Downhill Slide

With hindsight one can see that October 13 and 14 marked the end of the uphill struggle of Vasant Kunj's hawkers (eventually with support of its flat residents) in support of planned urban development. What had been achieved was quite in textbook style. It was within the ambit of the law (Master Plan) and policy (PM's announcements and CM's bhagidari). It was in the nature public support for planned development (being a purely interim and wholly transparent attempt to do what DDA had assured and was anyway mandated to do, done after engaging enough to ask it to do it itself). It involved an unprecedented "stakeholder partnership" (between the two groups of bonafide stakeholders, cutting across class barriers). It involved a spectacular voluntary initiative (on the part of hawkers). "Concerned" public agencies were duly informed, as was the media.

All that was missing from the "perfect picture" was a politician or NGO or donor or some such feudal patron... an oversight for which citizens paid heavily.

In the celebratory mood that prevailed on these two days, we - both hawkers and residents - felt a great sense of achievement. We knew we would have to "defend" our effort by, among other things, explaining to all sorts of public servants that what we had done was not only in public interest and within the ambit of the law but also really a case of us doing their job. For that we were prepared. Several flat residents left their phone numbers with the hawkers and told them to call them in case any public servant came around to object. We also decided that, in the worst scenario of a demolition action, all we would do would be gather as many people as we could and ask for time to voluntarily dismantle again and leave.

What we did not realise was that the assumptions on which our "strategy" was based were themselves flawed. We were presuming that the people of India are supreme and public servants are meant to serve them and public representatives are meant to represent them. We were presuming that there was, in our democracy, premium on people wanting to be law-abiding and morally correct and logical thinking. We were presuming that The System's blindness and deafness and lust for power were aberrations that dominated only where people themselves were unwilling to fight them and willing to be compromised. We were presuming that when people themselves would peacefully, intelligently and painstakingly stand up for what is right The System would have to respond. Our presumptions, we soon found out, were way too presumptuous in our pseudo-democracy. And when the power of the state - or, rather, of those who have hijacked it - was unleashed on us, we were taken completely by surprise and could not stop the downhill slide.

This part of this story is an ugly portrait of how spirits are broken.

| Public servants' Wrath and Retribution | Ostrich Farm | Public representatives' wrath and retribution | Me, the Planner... | We, the People... |