JOIN USIt was 12.03 am and the pavements under either side of the flyover in City Market were slowly warming up to shelter the homeless after taking the load from vendors through the day.
The monsoon having made its way, pavements under the flyover are coveted spots. But the sidewalks along the road and other corners were left abandoned as they did not have shelters above them.
“Bangalore has two worlds. One that you (government, people) know, and another that you ignore,” said Gowda, who spends the day clearing garbage and the night, waiting for dawn.
As the last of vehicles reach garages to rest, rough-sleepers like Gowda battle the City’s ‘wilderness’, invisible to the rich and unimportant for the middle class. Subject to hostile weather, they take shelter under tarpaulin sheets and torn bedsheets.
Having been through the day’s drudgery, they wait for dawn with impatience and the weary night to end under flyovers, bus stop shelters and awnings of buildings.
Gowda, who had just slid under the many unmanned carts parked near the mosque in City Market, obliged to speak. Like most shelterless people, he was not informed of any of the five shelters the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) operates for people like him.
“Of course, I will go and sleep there. Why would I want to suffer here if I am provided a place to sleep,” he asked, pulling the collars of his shirt towards his ears and unable to resist from turning towards the beef being fried on grills by Mushtaq Khan. The night was chilly and Gowda fell asleep, as the aroma of the fried meat slowly waned.
A few yards away, opposite the mosque, Maulana, 47, gently massaged his left lower hip and yawned. “Maulana ko masjid mein jagah nahi hain (The mosque has no space for this maulana),” a passerby joked.
He was uncared for and his kidney problem had been troubling him for weeks. “You will come here for a day, buy me food and talk to me. Would you do this always,” he asked, indicating there had been several people who had visited him, just like they had the burqa-clad Muslim woman and many others who spend the night covering themselves with discarded waste.
But nothing has changed the way Maulana lives. Like Gowda and him, many a homeless are denied not only citizenship but also participation in decision-making and opportunities for secure tenure rights, credit, basic education, healthcare, water and sanitation.
President Pratibha Patil, in her address to Parliament on March 16, 2012, had said: “The needs of the urban homeless and destitute are of the highest priority for my government, and I am happy to announce a new scheme called the ‘National Programme for the Urban Homeless’ that would help create a network of composite shelters in urban local bodies, with adequate provisions for housing and food for the destitute.”
Let us not mistake her for having discovered the homeless and initiated a programme from thin air. The programme, at best, only indicates that the country, and Bangalore, have failed in their duties. But the bright side of the story is that the government has begun doing something now, although not before the Supreme Court’s intervention in January 2010 when it issued directives to all State governments to provide shelter for the homeless.
It must be understood that mere shelters are not a solution to the problems of the urban homeless. What they require is access to affordable housing, public services and decriminalised, safe and dignified livelihoods.
But shelters are the very first step in their journey to pull themselves out of hopeless poverty. As the homeless shrink under the tarpaulins in City Market, one of the main hubs for waifs and strays, Shivajinagar, another such place more vibrant at nights, has them loitering around the many ‘addas’, drinking tea and smoking.
There was still time before they chose their bylanes to spend the night... it was only 1.40 am. Nanjundappa, a cart-puller, waited impatiently outside Savera, a popular tea joint. “The night just does not end here, and I have to go to work by 4 in the morning.”
After 44 years of sleeping on the streets, ask him if he would use a night shelter, and he says: “I might not have a house, but I have my dignity. I have never begged for alms and I will not allow anybody to treat me like a beggar.”
The fear of the anti-beggary drive in the City has put a fear so irreversible in many that the Palike’s efforts in wooing them to stay in one of its shelters has not been successful. That there were a series of deaths reported in the Beggars’ Colony has not helped.
A few kilometres from Shivajinagar, Maithili and her four children are huddled together on the pavement opposite the East Railway Station, behind a hospital for the mentally challenged. “I’ll go,” Maithili said, when she was given an option of a shelter. She said this, wiping her son Vijay’s nose with one hand and pointing at the corner of the pavement where she takes bath.
“There are no facilities to wash ourselves, even though there are women living here. The government officials say we need to have an ID proof for them to provide us the facilities. I did not know about these night shelters,” she said.
In Viveknagar, Balakrishna clears his routine corner on the pavement opposite the Infant Jesus Church as ‘his’ stray dog completes his customary security check, sniffing the co-occupants, unattended baggage and even passersby.He did not know about the shelters for the homeless, or the Supreme Court directive.
How would he? But he knew the country is losing a lot due to money laundering and black money.
“Nothing will change here sir. I’ve seen it all. Nobody cares about the poor, the rich do not want to come anywhere near us and that’s why nothing will change,” he quipped. His observations might not be far-fetched.
A sociology professor, quoting American social scientist Charles Murray, said: “The solution to closing the widening chasm between the well-to-do and the poor is to encourage them to live nextdoor to one other. Presumably, by living in the same neighbourhoods as the upper class, the poor would - by something akin to osmosis - acquire the habits of success.”
That night though, Balakrishna - just like lakhs of shelterless in the City - slept hearing the wind moan, crouching for warmth beneath his bedsheet.
There are many questions the homeless have for the government, but nothing spoken aloud.
The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike - responsible for providing shelters for such people - has been lagging behind. It has been able to operationalise only five to six shelters (read accompanying story). They too are struggling to retain people.
Shankarlinge Gowda, Commissioner, BBMP, says: “We have no problems funding such shelters. In fact, a circular has already been issued to all the joint commissioners (welfare) to see to it that they initiate the process of identifying properties that may be converted into shelters or land where they could be built.”
But this is little hope for the shelterless, given the Palike’s reputation. They do not even complain, as being poor, they only have their dreams of a roof over their heads.