(Subhashini Ali is former MP, former Member of the National Commission for Women and Vice President of the All India Democratic Women's Association.)Ekta Colony in Jaula village, Muzaffarnagar, has 54 houses that offer families seared by Hindu-Muslim violence a second chance.
The families living in them are all riot victims who had to flee their own homes and villages to escape the arson, carnage and loot that engulfed them in the communal riots in August last year in this part of Western Uttar Pradesh. The victims who are landless artisans, working for daily wages as carpenters, masons and bricklayers, built their own homes. Their wives and children assisted them.
The materials for construction - bricks, cement, sand, doors, windows and iron rods - were supplied by the District Committee of the CPI(M) from funds that had been collected by party workers all over the country. The largest contribution came from people in Kerala, belonging to all communities, most of them poor workers, who probably had no idea of the geographical location of Muzaffarnagar but who responded with big-hearted generosity to a man-made tragedy that had rendered thousands homeless, destitute and terrorised overnight.
The homes that have been constructed are very different from the usual colonies that are made by governments or charitable organisations to house those who have been rendered homeless by natural disasters and violent attacks. These colonies are constructed without keeping the needs of the victims in mind and are often airless boxes. The houses in Ekta Nagar, however, have airy rooms, verandahs and courtyards so that parents, children and animals can all live in reasonable comfort. The way in which the women have hung colourful pieces of fabric in front of windows and decorated kitchen walls with their limited number of utensils was a lesson in aesthetics married to necessity.
Khushnuda and Wasila were two of the happy women that I met in Ekta Nagar. Khushnuda, her husband Ifayuddin and their five children were able to leave their village, Lakh, with police help on the 8th of August last year. They were brought to the Jaula camp as were Wasila, her husband, Kamil, and their children who escaped from Bawri village. This was the camp with which CPI(M) volunteers were associated and is the only camp that the administration could not remove in the way that it did dozens of others. After they received their compensation from the state government, Khushnuda and her family, along with 53 other families, were helped to acquire small plots in Jaula. This is where Ekta Colony now stands.
The state government did not provide any assistance and, only recently, the administration has installed three hand pumps, the only source of drinking water for 54 families! There is still no electricity connection and kharanja roads are also desperately needed.
Khushnuda and Wasila agree that they, along with their neighbours, will have to become organised to ensure access to basic amenities.
There were many sad women in Jaula still. Jaula camp is still home to nearly 150 families, living in miserable tents. They have not yet received any compensation despite the fact that the destruction of their homes is a well-documented fact. They are caught in a bureaucratic tangle and are forced to survive the ferocious elements in sub-human conditions. Several of them have little children who were born in the camp and have known no other home. Sarvari, Siddiqua, Sanjida, Sina, Vakila, Mariam, Khurshida...and so many more. Sad women with very little hope left.
It is almost a year since the riots erupted. The anniversary of the first violent incident is around the corner. BJP leaders are determined to commemorate that anniversary in their own special way. Fears that had been laid to rest are returning to haunt many. Does another wave of violence and forced homelessness lie in wait to overwhelm new victims?
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