriram Murali: thought this would come up.

Snk: If i remember right a week ago in some magazine at college i read that this election showed one of the highest number of ppl at elections nd that people have become more questioning of the govt, its accountability and transparency..so in that aspect theres some progress..change wont happen over night..once the movement is on..theres only one way forward..

Sriram Murali: precisely

Snk: when we look at the ten ques.. which ones can be dealt with?

Sriram Murali: In my opinion, if we are talking about starting off right now, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10 are doable in a phased manner

Snk: hmm..first one i guess with genuine concern, we could somehow convince them..wait a sec theres a hitch there too

Sriram Murali: 5 is not really a big issue under the assumption(and to an extent the fact) the availability of lands is not all that low(unless if you take an example of chennai and want land/apartments in adyar/mambalam etc)what's the hitch?

Snk: they have heard these empty promises earlier.. how can one earn their trust to get them to believe what we, who have the luxuries of life, say about their situation?

Sriram Murali: my stand on this - no, i won't say of any luxuries of life right now. if you are willing to move out of the place, you have openings elsewhere, plus i am not gonna give anything to you per se but for my guidance on how to get things done. it is you who's gonna develop the entire population in a self sustained manner. helps in more ways than one imo, 1. you know better about the problems of your own people than me, an outsider 2. gives them a feeling of standing upon their own legs and rising up the ladder 3. if things so badly need it, micro credit could play a role.as for the 'other interfering factors' there is always the need for muscle power which i can't assure of (A/N: It had skipped my notice then but now i question if there could be a less violent yet efficient way of tackling the interfering factors)

Snk: for you to be able to tell all this to them, they have to listen to you, believ you, trust you.how will u manage that? Their trust in the affluent- not all, majority- is pretty much broken by the many broken promises

Sriram Murali: How about starting with a small subset of the population who you know and interact with a lot and help them out with things, be it micro credit or anything else to get them moving. once they are up the ladder they would educate their peers on this issue and we don't really have to do the work of getting the message across. addendum if a peer who has benefitted is talking worthy of something the message would reach better than any other mode of communication

Snk: smart..this would mean that there is a lot of work with us, the affluent to let go of gripping greeds and try to redirect funds..

Sriram Murali: totally

Snkhilanthropy being the concept..from concept its got to move to religion.

Sriram Murali: if i could quote manu, 1/16th of earning has to go towards helping others out.as a matter of fact religion always lays down rules for one to be inclusive in growth, just that people conveniently ignore it

Snk: sadly iv noticed many are willing to put in their brains and physical labour but not financially. many have the intention and do it. So the idea is to locate such people and stir things up

And thats where conversation with respect to this topic ended. I hope I get more inputs as comments as how to stir things up and how we can do and not talk.

Thanks to Tanya for letting me read the article!
Thanks to Sriram for the chat!
Thanks to you guys who have actually read through the whole post and posting your own views and comments!

I wish I weren't right.

Quite contradictory to my usual nature of feeling pleased when Im right about something (which is almost always except when it comes to examinations )

I have always hurt deeply where children are hurt or subject to things they neednt know about it.

I guess you could figure how hurt Id feel every time I hear/read/think about child abuse. The few things which used to swirl in my mind was how any one could take advantage of the child's pure innocence, how could any one be so consumed to perform such an act, the guilt the child may grow up with, the fear instilled in the child, the possible lack of family support etc. Not a very positive picture I know but neither is the situation.

I have seen several children who have been subject to physical abuse and have felt bad about it, given them all the love i have and supported them and got the right kind of people to talk to the abuser and as far as i know, its definitely reduced and im pretty sure that sooner or later it will stop.

What I hadn't expected in such close proximity to me, to happen to a child iv seen growing past 2 years is sexual abuse. I wish I could say since no physical harm came to the child because of what was done to it,it isn't a serious issue. Fortunately or unfortunately i have enough sense to know that when it comes to this issue, the psychological harm is more severe and tougher to identify.

To see all those questions which had been playing in my mind come to reality was a far more crushing experience than my wildest imagination. Its left me in a state of shock and despair but none which could be called paralysing. Yet, its still running in my mind, over and over again. Im not able to express myself clearly when it comes to what Im feeling right now.

Im lost.

I wish she didnt have to go through it.

I wish I could do something more than offering the kid all the support I can without making it feel odd/guilty.

I wish I weren't right about the impact an incident like this could have on the child.

I wish, for once let me have been wrong.