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Business News/ Opinion / Turf wars and the dreams of migrants
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Turf wars and the dreams of migrants

Over the last few weeks, Delhi chief minister and the L-G have been at each other's throats in a gripping political turf war over who has the rights to make administrative appointments

The crowd that collected at Central Park, a massive roundabout in downtown New Delhi, numbered perhaps 2,000—maybe a little more—including many activists. Photo: PTIPremium
The crowd that collected at Central Park, a massive roundabout in downtown New Delhi, numbered perhaps 2,000—maybe a little more—including many activists. Photo: PTI

At around the time Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was sitting on a stage that was draped in white, listening to his deputy reel off the achievements of his government in insane heat and preparing to speak himself, news broke that a Delhi high court judge had ruled in favour of the Kejriwal government in an anti-corruption case.

The event was billed as “janata ki cabinet", or people’s cabinet. The occasion was the completion of 100 days by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi—a state government that has punched above its weight, attracting domestic and global notice for its radical anti-corruption and anti-crony capitalism politics that pitches it against the might of both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The crowd that collected at Central Park, a massive roundabout in downtown New Delhi, numbered perhaps 2,000—maybe a little more—including many activists. Many more ordinary people stood outside in rows—sometimes two or three deep—around the park, watching speakers on giant screens, causing a traffic snarl in the heart of the capital city. The mercury touched 45.5 degrees Celsius.

Before Kejriwal stood up to speak, with a giant Indian tricolor looming behind him, he tweeted about the Delhi high court judgement, which denied bail to a police head constable in an alleged corruption case and ruled that it was within the Delhi government’s powers to punish Delhi Police personnel, although they are employees of the central government rather than the state.

It’s a peculiar state, Delhi, with a peculiar legal status. No matter how locally powerful the chief minister (and Kejriwal’s party swept 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly elections held in February), anything related to three matters—land acquisition, law and order, and police—is decided by the central government through its representative, the lieutenant governor (L-G).

Over the last few weeks, the chief minister and the L-G have been at each other’s throats in a gripping political turf war over who has the rights to make administrative appointments. Each fired notifications and counter-notifications at the other. Kejriwal tweeted, “Today’s HC judgement a huge embarrassment for central government. HC also said that the latest 21 May MHA (ministry of home affairs) notification is ‘suspect’."

What to make of the 100 days and this long-running turf war? I found myself sitting next to three men who are at the bottom of the pyramid, in the sanitized description of economists—the poorest, and the natural constituents of Kejriwal’s AAP. These men helped put up the gigantic white marquee under which Kejriwal and colleagues sat, along with the white draping enclosing the event. And seating for around 1,000 people (the rest sat on rugs or steps).

It took Kuldeep Sah, Deep Gagan Gupta and 50 to 60 others from the tent company in nearby Gole Market two days to deck up the place. The boss would have charged 2 lakh, they reckon. They get paid at the rate of 300 a day—the arrangement, however, is unlimited work for a monthly wage of 9,000.

The two men are from Khagaria, a district in Bihar—internal migrants for whom Delhi is a magnet. They sleep rough, they said, mostly in the shop. “Look at us," Gupta said. “We have had to leave our kids behind in the village. What to do? They ask for food."

“What do we expect of politicians? We expect them to look after the poor, that’s what. Everywhere, only the rich people are looked after." Dekhbaalit’s a word that you hear everywhere, from the poor, not from the middle classes or the rich. It is Hindi for “care"—the care of the poor—a demand that is the bedrock of the call for a welfare state.

Delhi is largely where crony capitalism in India germinates and is nurtured. The city-state is peculiar in another respect: it is endowed with a disproportionately large income. India, with a population of 1.2 billion, has a per capita annual gross domestic product (GDP) of $1,364 (around 89,000). Delhi’s per capita income is $3,331 (around 2.01 lakh). Its population is 20 million. Goa (2 million) has a per capita income of $4,224 (around 2.55 lakh) and Sikkim (1 million) $3,235 (around 1.85 lakh).

A UN study from 2013 says internal migrants contribute as much as 10% to India’s GDP and that employment is the No. 1 reason for migration.

A Delhi Police officer, drafted in for the day from his work in traffic management in this chaotic city, is a migrant from Rajasthan. I asked him about petty corruption among policemen, which has predictably drawn fierce AAP attention.

“I won’t disagree with you that there are such people (who take bribes)," he replied. “We earn very little. Most days are 14 hours long for us. I sleep in the police station at Vasant Vihar. Spend a day with me at work, see how we are bullied by the rich, their kids."

What do they do?

“First they speak to you in English, knowing we don’t know the language. Then they threaten us. If the constable still doesn’t give in, they plead—‘I won’t do it again’. If that doesn’t work, they try to find fault with the policeman—‘I wasn’t speeding. Who says I was speeding’."

Nearly everyone’s a migrant in Delhi, a welcoming city unlike many other metropolises, perhaps because it does not have a well-defined host community. But being the centre of power in a country that still believes in maintaining spaces between the haves and have-nots, Delhi is also a city where many feel marginalized—in different ways and degrees.

I asked Atishi Marlena, a former AAP spokesperson, what the point of the whole 100-day public cabinet meeting was.

Was it politics? Only a few hundred kilometres from Delhi, in a holy town called Mathura, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was listing his central government’s achievements before a massive celebratory crowd.

“Access," she says.

“That’s what we are trying to do here. We are breaking barriers. We are going directly to the people. Otherwise, there’s so much distance—it’s in the nature of politics here. There are long periods of time where there is no interaction between the government and the people."

One tool to institutionalize this contact, she said, was the Delhi government’s “participatory budget", kicked off a few months ago. The idea is to compile a list of what people want in the government’s budget from discussions with citizens at townhall meetings up and down the state. A man came up and asked her not to be cowed down by the opposition when she appears on television.

“They sling mud. Sometimes, to deal with those who live in mud, you have to sink to their level," he said.

“Yes," she replied.

“They shout and speak non-stop. You should do the same, madam."

“Yes."

Outside the dazzling shrouded venue, autorickshaws stood empty in rows lining the main roads at Connaught Place. Their drivers, I imagine, were among the crowds watching the giant screens. Street cleaners—women—sat on the curb, holding their broomsticks like weapons, watching the screens, migrants all, chasing dreams in India’s El Dorado.

Dipankar De Sarkar’s Twitter handle is @Ddesarkar1

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Published: 29 May 2015, 12:44 AM IST
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