An eviction of Dreams – will the unity of the people herald in a different tomorrow?

An eviction of Dreams – will the unity of the people herald in a different tomorrow? Should the government be worried?

Swaswati Borkataki

1500 people gathered for a protest against the eviction drive in Sasol and other parts of Guwahati on the 25^th of February.

They submitted a fifteen point memorandum to the Chief Minister, seeking for the rehabilitation of the displaced individuals and households, on behalf of a Committee for Rehabilitation of the evicted landless citizens whose dreams have been shattered along with their homes.

The Memorandum was signed by few citizens working for the benefit and protection of the interests of the less privileged sections of the society.

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While the signatories, Saddam Hussain, Surat Talkudar, Achit Chakraborty, Puja Nirala, Pranab Doley, Mohsin Khan, Harkumar Goswami, Shahanoor Alam, Noor Islam, Ratish Dev, Almin Haq, Ashraful Islam, Mujammil Haq and Shahjamal Haq probably know that the protest would not yield any immediate results in favor of them or the ones whom they are fighting for, there certainly must be some spirit of hope, some beam of change in the future that have driven them to gather together for the cause.

Like so many other catastrophies, will this too be buried under the garb of freebies and other schemes?

But will people still hook on to freebies, Ujala and the one lakh thirty thousand bucks under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Scheme among others?

Will they forget the tragedy of their dream homes being razed to the ground, dismantled to the very atom of their existence?

They might.

Not the ones affected but those who have grown up in the blanket of a perennial xenophobia against a particular ‘community’ or race of people. Saddam Hussain, a signatory of the memorandum and participant in the protest claims that he is as much an Indian as anyone else while also accusing the wife of the Chief Minister of the state of acquiring illegitimate property.

He talks about the pain he is going through and others affected by the eviction drive.

While this might not lead to any spur immediately, there surely has been some coarse injustice meted out. The video of a seven year old child pleading a policemen to stop the eviction of his home till the belongings are taken away in a site near Silsako has gone viral, also featuring in National dailies as the Hindu and others.

People are crying, they are marooned and torn asunder from their homes. Whether legal or ‘illegal’ residents, these people are very much human with all flesh and blood, like their compatriots residing in mansions, watching their homes being razed to the ground. Will their cries be heard?

Will they be given proper rehabilitation and recourse?

Or will we forget them like we have forgotten the cries of so many others before. Probably nothing will change.

Dreams will be dashed again, hearts will be broken and homes will be quashed, and the regime will continue without budging or paying the least heed.

Nonetheless, a section of the populace who are directly or indirectly affected by the drive or at least concerned about the section that is affected, who do believe that change is possible and imminent, and that we are living in an age where violence and dashing of dreams have become a part of the very existence of the people, have come out to the streets. Can this somewhat be said to signal a bugle of rebellion?

After all, 1857 started with chapattis being distributed from one village to another!

At least, one of the signatories, Pranab Doley thinks so. He has said that the coming in of a large section of people out in the open is a signifier that no form of autocracy can survive in front of the voice of the people in a democracy, and that this is a happy news for the people of the state and on the other hand, a challenge to those in power as well as a threat that their days in power are numbered. 

Whether or not there will be a change in the near future is a matter of speculation. But how long will the government get away with autocratic proclivities? Will there be no culture of a referendum?

Of proper planning and scheme for the aftermath of displacement and eviction?

Will people start nurturing seeds of rebellion if activities as such continue unabated?

The government surely needs to give it a thought!

[Writer Swaswati Borkataki, Doctoral Student, JNU, New Delhi]

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