(Indian Express
March 04, 2007)
GUJARAT 5 YEARS LATER
The Camp Children
They have no memories of the riots but they are linked with it for life. These six children, all born in Ahmedabad’s relief camp—one of them has even been named after it—have now moved on.
Sreenivas Janyala meets the families
FOR these six children, the 2002 riots don’t exist. They were born at the Shah-e-Alam relief camp in the first week of March 2002, after the worst of the violence—on February 28 and March 1—was over. But their future is inextricably linked with the madness of those days. Shabbir Hussain Shah-e-Alam lost his father at Naroda Patiya. Farhana’s mother became mentally ill after the riots and died eight months later. They have not seen their old homes and know nothing of their parents’ lives before the riots. Their homes were burnt down and belongings looted or burnt. The houses they now live in have all been hastily reconstructed and the little that they own has come from relief organisations.
SHABBIR Hussain will be five next week and knows nothing of the circumstances he was born in. “I want to go to school but I want a cycle first, a small one,” he says. Ask him if he wants it as a birthday gift and such niceties of life are beyond him: “I have never celebrated my birthday. I only want a cycle.”
Shabbir Hussain Shah-e-Alam was born on March 4, 2002 at Shah-e-Alam, his name being testimony to the destiny of his birth. “I felt it would have been better had he not been born there amidst the trauma and the gloom,” says his mother Jubeda Mehmood Ali Shaikh. “I cannot forget that day and so I insisted on adding Shah-e-Alam to his name. At the relief camp, with hundreds of people around us and hardly any space, I did not see any future for him or for my family. I lost my husband. I did not know what had happened to my house and belongings in Pandit ni Chali. I did not even know what would happen the next day at the camp and where we would go from there. But I feel happy my son was born because we now see it as the good news on a bad day.”
Probably because they are of the same age, kids born at the relief camp and now living in Pandit ni Chali or Naroda Patiya are almost a gang. Alam Nawaz is the brightest of the lot and joined the Saijpur-Bogha Gram Panchayat School No. 4 last year. “I like to wear my school uniform. I also want a cycle,” he says.
Alam Nawaz didn’t come back to his burnt home directly from the relief camp. His parents fled to Kolahpur in Maharashtra to live with relatives until things cooled down in Ahmedabad. “I had two small children and Alam was just a few days old.Life was uncertain, so we decided to take the risk and go away to our native place,” says his mother Husna Salaluddin Saiyed. “We got Rs 2,000 as compensation for our house being burnt down and for our lost belongings. We used the money to meet travel expenses. We decided to come back to Naroda Patiya because this is where we have lived since we were children and we thought in spite of our losses we still had a chance of earning a better livelihood here,” she says.
The cynosure of all eyes at Naroda Patiya is Farhana. The shy girl who wants new dresses lives with her maternal grandmother after her ailing mother died about eight months after the riots. Her father remarried, her stepmother abandoned her. It was her grandmother Raisabanu who took her under her care. “As if the riots weren’t bad enough, her mother died suddenly and her father and his second wife didn’t want to keep her with them,” says Raisabanu. “Farhana has lots of friends here. Interestingly, until you mentioned it I did not realise there are so many kids around here who were born in the relief camp. They hang out together though they too are not aware they were all born in the camp. She keeps pestering me about her parents and I have to lie. But when I tell her I am her mother she retorts that I am too old to be her mother.”
SABEENA was born at the Danilimda relief camp. Her mother Shabana Shamsuddin says she brought luck to the family. She explains that the family left Naroda Patiya when her labour pains began. They started out for a nearby hospital but ended up in Danilimda, where Sabeena was born. “As we left early that day, we were probably saved,” says Shabana. “And because our house was locked it was not attacked either.” She narrates how the family spent the next six months in the relief camp. Sabeena was their first child. Their house was spared, but her husband—a daily-wager—initially found it difficult to find work in Naroda Patiya in the vitiated atmosphere. “There was help from relief organisations and we led a hand-to-mouth existence for about two years. Now my husband drives an autorickshaw,” says Shabana.
SOHIL Hassan and Afzanabanu were both born on March 3 at Shah-e-Alam relief camp. Residents of Naroda Patiya, Afzana’s mother Farzanabanu is eager to send her daughter to a school started by the Relief Committee at Naroda Patiya and run by Nazir Master. “I don’t want her to grow up like we did. Even to put a signature to get a food packet we had to ask 10 people. I want Afzana to study. Education will prepare her to stand up for her rights and also give her a chance for a better future. This school was started after most of us realised the importance of education,” says Farzanabanu.
The mothers are bitter about the circumstances their children were born in. “My in-laws took away a big share of the Rs 1 lakh compensation I received after my husband’s death,” says Jubeda Mehmood Ali Shaikh. “By the time we came back from the relief camp I was completely broke.” But she was given a set of domestic necessities that helped her set up a kitchen and feed the baby and his sibling. For about eight months they were at the mercy of the NGOs and relief committee that provided them food and a few rupees. Then Jubeda remarried. But her second husband’s scrap shop was burnt in the riots and he had no money to start his business again. “He earned very little as a daily-wager, sometimes nothing. After about a year and a half, he took an autorickshaw on lease from an owner. The money he earns now is half about enough for us. I don’t know if I can afford to send Shabbir to school or buy him a cycle,” says Jubeda.
With their source of livelihood destroyed, the families were left to fend for themselves. “When we came back our house was occupied by someone and we had to fight for a week to get them out while we lived on the streets,” recalls Husna Salahuddin Saiyed. “For several days there was no food and my kids went hungry till the relief committee registered our names and supplied kits and food grains. Our small garage at Naroda Patiya was burnt and my husband had no money to start it again.”
With tensions running high in Naroda Patiya, work was difficult to find. “No one was willing to take us even on daily wages. We were dependent on the relief committee. Since there was no death in my family any kind of relief or compensation for loss of house and livelihood was not available to us except for the Rs 2,000 that we were initially paid,” says Husna, whose husband now works as a driver.
FOR Jayshreeben Bhil the struggle for survival had just began when her son Jaideep was born. With 800 others, she was packed off to a relief camp set up at school No. 1 near Shah Alam Toll Booth in March 2002 where she went into labour. She was lucky because the camp organisers managed to arrange a vehicle and she delivered a baby boy at the civil hospital on March 29.
“But by that time we had lost everything. Our hut in Bhilwas was burnt and looted. Our only food for nearly two months came from the relief camp. With no work available in the aftermath of the riots, it was a struggle to survive,” remembers Jayshreeben.
Jayshreeben and her family escaped without injuries when the rioting began in the Bhilwas area. But their hut, strategically located on the main road, became the target every time there was trouble in the area. “I spent a few days in the relief camp with the baby and then went away to my widowed mother’s home in Ishanpur. She also works as a domestic help and earns very little and I did not want to become a burden on her with the baby. But there was no way we could come back to our hut because it always became the first target,” she says.
Jayshreeben says the government gave them Rs 1,200 each as compensation for loss of the hut and belongings but it was too little to start all over again. But they could not supplement their funds as venturing out of the camp was risky. “My husband had no work for almost four months and we were dependent on whatever little I earned,” she says. Then the relief camp was suddenly closed and the couple found themselves back in Bhilwas. “My husband arranged for a roof on our burnt hut and the newborn came home. There was no money and we had to borrow from friends or my mother. This went on for at least six months before we both started getting regular work,” says Jayshreeben.
But even today, the two find it difficult to make both ends meet because they are daily wagers. But like them, others affected by the riots and who lived in the relief camp have understood how important it is to save some money for an emergency. And many see education as insurance against poverty. Jayshreeben hopes to send Jaideep to school from this April. “I want him to be educated. At least he will have a better future,” she says.
Farzanabanu Abdul Rehman
Lost house and all belongings
Farzanabanu is not a complainant or witness in any case
Daughter Afsanabanu born in the camp
Will go to school this year Wants to study
Bismillah Hassan Shaikh
Lost house and all belongings
Bismillah is not a complainant or witness in any case
Son Sohil born at the Shah Alam relief camp
Will go to school this year
Jayshreeben Dilip Kumar Bhil
Lost her hut and all her belongings.
Jayshreeben is not a witness or complainant in any case
Son Jaideep was born on March 29 after she was taken to civil hospital from the relief camp
Will go to school this year
Wants to play with a spinning top
Jubeda Mehmood Ali Shaikh
Lost her husband in the riots
House was burnt and belongings looted
Jubeda received compensation after her husband’s death but it was taken away by her in-laws
As relief she received a kitchen kit and cash doles of Rs 50 per day for about a month after which she was on her own
She is not a complainant or witness in any case
Son Shabbir Hussain Shah-e-Alam born at the relief camp
Will go to school this year. Wants a cycle
Husna Salahuddin Saiyed
House was burnt and all belonging looted
Husna received Rs 2,000 as house loss compensation
As relief she received a kitchen kit and cash doles of Rs 50 per day for about a month
She is not a complainant or witness in any case
Hails from Kolhapur in Maharashtra but is still attached to Naroda Patiya where she grew up
Son Alam Nawaz Faizal born at Shah-e-Alam relief camp
Goes to school. Wants a cycle
Shabana Shamsuddin
Her house and belongings are intact
Shabana is not a complainant or witness in any case
Daughter Sabeena (second from left) born at Shah-e-Alam relief camp
Will go to school this year Just wants to play
Farzanabanu
Died eight months after the riots
Farzanabanu’s house in Pandit ni Chali was looted and burnt—for which they didn’t receive any compensation. As relief they received a kitchen kit and cash dole of Rs 50 per day for about a month
Daughter Farhana born at Shah-e-Alam
Farhana lives with her grandmother
Will go to school this year Wants new dresses
editor@expressindia.com
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