IN SILENCE: Assignment for EARTH CARE

War | Atrocities | Displacement | Poverty | Injustice

 

This has been the story of Rahman Sheikh, Rabia Bibi, Hamida Baiwa, Zubeida Baiwa, Md. Sheikh and countless others who live in the Kashipur Colony in North Calcutta. It has been almost forty years and a majority of them are still not considered as Indian citizens today. Out of nearly seven hundred dwellers living in the slum, only twenty-five or thirty people have Ration Cards or Voter ID cards. Most of them work as rag-pickers. Some of the men work as labourers at construction sites. Some pull rickshaws. The elderly people spread out to different corners of the city with their begging bowls in the morning. Azad Mullah says ‘We are still not considered citizens! Even after four decades! That’s ridiculous. How long are we going to live like this?’

 

That’s exactly the question: for how long will some people continue to live as non-existent?

 

 

It is the second week of January. The temperature has dipped below 9°C and the Regional Meteorological Department in West Bengal has predicted that the mercury will dip further. A very popular actor in the Bengal film industry has recently Tweeted, ‘Calcutta freezing…enjoy the real winter!’ Possibly it didn’t occur to him that this is the time dreaded by most elderly individuals in the city, especially the sick and the disadvantaged.

 

 

 

On January 12, 2011, EARTH CARE, a city based non-profit organization provided me with a topographical tour of the places they care for, one of which happened to be the Kashipur Colony.  It was decided that action should be taken immediately.

 

 

 

According to Mr. Das, the Secretary of EARTH CARE, the basic objectives of his organization are to make people conscious about socio-economic problems and helping the deprived to improve the state of their living. He says, ‘We want to ensure a better quality of life for the deprived and to involve them into the mainstream of development by offering counselling, guidance and other essential services for uplifting their life style.’

 

 

We travelled from door to door, looking for men and women who are really in need of blankets. A photo-essay was shot too.

 

 

 

EARTH CARE believes in the power of photography to raise social awareness about issues that need to be addressed immediately. ‘Keep shooting!’ said Mr. Das, ‘It’s going to be helpful for our organization and these people at the very same time!’

 

 

 

After the tour, plans were drawn. Blankets of sufficiently good quality would be purchased from a wholesale dealer in Bowbazar the very next day. Then, they would be distributed at EARTH CARE’s various work-sites, in batches. Some emphasis would however be given to the Kashipur site since the people there have been one of the most ignored lot in West Bengal, shunned and forgotten by political parties and the public alike.

 

 

A few blankets are not going to change lives. But it surely can spread some warmth.

 

 

More about this Kashipur colony will be posted in the coming days. Please stay tuned.

 

Soham Gupta

In association with EARTH CARE (A registered society under W.B. Societies Registration Act XXVI, 1961)

150, Muktaram Babu Street

Kolkata 700007

 

January 13, 2011