By Noor ul Haq,
Walk down the lanes of Chandni Chowk at night and you will be in a new poor world. People sleeping on footpaths, under a blanket, in plastic tents or on a hand cart, take refuge on the pavements, beneath flyovers or near railway tracks. And same situation prevails in other parts of capital and country. It is unimaginable as how come a person can sleep in such a severe cold outside on a footpath without proper sheeting or heating arrangement. After all they are also humans. Have you thought like this anyhow?
Recently the Supreme Court directed the governments of various states to build an adequate number of night shelters, so no homeless person would have to sleep in the cold this winter. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra asked the governments to file detailed reports on the status of night shelters, which are operating in their states, by January 3, 2012. The judges, who passed separate orders for different states, asked the chief secretaries to ensure the availability of suitable infrastructure for the homeless and poor.
The apex court passed the direction after counsel Colin Gonzalves, appearing for People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), filed a public interest litigation on night shelter facilities for the homeless in India. It told the court that various state governments have not built an adequate number of night shelters for the homeless until now.
The apex court had passed a series of directions to states for setting up night shelters and permanent shelters for homeless people throughout the country, following reports that a number of them have died due to biting cold wave conditions.
A whole month has passed, January 3rd has also passed; Supreme Court orders seem to have no effects and nothing good seems to occur in the coming days. A large number of poor and homeless have been forced to spend the nights under shanty plastic tents and temporary shelters. It must be noted that the country-wide death toll this winter reached to 168 and is still going on. Northern parts top the list of homeless thereby causing their death in this bone chilling winter. Among them Uttar Pradesh is leading in the number of dead.
Weeks have passed and only one can see in old Delhi and other parts of country, is that people still use to sleep under open sky, a single piece of blanket given in charity by people, covering their naked body. On one side where rich gather fire wood, room heaters, nice Korean blankets, electric blankets inside their well furnished houses; on the other side the scene is totally pathetic. Only a stone hearted person can’t get moved by such apathy of these poor people. Nothing to eat and nothing to cover themselves from this bone chilling winter, no hope of government help or any other hope; their only hope is a bottle of Alcoholic drink (Beer) which makes them to feel it is hot outside.
Crores of rupees are wasted on elections, fasts, movements, draping of BSP symbols and in other fields but no one bothers to pay a helping hand to these poor people. If Sachin Tendulkar scores his 100th ton, awards, rewards and money will rain but tell that rickshaw puller of UP who sleeps whole night on his rickshaw; ask that beggar near Nizamuddin railway station in Delhi, are you having a home, a blanket to cover yourself in this winter; where is your family; what do you eat; what is government doing for you; have you been awarded for being world’s best rickshaw puller dying in both winter and summers. Ministers send choppers to get their sandals back from Mumbai, but can’t settle a few families languishing on roadsides in this deadly winter. A lot of money will be used on election campaigns but not on the welfare of the poor.
And here it must be stressed that only government is not responsible for all this mess. Citizens are also responsible. People can change the course of a river, can do miracles only and only if they have a will to do and feel that these people are part and parcel of our life. Isn’t it possible that 0.5% of people can’t be helped by rest of people? Let people start of their own, help the needy and see the results; no need for arranged flash mobs guys, no dances and all that. Gather and move ahead and see whole lot of people will join you.
Let those who join in scores for Anna Hazare’s movement or any minister’s election rally join this movement also and change India yourselves, if at all you care.
(The writer is a freelance journalist based in Delhi)