Bhatti Mines is a metaphor for
the redundancy of ordinary people for both governments and religions.
Bhatti Mines
is a village in Delhi. It lies between Mehrauli (where the Qutub Minar is
situated) and Faridabad (Haryana’s industrial hub with conspicuous opulence) on
the Delhi-Haryana border with reserved forests all around it. All along the
road from Mehrauli to Bhatti Mines you will find symbols of affluence: imposing
gates that are guarded by security personnel. Some of those gates open to
sprawling farms with luxurious farmhouses. A few lead you to spectacular
edifices belonging to various religious cults. The last stretch of the road is
through a reserved forest and then suddenly it ends in a village that seemingly
belongs to another planet. That village is Bhatti Mines.
The name owes
itself to the stone quarries that existed in that area for about 25 years:
1965-1990. Red sand, silica and stones for the construction industry in the
National Capital Region were mined from there. Some 50,000 people live in that
village now. It is more correct to say that it is an agglomerate of many
villages. These people or their ancestors were brought there to work in the
quarries. Now that the quarries are decommissioned these people are unwanted. Their
very citizenship is being questioned.
A few
kilometres before you reach Bhatti Mines is the sprawling compound of a
religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB]. They have an endless
stretch of land in that area with huge buildings some of which look
resplendent. Some of the buildings are just halls, enormous ones, meant to hold
devotees who flock in thousands three or four times a year to listen to the
Baba who is a kind of deity for them.
RSSB was in
news many times for encroaching on the forest lands. Not one or two acres, but
over a hundred. Their greed for land also swallowed a whole residential school
which had about 20 acres of land in that area. Sawan Public School, which had a
beautiful school building with five hostels and many wings of staff quarters
along with well-maintained gardens, is now an arid parking space for the cars
belonging to thousands of the Baba’s rich devotees.
A part of Sawan Public School being bulldozed by RSSB [2015]
Organisations
like RSSB can encroach on reserved forests with impunity. The poor people of
Bhatti Mines face eviction from their little huts. This is India which spends
thousands of crores of rupees on advertising slogans about schemes for the welfare
and development of its citizens.
Bhatti Mines
is just a symbol. You will come across thousands of such places in India where
the poor are struggling to survive while all around these poor people rise
skyscrapers with 40 or 50 storeys of air-conditioned apartments occupied by
affluent people. Poverty and affluence. India can give you pictures that will
beat Salvador Dali’s surrealist paintings in horrifying illusoriness.
Neither
politics nor religion is interested in redrawing the pictures. Politics and
religions are ultimately about amassing more and more wealth and power. Both –
wealth and power – are now getting accumulated in fewer and fewer hands. Alas!
Oxfam
International tells us that the gap between the rich and the poor in India is
widening alarmingly. “The richest have cornered a huge part of the wealth
created through crony capitalism and inheritance,” says the Oxfam report.
The following chart from that report illustrates the situation succinctly and
eloquently.
Bhatti Mines is a symbol of the thoroughly skewed development that India is witnessing in the past few years. It is the development of a few at the cost of the many.
One of the roads in Bhatti Mines area - the gate of a farmhouse [2013]
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Most of the construction in India have encroachments. The depth of the encroachment is proportional to his/her influence over the society. A commoner will encroach the one or two feet of land in front of his house. A church/political building/private temples will do it deeper. If a single person commits, it is a crime. When a group of people does it, it is an insurgence :)
ReplyDeleteWe are huge hypocrites and even criminals. But we preach big morality and claim ancient civilisation. We must be looking like big jokers to those who watch us from out there somewhere.
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteSadly, India is the prime example of the chasm between rich and poor. These same things happen everywhere to varying degrees, but the fact is money talks and poverty walks... It seems to be impossible to level the societal field. YAM xx
B=Branches and Berries
We have the resources but lack the will to change the situation.
DeleteA sense of hopeless spectatorship engulfs me when I read such reports. Perhaps, it's the lull before the storm. The greed before a revolution....and then the cycle starts all over again.
ReplyDeleteSome things will change. But essentially capitalism with its intrinsic greed will continue to dominate.
DeleteWherever I've been, the Radha Soami trust actually is spread over vast spaces, some of the most beautiful and otherwise inaccessible ones. Bhatti Mines is new for me. Religion and politics could be good investments. Sorry, correction, are. And here I am, fretting over mutual funds!
ReplyDeleteReligion and politics bring the highest dividends. RSSB seems to be specialized in land-grabbing.
DeleteA mix or religion and politics is a recipe for the disaster. Democracy is that pliable stuff easily moulded into any form and its worth depends on the will of the people who mould it. True history has the power to shame the plunderers and their descendants, who are the land grabbers--including in Kerala -- the reason they corrupt it before introducing to school syllabus.
ReplyDeleteHistory is fiction now. Earlier heroes become villains now and vice versa.
DeleteThis is always the case with Capitalism and somehow we, starting from government to an individual have been in its grip. The divide between the have & have nots is widening day by day . Only time will say for how long will this survive before a revolution by the downtrodden happens.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for that revolution. This has to change. Capitalism may not go. But it can get a heart.
Deletenice
ReplyDelete