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By Deepti Priya Mehrotra Three films screened at the PSBT Open Frame International Film Festival in September critique the dominant development model by examining the lives of three communities -- subsistence farmers in Uttaranchal, the fisherfolk of Chilika, and Delhi’s ragpickers
Three documentaries, screened at the PSBT Open Frame International Film Festival on September 16, 2008, together provide a powerful critique of the dominant developmental model. Two films discussed the ‘vanishing local’ -- the crumbling of subsistence agriculture in Uttaranchal (Apna Alu Bazar Becha, by Pankaj H Gupta), and the destruction of fisheries in Orissa (Chilika Banks -- Stories from India's Largest Coastal Lake, by Akanksha Joshi). The third film explored Delhi’s scrap industry, run largely by ragpickers (Scavenging Dreams, by Jasmine K Roy and Avinash Roy). The films depict the lives of millions of ordinary people, barely surviving behind the façade of Shining India. Joshi traces the fisher people of Chilika’s journey from self-sufficiency to pauperisation, between 1970 and 2007. In her beautifully crafted film, a banyan tree stands witness to the passing of a lifestyle finely attuned to nature. People recall the days when even a child could catch enough fish to feed the whole family. Villagers fulfilled their basic needs within an ecologically sound lifestyle. Then, a market for Chilika’s prawns was discovered. Tourists flocked to the banks of the lake, drawn by its stupendous natural beauty and its dolphins. Rural youth took up new occupations -- Babina of Satparda village began driving an autorickshaw; Ashok opened up a restaurant in Sipakuda ‘Dream Village’; and Banmali Jena of Anupatna village became a motorboat driver. Lake Chilika’s 1,165 square kilometre span is a special ecological zone. However, the point at which the local chingree (prawns) became an international commodity was the starting point for habitat destruction: a point of no return. It also marked the beginning of cultural destruction. Jena laments: “Our traditions are dying. Our religion, songs, music, games, stories are all dying. We are becoming just like cities.” The fisher people initially thought they would gain from the commodification of prawns, but this dream was soon shattered. Because of over-fishing by commercial interests, by the 1980s it became difficult to find prawns. In the 1990s, the government leased villages like Paraspada and Golla to companies like the Tatas for prawn cultivation. The Chilika Development Authority cut through sand barriers and opened up a new sea mouth. The ecological balance of sweet river water mixing with salty sea water was destroyed. Factories polluted the water, killing fish, birds, turtles, crocodiles and alligators. Today, there are virtually no prawns left in Chilika. Jena says: “We fisher people have become poor. Today we can’t earn even Rs 10. Fishing is the same as being unemployed.” Parts of the lake have been captured by the powerful Prawn Mafia whose members have made large enclosures for ‘prawn culture’. The Supreme Court of India has declared these enclosures illegal, yet they flourish. The Prawn Mafia includes influential bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen. Change is inevitable. But the question is, change in what direction? Who controls it, who benefits, and who loses? What justice is there in this chaotic mess? The impoverished fisher people are now fighting, their backs against the wall. The Tatas left the area due to fierce local protests, but the land was occupied by non-fisher people. Sunil Jena, who is from a traditional fishing family, says: “I don’t want to be a millionaire or a billionaire. I only want to survive.” The lake, ‘Chilika Maa’, gave her all to her people -- but today it lies denuded and dying. *** Jardhargaon, a village in the Garhwal Himalayas, led a relatively isolated existence until three decades ago. The people here followed an agro-pastoral system that sustained human life and the environment over centuries. Today, it is in the midst of a hectic social and environmental transformation. Commodification is leading to the breakdown of local livelihoods. Vijay Jardhari is trying to conserve biodiversity, to enable people to exercise some control over agriculture and therefore over their lives. He explains: “We have crop varieties that have been used for thousands of years, and which require no, or very little, investment. But today, traditional seeds are being snatched away from the farmers.” Septuagenarian Bachni Devi recalls that when she came to Jardhargaon as a young bride, she worked at levelling the land, planting, transplanting, weeding, harvesting and cooking: a demanding schedule that left her with barely two hours of sleep every night! However, she looks back on those days as preferable to the present: “We had love, fellow-feeling and cooperation. We worked in each other’s fields. Today, if somebody pays money he can hire a worker. Otherwise nobody will help.” Surat Singh says: “We ate well. We had roti and drank a litre of curd, and felt happy. We had few needs. We got manure from the cattle, and fodder from the forests. It was a good life.” Dhoom Singh Negi explains the traditional baranaja (literally ‘12 grains’) method: “A dozen varieties were planted on one plot. Thus, a family could meet all its nutritional needs from a small field.” Subsistence agriculture provided the essentials of life. It began to break up by the 1970s, and, within the space of one or two generations, has been irretrievably lost. Surat Singh recalls a traditional saying: “Sell your potatoes in the market, and buy them back at a higher price.” This was the logic that local people began to face. Their produce fetched a market price, but it was typically lower than the price of other commodities in the market. They became net losers. The land was unable to sustain their burgeoning lifestyles. Khem Singh says: “Now people sell whatever they can. If their cow gives half-a-litre of milk, they go and sell it!” Negi explains: “Money is equated with ‘progress’. It has penetrated deep into the area. Today, a packet of seeds costs Rs 500-600. To plant a crop, the farmer has to take a loan. Agriculture has become a gamble because new cash crops involve higher investment and greater risks. Self-reliance is gone. The small farmer has become a farm labourer, working for wages.” Sahib Singh, a biodiversity activist, says: “Our Beej Bachao Andolan (Movement to Save Seeds) is trying to conserve the agriculture of the area. But sometimes we ask: Who are we conserving it for? Young people all want to go away to cities.” Rajbir Singh, 35, is visiting from Mumbai. He says: “If I depend on agriculture, I will be able to grow enough for one month. What will we eat the rest of the year? What future is there in the village? We have to go out to earn. Even if I don’t feel like going, I have to.” Khem Singh insists: “They will come back. The city is just for coming and going. If they get stuck in a job, they stay on. If they don’t find a job, they come back. And after their job, this is where they will return. This is home.” *** As local livelihoods collapse in the face of global markets, people are being pushed out of their ‘home’, into alien terrain. Millions flock to cities seeking employment. Scavenging Dreams brings us face-to-face with a stark urban reality: the lives of ragpickers in Delhi. Scrap is big business, dependent on the painstaking labour of thousands of children. Sukku, a teenager, suffers from tuberculosis “because I live in filth”. He has no option; his imagination baulks as he tries to figure out anything better. He can only say: “This work will end one day.” That is part-fantasy, part-nightmare. Hasmul, his friend, says: “Perhaps one day I will return to my village and open up a shop there.” Like teenagers anywhere, the two tease each other mercilessly, experiment with cigarettes, ogle at girls. But the context is sub-human: their living conditions are abysmal and their options non-existent. Manjeera, a teenager, was married but her husband, a drug addict, fell ill and died. She looks after their small daughter, earning a pittance from sorting garbage. “I wish I could get another job,” she says wistfully. When her home in Yamuna Pushta was demolished, she moved to Bawana. To come to Sadar Market for work, she travels two hours by bus. “It is very costly,” she says. “Often I stay the night here. The men around keep saying things, propositioning me. But I have no option.” Ram Ashray Singh, from Khagaria, Bihar, runs a scrap shop in Sadar Bazar. He says: “If we did not manage the waste, the municipality would not know how to handle it. I buy waste from ragpickers and sell it to dealers: there are dealers in plastic, metal, etc. All the material gets sold.” Charanjeet has a large shop dealing in scrap, some of it illegal, such as truckloads of syringes and other medical waste. According to him, some waste is imported from Europe. Around 8,000 tonnes of garbage is processed every day in Delhi, with the help of about 100,000 ragpickers. Factories in west Delhi buy around 3,000 tonnes of plastic daily, for recycling. The children and adolescents responsible for collecting and segregating waste material live in squalor, earning barely enough to subsist. They have no protection or security of any kind. Scrap dealers exploit them and the police routinely roughs them up. Roy and Roy, the filmmakers, say: “Working on a film like this is emotionally and physically draining. We have many unanswered questions. Who is responsible for these children? Who is responsible for urban waste management? These children perform an essential task, but live in utter filth and degradation. We are only bringing out the issues. Resolving them is another matter altogether.” Ram Ashray Singh says sarcastically: “The authorities want to turn Delhi into Paris. Before making it into Paris don’t they have to provide livelihoods and homes to the people of the city?” The ragpickers have no such expectations. They are realistic -- and devoid of hope. This, they know, is the end of the road: ‘development’ will take them no further. (Deepti Priya Mehrotra isa Delhi-based writer) InfoChange News & Features, October 2008
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