Chasing the Indian Dream: The Story of those Who Left Sindhu for Jamna
The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has polarised people on a scale unseen in recent past. In the noise of voices both for and against CAA, a voice has drowned, the voice of those who left their homes across the border in Sindh for India, the voice of Pakistani Hindu refugees. The Dispatch’s Madhur Sharma and Kumar Gandharv write their story.
Majnu ka Tila [Delhi]:
ये मेरी भूल थी कि तेरी महफ़िल में आ बैठे,
ज़मीन की ख़ाक होकर आसमान से दिल लगा बैठे।
(It was my fault I came to you,
that I a speck of dust fell for you the sky)
Ram Das, 69, recited the couplet when asked about his life in Pakistan. Das, like hundreds of men, women, and children around him is a migrant from Pakistan’s Sindh province.
He said, “We were not equals there. Even the tax that zamindars would charge us with was more than what they would charge Muslims with.”
Why would that be?
“We were Hindus,” Ram Das said. “We came here as there was little space in Pakistan for us.”
In a settlement of dozens of makeshift houses on the banks of Yamuna in the national capital’s Majnu ka Tila, every resident has a story to tell. The settlement, usually called “Pakistani Basti” (camp) by locals, is just adjacent to the gurudwara from which the locality derives its name. Several residents run shops selling edibles around the gurudwara.
An unpaved road, muddy from the previous days’ rains, with a row of unkempt portable toilets, marks the entrance to the camp. Houses made of straw, bamboo, and mud on either sides mostly have plastic and tin sheets for roofs. Few houses are made of baked bricks.
The settlement has a “pradhan” who is in charge of the affairs there and a 15 year old boy took us to their house at the other end of the settlement. As he took us to the pradhan’s, the 15 year old told us that he came to India two months back on a six months visa.
“I came here on a six months visa but I will never go back. I will live and work here,” he said, refusing to give us his name.
The pradhan and a few other senior residents were seated around a small bonfire in their cow shed.
The pradhan, Laxman Das, 72, said that the settlement came up in 2011 when Hindu migrants from Pakistan began settling there. He came there in April 2014.
He said, “India is our country and it is here that we will live. We have left the oppression behind us but life has not been easy here as well. We neither have proper electricity nor water connections. The government does not allow us to even leave Delhi for work.”
About reasons for their leaving Pakistan, Das told The Dispatch that the condition in Pakistan was such that most of the girls and women in their community never went to school or college as there was a constant fear of their safety.
Das said, “We were afraid to send our daughters out as they were harassed, kidnapped, and forcibly converted to Islam and married. Once picked up and converted, they would never return and there was no justice for us.”
Panju Lal, who could not recall his age, said that the entire community would face the brunt if even a single person was accused of a crime.
“All of us would be beaten, picked up, and thrown behind bars if even a single Hindu from around us was accused. We would not be released until the person was caught or until the payment of high bribe,” he said.
About their community, they say most of them have small shops or stalls across Delhi, selling mobile accessories and edibles. Many also work in vegetable and fruit wholesale markets like that of Azadpur. Laxman Das himself is engaged in supplying foodstuff to Azadpur mandi.
“Most of us were farmers in Pakistan. We would grow vegetables and supply it to markets. We know how to grow food and how to drive. Many of us were drivers and were in transport business there. We have tried to build our lives in the same way here,” Das said.
There are seven such settlements in Delhi. One of them was just across the Yamuna. A pradhan of one of those seven settlements who was visiting the locality joined us in the shed.
He said, requesting not to be named, “Our lives were spent there in the struggle for survival but we want our children to study and have a meaningful life now that we are here.”
People are constantly joining the camp. Not far from the shed, a woman, Shanti, 33, arrived just a week back. She had been trying to leave Pakistan for five years.
“My husband and I came here with our children just a week back after trying so for five years. He [husband] is a plumber and he is looking for work in the city,” Shanti said. “My parents and siblings, parents-in-law, and brothers-in-law are all in Pakistan. We hope that they will join us soon.”
When asked about why they left Pakistan, Shanti said that it was for “their way of life”.
She said, “They would teach us in Islamic traditions in schools and we were not taught our language. We were only taught in Urdu. We could also not freely go to temple and worship our deities. Our community is losing our sense of religion and culture there. I therefore wanted to bring up my children as per my Hindu traditions that was not possible there.”
In the settlement where she lives with her uncle for now until her husband finds work and finds a place of their own, she has made a small temple in a corner of the courtyard. Though her husband has not yet found work and they are forced to live with her uncle, she is confident they will rebuild their lives.
“My husband is hardworking and I am strong-willed. We will rebuild our lives here and bring up our children with our way of life,” Shanti said.
A few lanes from there in what is sort of the community’s chaupal in the settlement, Ram Das, quoted in the beginning, said that Hindus faced untouchability from the Muslims around them in Pakistan.
He said, “We would be given tea in separate glasses at shops and those glasses will be broken once we would have had tea and we would be charged for both the tea and the cup. No Muslim would have tea or water in the cup that a Hindu had used.”
Ram Das said that they were forced to adhere to Islamic lifestyle.
“My son escaped the [Islamic] imposition in 2015 and I in 2019. Three of my sons and five daughters are still there [in Pakistan] and I hope they also join us soon,” he said.
Ram Sevak, 40, said that he came to India to seek his faith.
“I came here for my religion and I therefore came here on the pretext of pilgrimage,” he said. “I found my Gods here.”
While they are glad for finding home and religious freedom in India, they say life continues to be tough. Ram Das said that the water from Yamuna would rise every year in rainy season and the settlement would be flooded.
The pradhan, Laxman Das, said that they did not have proper houses, electricity connection, or water connection.
He said, “People have died because of the cold as most of the houses do not have proper walls and roofs. How much protection can one have against cold and wind from plastic sheets?”
Das said that while they identify India as their country and they will live and die here, people around them have not stood for them.
“Officials harass us. MCD officials extort money from us for setting up stalls. What we get in charity is peanuts. Some organisation would give us five lakh rupees or so at times, but there are hundreds of households and a household would merely get a thousand rupees or so. That’s nothing,” he said.
When asked if the government has facilitated their children’s education or adults in terms of employment, Das replied in negative.
He said, “We are not even allowed to go out of Delhi for work. We can only work in Delhi and its surroundings such as Faridabad. Those who can send their children to school send them but most children still do not go to school because the priority is to feed stomachs.”
Panju Lal said that they have requested officials to facilitate a gau shala that could help their community but even that has not been done.
He said, “We are farmers. We used to rear cows and we have got cows here too and that’s why we have asked for aid to set up a bigger gau shala. If we have a gau shala, we can sell milk and milk products and the community can thus sustain itself, but no one has done anything regarding this.”
Panju Lal said that cow has long been at the centre of the sanatani way of life but neither the government nor any Hindu organisation has helped them regarding this.
Laxman Das said, “No [Indian] Hindu has stood up for us.”
He said that many of them have got Aadhar and PAN cards made from some people’s help and can get benefits from some social welfare schemes but that’s it. There has been no outward help from the government so far. Some NGOs have helped them though, he said.
About the Citizenship Amendment Act, the community is glad it has been passed.
Ganga Ram, 33, said, “Some government has finally thought of us and we are grateful for that.”
Ram Sevak said that a Hindu saint once came to their camp and saw their condition.
He said, “The saint arranged some three lakh rupees for us and we laid pipes with that money for the few water connections we had.”
Much of the help that they have received has been like this only, by some well wishers.
While the community is glad for escaping the religious persecution in the Islamic republic, and at the prospects for expedited citizenship with CAA, they still continue to chase their Indian dream, the dream to build their lives. At the chaupal, Mangal Das, 40, who came there in 2011, said that they came here to seek their religion and way of life, but, while they have it, they still strive for every other thing such as housing and education for children.
They still have a long way to go for fulfill their Indian dream.
Madhur Sharma and Kumar Gandhar are students of journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi, and graduates in history from the Delhi University. Madhur tweets @madhur_mrt and Gandharv tweets at @KumarGandharv15.
