In the back alleys of Jantar Mantar, amid squalor, food stalls, makeshift shanties and overbearing stench lies a patchwork of protests — fists, slogans, and hope. On any given day, dozens of protests are held on the street just outside the boundary of the famous observatory where a cluster of slums now take centerstage — sometimes 13 to 15 rallies take place in a day.

While the agendas are different, the protests co-exist, often recognising each other’s pace and downing their voices to accommodate another. Effigies are burnt, slogans are shouted, and passersby frown while policemen stand guard lest the protestors turn violent, and women cook and clean while the children run in the streets.

Welcome to Delhi’s new ‘protest street’: the Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory built in 1724 by Sawai Jai Singh II. The hotbed of protests was shifted here in 1993 after the Narasimha Rao government banned rallies at Boat Club.

While the squatters have been served notices, they linger nevertheless. To accommodate them, the NDMC has even stationed a mobile potable water tanker where men and children bathe and women wash utensils and clothes. There is also a mobile toilet.

Take Babuya Barman, for instance. In a makeshift tent full of holes, he is bracing for yet another cold season. For more than two years, Barman and 25 others have stayed put in the little tarpaulin tent held in place with strings, decorated with banners celebrating the Rajbanshi language and culture, and pressing for separate statehood of Greater Cooch Behar from West Bengal. A harmonium sits on a colorful mat, and miniature gods and goddesses dot the otherwise bare front brick wall of the Janata Dal office.

Here, Barman, 30, and others sing their folk songs, pore over the numerous Right To Information requests they have filed, and read through a thick book that contains the history of Rajbanshis, a largely impoverished ethnic community of more than 2 crore people.

Underdevelopment and resulting poverty, Barman says, have been at the heart of the movement, led by the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association. In September 2005, the movement claimed five lives — two activists killed in police firing and three policemen lynched by a mob. The association then decided to take their protest to Jantar Mantar, the closest point to the Parliament. Barman and others have been on dharna since August 28, 2006.

A Gandhian, Barman believes in the power of Satygraha. “I have chosen to be here because we suffer as a people,” he says. “We will sit here until the government gives in to our demands. Desh ki awaz yehi (Jantar Mantar) se hi buland hoti hai.”

Across the street, a protest is already turning violent. Effigies of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are lined up at a rally by ex-servicemen and their wives who have been demanding “one rank, one pension” for years. The relay hunger strike by the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement started this December 16 with two participants: Jawan Suleman Khan and Naik Rekh Raj.

And they have vowed to remain here until the government concedes.

Chandro Rathi, a Rohtak-based wife of an ex-serviceman, sits quietly. It’s difficult, she says, to make ends meet with just Rs 2,020 as pension. “We don’t have land, nor any business. How can I run a house of seven with Rs 2,020 pension?”

A few paces down the road, another protest is forming: they are asking the Pakistani government to stop sending militants to India.