The families are living in extreme conditions sans houses, water and electricity.
New Delhi: Around 150 Hindu families who have migrated from Pakistan are living in a makeshift camp at Delhi’s Majnu ka Tilla for years and for them, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed earlier this month in Parliament has given a sense of renewed hope that they would now be officially called Indians.
A woman sun-bathing outside her makeshift house in the Majnu Ka Tilla camp excitedly said, “Hum toh ab Indian baan gayein hain (We have now become Indians).”
However, every resident living in this camp now hopes that the government will give them the formal citizenship documents soon so that they can get benefits of government schemes.
Over 600 people who are living here at the camp are living in absolute desolate conditions, with no water, electricity, sanitation and proper housing.
For the 150 families living in this camp, there are only four makeshift toilets that the government had recently provided them, but they still have to go miles to fetch water. Due to the lack of ownership of this piece of land, which primarily belongs to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), these families are living virtually in darkness with no electricity.
Sandhya Devi, a resident who had migrated some five years back from Pakistan’s Sindh region, told The Sunday Guardian: “We are very happy that we have been recognised as Indians today. But now we request the government to help us with houses, water and electricity. We are living in extreme conditions. The children are not being admitted to schools because they don’t have documents.”
According to the residents, these makeshift houses are built with wood they collected from the banks of the Yamuna river which flows just behind this camp, but the extreme winter this time has made it very hard for them to live here.
Malti, another resident of the camp, said: “We have constructed this house by collecting wood one by one from the Yamuna river banks; the roofs are made of leaves, imagine living under such a roof in this extreme winter. The conditions here get worse during the monsoon season; this place becomes unliveable with mud, water, snakes and other animals around. We hope that the government will now help us get our own houses; we hope that we will be given electricity and gas connections under the Ujjwala Yojana.”
A little further inside this refugee camp, a few men and women were re-building their houses with bricks they had recently collected from some nearby construction sites. When asked, a man said, “Our houses recently got gutted in a fire that engulfed many houses. Now, we are re-building it. We have made half of it, but we do not have more money now to even buy plastic sheets to cover the roof. We have to sleep under open skies in this extreme cold. Our children are also suffering. Please ask the government to help us. We have no money with us now.”
These migrants from Pakistan are unable to secure any job for themselves due to the lack of documents; children here are mostly dropouts from schools because schools deny admission to these kids as they do not have any documents with them. The elders are mostly doing menial errand jobs, while teenagers of this camp have opened a few shops selling household items just outside this camp.
The Sunday Guardian also visited the house of the 22-day-old girl Nagarikta who was born in this “Pakistani refugee camp”, while her parents were extremely happy that they have formally been recognised as Indian citizens— what they now want is a better future for this little girl.
Nagarikta’s mother told The Sunday Guardian: “We want the government to provide us with all the documents as soon as possible. We do not want our children to suffer like we did. Several political leaders have come to our house to meet us and to meet Nagarikta. But we have no idea when the formal process of citizenship will start; it has now been passed and we request the government to give us the documents soon so that we can also live here with dignity.”
Another man, Tarachand showed The Sunday Guardian some 16 Pakistani passports of his family members and told us that all these passports have expired and so have their visas and now they want to get rid of these Pakistani passports.
“When will we get our Indian passport? We have not been told by any government official as to what next step we need to take. We are thankful to Modiji for giving us citizenship, but we request the government to start the process of citizenship for us soon so that we can also live like dignified Indian citizens and not as refugees,” Tarachand said.
The over-enthusiastic media coverage of these Pakistani refugees living across Delhi has also created a sense of fear among many of these residents as they say that their family members, who still remain in Pakistan, are being targeted for speaking to the media here in India.
“We are really scared of our relatives there. We don’t want them to pay the price for what we speak here. If someone recognises my face, my cousins and relatives may face the consequences for that in Pakistan,” said Sushma (name changed), a resident of the colony.
The residents here have also told these correspondents about news back from Pakistan where two Hindu brothers Premchand and Gyanchand were killed by “jihadi” elements in Pakistan because their family members here in India had spoken ill about Pakistan.
Stating the news of the killing, another resident, Navawsa (name changed), told The Sunday Guardian, “My one son is still there (Pakistan). My two brothers are also living in Pakistan. Now you tell me, how can I speak on record? What we faced there is history; we have got a new life here. We can’t put our family in Pakistan in danger by speaking about our struggles of the past.”
While most of the residents shared the same experience of discrimination, crime and harassment on religious lines in Pakistan, 55-year-old Kaushalya has a different story to tell. Remembering her years in Pakistan, she said, “It is not that Pakistan has always been like this. I have spent my 50 years there. I still remember playing with the neighbouring Muslim kids. But things changed after the killing of Benazir Bhutto. It became brutal and total anarchy. There would be a bomb blast or gunshots every day. No one is safe.” According to her, it is this situation of anarchy which made Hindus feel unsafe there.
Another 60-year-old resident of the colony, who wished not to be named, said, “After the death of Benazir Bhutto, the situation worsened in Pakistan. Hindus there lived like second class citizens; we were not even allowed to use utensils that are commonly used by Pakistanis. The Hindus have earmarked utensils which they had to wash after they finished eating. Hindus are known as ‘kafirs’ there; we do not get good jobs, no good schools take our kids or else imagine why would anyone run away from their own country, leaving behind their homes, properties and belongings and live in desolate conditions here? We all fled saying we are coming here to visit Haridwar and never returned.”