Changing scenarios, transferable concerns!

By Camila


After 5 days in New Delhi, we finally arrived in Gujarat, where we will be observing and participating in the activities of the Navsarjan Trust, particularly the activities of the Center for Dalit Empowerment (or DSK.) The Trust is directed by Martin Macwan, a great host, a world-renown activist, and a true leader.

From New Delhi, especially after riding for a total of 8 hours on the way from the Faridabad Border, I leave with a very strong memory of an urban space that is overwhelming at many levels. While cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, scooters, auto-rickshaws, and German cars all ride together and with no acknowledgement of the
pedestrians, cows, and dogs, the city vibrates between old and new and very rich and very poor. Going to the Taj Mahal, one of the most luxurious architectural accomplishments on earth, we have seen cardboard houses, homeless children, and open sewers, all less than 5 meters from the chaotic traffic described. We have seen various trucks carrying perhaps ten times the amount of a reasonable load of grains, jeopardizing even further the situation of the transients for the sake of profit. At the Taj Mahal, we were astonished with its beauty, and I myself questioned the dichotomy between the availability of resources that Shah Jahan could deploy to build the masterpiece because of his source of power, and the fact that as a ruler, his responsibilities should have been towards deploying such resources to his people, who are for the most part and to this day victims of an unjust power structure.

Now in Gujarat, the rural scene is different, but similar concerns strike our minds, as we prepare to spend almost a week on a very unfamiliar environment. We have dealt with things ranging from difficulties with the shower, bed, toilets, etc., to more substantial conflicts between our views of poverty and the poverty seen in India.

The poverty seen here in rural and urban spaces are not visually the same; however, they raise similar issues and are in nature the result of regional caste politics and stratification. Issues such as open sewage are common, despite the fact that the more pressing and urgent issue of manual scavenging is more related to the villages and the rural communities. Unemployment among Dalits and, especially, illiteracy among the Dalits are major concerns in both rural and urban spaces, despite the fact that in urban areas mobility within caste has generated organized social mobilization. In rural areas, mobilization operates even more in terms of building a lost identity, empowerment, and inclusion in the more basic processes of social life. We are starting to see these dynamics play out here with the students of DSK and we hope to further this analysis with many more stories to tell.