It’s mid-afternoon on Friday in Valmiki Sadan, the day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set foot in this colony of safai karamcharis to launch his Swachh India Mission, and a man is comfortably seated on a charpoy assembling a large broom.
A few days ago, the building behind him received a fresh coat of white paint with each of the doors and windows outlined in red. On October 2, many in this building were locked inside their homes, a large cloth thrown over the façade, and security personnel had taken over the roofs. All in anticipation of Mr. Modi’s visit.
Kishanpal Cheena Maharaj and his friends sit on plastic chairs near one of the many entrances to the large park that falls in between the colony and the 150-year-old Valmiki Mandir. One of his companions, Ranjit Singh Gangaherey, says the New Delhi Municipal Council was quick to remove all the flower pots that were neatly arranged as soon as Thursday morning’s function concluded.
“For the first time, the civic body put in extra effort to spruce up this neighbourhood. Grass grew here overnight. I suspect they used Fevicol,” laughs this 65-year-old, who was formerly a municipal worker. “Now, no one will come to water the grounds since we don’t even have a hydrant here.”
Mr. Maharaj interrupts him to ask why couldn’t at least one of the nine celebrities selected by Mr. Modi to take forward the Swachh Bharat Mission be from the Valmiki community. “At the end of the day, the netas are just posing with the brooms. If a drain gets clogged we will be the ones who will physically clean up the mess,” he says.
The residents of this area, which once played host to Mahatma Gandhi himself, felt slighted by events on Gandhi Jayanti. “We all keep our homes and surroundings clean so we do not need a lesson on cleanliness,” remarks Sarita Beniwal, who was returning from a trip to the local market.
Many pointed to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s workers who were doing the rounds in the neighbourhood for weeks in preparation for the big day but never once engaged the local community. “Instead of allowing the residents of this area to meet and greet Mr. Modi, they lined up school children from other parts of the city to greet him and we were shunted to the periphery,” says a resident. “They kept telling us that it is not a party function but a government function. Yet, we noticed the Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay accompanying Mr. Modi.”
Each year, the area residents made up of sweepers, foremen, drivers and clerical staff employed with the NDMC, pool in funds in the weeks leading up to Valmiki Jayanti on October 8. Walls are painted, streets are swept clean, and a string of bulbs light up the path from the entrance to the colony all the way to the Mandir to welcome the lakhs of pilgrims who will visit the temple.
This year, the NDMC’s eagerness to put on a good show, has cut their workload by half. “For the first time, with only five days to go till the Jayanti, we can relax a bit,” says retired section officer Ramesh Kumar Lahori. “Large processions of people from the city and elsewhere walk over here from Red Fort past Chawri Bazaar and Gole Market. Yet, somehow the media never comes and covers such a big event. Every other function carried out by other religious and minority groups gets coverage except us,” he adds.
As an afterthought, he continues: “Unless the Prime Minister comes here to launch a cleanliness drive.”
