Down To
        Earth

We profile the two Indians who won this year’s Magsayay Awards. RAJESH SINHA in Jaipur meets Aruna Roy president of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana and who won the award for Community Leadership. In Mumbai, ARUNA CHAKRAVARTY catches up with the indefatigable Jockin Arputham, president of the National Slumdwellers’ Federation, who won his award for International Understanding

The television cameras haven’t stopped whirring at Jockin Arputham in the narrow lane of Jhoola Maidan, Byculla, ever since he was declared this year’s Magsaysay award winner for community leadership and international understanding. The 54-year-old man, though, has only one complaint — he does not like sitting on a chair, answering to the electronic media. He prefers the chatai, spread out over the floor, where he sits across a small table, assuring the numerous slums and pavement dwellers who approach him — that the house they want for themselves will indeed happen, that they can count on him.

Three thousand people living illegally and in abject conditions along the railway tracks in the city have recently shifted to a seven-storeyed building at Mankhurd, some 20 kilometres from the island city of Mumbai. Around 1,000 people living along another set of tracks on Central Railway, shifted around two years back. Some did, even earlier. The earliest of such successful stories of relocating — what is fashionably referred to as ‘encroachers’ — was in 1976, when young Jockin, combined militancy with organisational skills to demand and obtain alternate land for his Janata Colony.

The runaway son of a rich-family-fallen-into-bad-times from the Kolar Gold Mines, Karnataka, and once a bugbear for the city’s bureaucrats, Jockin is today much sought after, and not just because of his recent award. The slightly-built man, simple in his bush shirt and still a slumdweller, seemingly has all the answers to the biggest question staring at the megapolis — removal of its sore spots, slums.
‘‘Within two years, all the 21,000 pavement dwellers in the island city of Mumbai, will leave... we have obtained land at Mahul village, Chembur, where they will be moving,’’ he declares confidently, ‘‘Then let us see how the upper class defends its pavements from encroachments.’’

Jockin’s threat is not an idle one. Insistent and persuasive, with both the bureaucrats and the slumdwellers, his National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and SPARC (Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centre) have a formidable (and in the dog-eat-dog world of NGOism, enviable) presence in the corridors of the state government’s Mantralaya and the city’s municipal corporation.

In addition, in the offices of the Central and Western Railways, and the Airport Authorities, where almost all the officers of the estate management department know him personally. He knows exactly how much of their land is locked in slums, and he has the key. And, it is now, at the beginning of the 21st century, with litigations against encroachments defeating the state government in the Bombay high court almost daily, that they are reaching out for him.

Jockin does not talk of in-situ construction or low density house clusters. Instead he pursues the line of least resistance: Yes, we encroached on railway tracks and airport land, pavements and municipal land. We did it with the active connivance of the authorities. But now, you want the land back? Sure, we will give it. Just don’t ask me to go back to Tamil Nadu. There is land in the city, around 70,000 acres blocked in various reservations, give it to us and we shall build houses ourselves.
Never mind if a section of the city slickers go blue in the face pointing out that the NGO is working as a land developer, the message seems to be sinking in the minds of officials. And negotiation, continuing for the last 15 years, is the medium.
It all began when the young Jockin — born amid wealth which was soon lost due to a lavish father’s prodigal desire for a political career — first cried for at least one meal a day, at around the age of 17. He had six brothers and sisters. Convinced that things would not change for the better soon, he decided to challenge his own fate. First, it was Bangalore, then Bombay.

‘‘I did everything to survive... clean drains... cook food... carpentry... anything that would give me some money,’’ he says. He was then living in Janata Colony. That was 1963, September. It would take the city at least seven more years to recognise slums as a social and economic unit that cannot be wished away, to introduce the Slum Improvement Scheme for toilets and water, etc. Till then, regular demolitions, poor sanitation and nil drainage systems were the order of the day. Jockin became a hero instantly when he gathered the slum children to whitewash its toilets — for the first time in 20 years.

From there to uniting to fight demolitions was easy. There were 70,000 residents of Janata Colony when the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) was formed. Using every trick in the book, from rasta rokos to threat of mass suicide to political support (he got Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan to visit his area in 1969-70), he was able to get alternative land at Cheetah Camp for his colony in 1976.

It was in 1985, that the predominantly male NSDF met with an all-woman team of Sheela Patel and Celine D’Cruz at SPARC. The attraction was instant and the marriage, a hit. Their first progeny was an all-powerful female: Mahila Milan.

This year’s Magsaysay award to Jockin is as much to his never-say-give-up approach as to the never-say-demolish motto of the women members of Mahila Milan. Used to running away with only their ration cards in hand whenever the demolition squads came home, Mahila Milan has instilled an amazing confidence in the women pavement and slum dwellers. One which translates into standing with a heart of stone and watching the bulldozer break the last bamboo and crush the last patra. But now, nobody can take their belongings away. The pamphlets handed out by the organisation and parroted out to each and every member is: make sure nothing is taken away. Or keep a list of what is being taken away, we’ll get them back later.

It is not just the women power that is tapped but their economic prowess as well. ‘‘Shake a man and you will get empty pockets... but a woman, even a beggar woman will always have some money on her,’’ Jockin laughs. So out goes the Mahila Milan member collecting savings from the women regularly and meticulously maintains her records. Result? In Mumbai alone over 2 lakh women have savings with Mahila Milan. It is what Jockin calls the ‘life breath’ of the organisation. The money is lent out to the women at an interest of one per cent per month — a huge improvement over the 10 per cent asked by the local money lender. Money is given abundantly, even if the women want to go on an outing.

And the money has helped the organisation gain loans from no less a ‘‘blue-chip bank’’ than Citibank. Hudco, Bank of Baroda and Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, the Central Government Loan fund for women, are the other partners, giving loan for infrastructure and housing facilities. This helps the organisation build its own toilets and houses.

The operative word in all this, though, is networking. Active and widespread. In this case, spreading out to 34 cities in the country and around 11 countries in the world. These include South Africa, Namibia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Manila, Bangkok, Cambodia, Philippines and so on. NSDF won the World Habitat Day award in 1999. It’s members have visited almost all these countries, several times over. Women in the office, who could not spell the names of their own areas, speak of Capetown, South Africa, about women who have to buy water for five rands daily. In all this, Jockin retains his humility. The prize money will go to Mahila Milan, he says, I will only take one rupee to show my wife. While others in the organisation have their cell phones on, Jockin cannot be reached if on the road. He is hardly in the office, either, since most of the time he is closeted with Urban Development and Housing secretaries and municipal commissioners, ironing out the latest crease in the shifting scheme.

At other times, say this week, don’t bother to call him. He will be off to Cambodia.

Next - Part II