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Floods and cyclones bring hundreds of homeless people to Kolkata from rural areas. THE lady in the tattered and dirty sari perches herself precariously on the railing below the Gariahat flyover in South Kolkata, cooing over an emaciated baby, nursing at her breast. Both of them are caked in dust. A cloth bundle, torn in several places, hangs from her shoulder. It holds the sum total of her belongings.
Traffic flows by on the busy road, while pedestrians scurry across the crowded intersection. Almost as one, they avert their eyes from the pitiful sight of the mother and child. For all records and purposes, the homeless persons in this teeming metropolis simply do not exist, even as their number rises by the day. According to Premila Pavamani, Director, Calcutta Samaritans, an NGO working with the homeless in the city for over three decades, the houseless population in Kolkata according to the 2001 census had stood at 67,676, which has more than doubled in the intervening decade. "It is difficult to have accurate data on the homeless, who constitute a floating population. Their identity and location cannot be fixed. Every time there is an eviction drive, they move to another pavement in another part of the city," says Pavamani. She adds: "Every flood, every drought, every cyclone, brings in a fresh influx of homeless persons to Kolkata from rural areas. They come in search of a livelihood and a roof but end up on the streets." The homeless live in the open — on roadsides, on pavements, in exhume pipes, under flyovers and staircases, in the open places of worship and at railway platforms. At times they squat on public land. Without documents to prove their addresses, they have no access to BPL cards, ration cards or voter ID cards. It is as if they are not there at all. Consequently, the homeless are ignored in all government welfare programmes meant for the impoverished, and end up being deprived of citizen rights as well as a civic identity. "They might have had documents earlier in their villages. But they lose it in the flood or other calamities that drive them out of their homes in the first place. Once in the city, they find it difficult to establish their identities again," points out Pavamani. A study conducted by Calcutta Samaritans in 2008 found that the women who have built a new life for themselves on the streets comprise those who were either trafficked or had arrived in Kolkata through a series of displacements and poverty. "However, now there are many women who were born on the streets here," says Pavamani. One such woman is Tapashi Hait (32), a squatter on the Dum Dum Metro parking. "I was born on the street and so was my daughter. Neither my mother nor I had any access to healthcare. Hence, neither I nor my children got any birth certificates," she says. But her biggest problem is the police. "They launch eviction drives against us whenever it suits them. They solicit sex from us, and refusals lead to beatings — both for us and our family members. Most women have husbands who are alcoholics or substance abusers. Domestic violence is also part of our lives," reveals Tapashi. For homeless women, besides sexual and physical abuse, the other primary problem is lack of civic amenities and sanitation. "The government has made the sulabh (public) toilets but they are not free. Rates vary from Rs 1.50 to Rs 2 for use of a toilet, and Rs 3 for washing and bathing facilities. If I spend Rs 5 for the toilet every day, for me it is a huge amount. There is no way the entire family can use public toilets by paying, as the cumulative cost could go up to a prohibitive Rs 15-20 each day," says Asora Bibi (30), who is an encroacher on railway land near the Park Circus rail tracks, and lives under a tarpaulin with her two children and husband. "All members in the family, including my children, work as rag-pickers. We don’t beg. But we earn only about Rs 30 to Rs 40 per day. This is hardly sufficient even for food. We also have to pay bribes to railway police. So, the entire family carries out its ablutions in the open. Our access to water is also limited. We go to the roadside taps for drinking water but it comes only thrice a day," adds Asora, who migrated to Kolkata from the Sunderbans in Bengal’s South 24 Pargana district after a cyclone washed away her home. The story across the board is the same. Homeless women are forced to take up menial jobs as vendors, daily labour at construction sites, rag-pickers and sometimes as part-time domestic help. "Working as domestic help is the better option, but no one hires us full-time because we cannot show any address and cannot offer documents for police verification," says Rajila Khatun (35). Dulari Bibi (50), another encroacher near the Park Circus railway tracks, narrates a pathetic tale. "I had my old ration card, and even a small saving with a private cooperative when I was living under the Gariahat flyover four years ago. But during an eviction drive, the policemen beat me and pushed me away before I could collect my belongings. I lost all the documents and all my possessions then. Now I have nothing, just this plastic sheet over my head and the fire that I light between two bricks to cook some rice," she says. Like Dulari, most of the homeless women have tales of nightmarish, repeated evictions, often underlined with physical violence. "I have moved across the entire city, from Gariahat in South Kolkata to Shyambazar and Dum Dum in the north, and now I am at Park Circus in Central Kolkata. I have paid bribes to policemen everywhere and even appeased them with sexual favours, but despite that I have had to face regular evictions. It is difficult to find work in such situations. I have absolutely no rights and nobody cares," says Fakeni Khatun (55). The homeless are
dismissed as "eyesores" or "encroachers"; they
become fugitives from the law through no fault of their own. For those
with a conscience, the question is: Even if these people are deemed
illegal migrants, what about their children who are born and brought
up on the pavements? Surely, they should be considered citizens with
the same rights as others? But then we come back full circle to the
original problem: lack of birth certificates. — WFS
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