The two of us - Ajay Raina and Leya Mathew - have been in Ahmedabad for about Four months now. I am a Kashmiri Pandit and a filmmaker by profession. Leya Mathew is from Kerala and has just finished her Masters in Media & Communication.
The reason why I went to Gujarat is simple. I am a Kashmiri Pandit. I still cannot go back home even 12 years after the forced exodus of my community. 6 months after the carnage in Gujarat, though everybody says that, ‘situation in Gujarat is normal’, the 46 families in Gasiram ki chali still cannot go back home. I as a Kashmiri was a victim yesterday. Today it happens to be a poor Gujarati Muslim. Tomorrow it may be the turn of anybody - a poor Hindu, Christian, Dalit, Secularist or a pseudo-Secularist. When I talk to my Kashmiri Friends on the net about reconciliation and hope in Kashmir or even about Gujarat, I am mostly shaken by the response. After so many years their anger and bitterness and hatred remains...I grow more certain day by day that we must start in Gujarat, what we did not do in Kashmir. If we don't do it now...than even thinking about doing it tomorrow may be too late.
We had decided to go to Gujarat to see if there was something we could do to assuage the suffering of the people there. After groping around frustrated for about a month and a half at the larger problems of relief, rehabilitation, compensation, justice and long-term peace/reconciliation efforts, we finally decided on something definite that could be done by just two of us…something on a small scale, something that needed to be done…We decided to adopt a small locality of about 100 odd households for relief and rehabilitation.
In the heart of Amdavad, in Behrampura, there is a small Muslim basti called Kasai ki chali. There are 60 houses in the chali, housing about 600 people. On the other side of the wall, bang inside a big Hindu colony, Gasiram ki chali, there were once rows of about 46 Muslim houses, which need to be rebuilt completely before the residents can even think of shifting back. There is a proud temple watching over the colony. The saffron flag is flying high. The killers’ and the plunderers of these homes are still walking free.
In the two months we have been with the people of Kasai ki Chali, we have helped them rebuild their lives, to get them back on their feet again and bring them to a safe home...in a city where they were born, which they must not stop loving. We are living with the people in this chali; we were with them when they were scared about the Rath Yatra, on 12 July, which eventually passed off peacefully.
We raised money and resources to help them rebuild their homes, buy utensils, stoves, books and uniform for their school-going kids. Most people here, we were then told, only had one change of clothes while they were in the camp. We distributed lorries and sewing machines and also gave monetary support to a few more to help them restart their businesses. We have also taken the neighbouring Gasi Ram ki chali people into our scheme and have tried to help them in a similar way.
We have so far received Rs 53,000 in cash donations from friends all over India. In addition to this, we have also received relief in kind (cloths/utensils/bedding items/sewing machines etc;) sent to us by friends in Delhi and Mumbai.
With the money; we gave monetary assistance to a few people who needed a renewed start for their businesses. We bought 16 sewing machines and about 15 lorries for people to peddle their roadside ware.
We spent 15,000 Rs. to manufacture 10,000 kites (with messages to the countrymen printed on them). We managed to sell almost all of them to people and organisation all over India and are hoping to make a profit of about Rs. 35,000, which would be utilized for further relief/rehabilitation/and for employment schemes.
We have tried our best, but much more still needs to be done… With time, we have realised that our and their problems are more complex than they seem on surface. We now strongly feel that only clothes, bartans and sewing machines, lorries and fans are not enough for the Muslims of Kasai Ki Chali & Gasiram ki chali. That is of course essential to get started with their lives, but it is still a long road from here.
Gasi ram ki chali for us had only been the 46 houses belonging to the Muslims, but actually it is a rather huge community where Hindus and Muslims used to live cheek by jowl. Kasai ki chali has a concrete wall that separates them from those who had burnt their houses, which in some misplaced way can provide them with a semblance of security, but Gasiram ki chali does not have even that. They will have to live, every single day next to the very same people who ran after them with “khula talwars”.
OUR IDEA:
We cannot live their lives for them, but what we can do is introduce some positive and constructive energy into their lives. An informal school for children is the idea we have come up with. It is actually already in its beginning stages. The classes are on. We have a volunteer teacher on our rolls. We also hope to start a similar initiative in Gasiram ki chali for the Hindu children. If both these ideas work out, then in time, we hope to integrate the two informal schools to start a permanent community centre for the Hindus and Muslims of this locality. This, we feel will be much more effective than building any walls on the boundaries.
There had been groups of dedicated people working with the children when they were in the camps. Though most people from the groups have gone back, they still remember the leha didi, chuppa rustam Sardar ji, siren didi, Delhi ka didi and others. The group from Bangalore has returned with SAATHI friends from Bombay to continue the work. Bindu, Altaf and Raja come everyday for 2 hours to play with the children in our chali also. They are guiding Sulekha, the teacher in our chali. The children enjoy it immensely. They sing, they shout, they play with jigsaw puzzles and they paint…
Sulekha, incidentally, came to us through a friend. She was named Sulekha, but her Muslim friends call her Zulekha and yet others call her Julie. She comes from Sardar society nearby, where the residents (both Muslim and Hindu) made sure that not a single incident of violence occurred. She used to work in a garment factory earlier. Her Hindu employer has laid her off along with all the other Muslims who used to work in the factory. She worked with the victims in Shah Alam camp for 3 months, helping out with administrative work, counseling women and children, dressing up wounds as part of the Red Cross team…
The group from Bangalore with their SAATHI friends from Bombay will continue to come in shifts for atleast two months. We hope by then we will have two local teachers who can carry on their work.
What we propose to do right now is two pronged.
1) Continue with Relief/ Rehabilitation of Gasiram ki chali residents as soon as they are able to return home.
2) Start a community centre for Kasai ki Chali.
What we need:
1) For Relief and Rehab:
More Materials and Money for Relief/Rehabilitation (household stuff / kitchen utensils etc:) of Gasiram ki chali residents as soon as they are able to return home. Sonia Rashid from Bhopal has already pledged 46 fans for 46 households in Gasiram ki Chali.
2) For the Community centre. (for the initial trial period of 3 months)
Logistics:
Rent payment for a room in Kasai ki Chali. Rs. 1000/ pm
Salary for Sulekha (already in our employee) and for one other teacher Rs. 2500/pm
(Yet to employ) Rs. 2500/pm
Total Rs. 18,000
Material for informal classes for children:
Stationary, colors, puzzles, mind games, comics in Gujarati and
Hindi, video tapes of Laurel and Hardy etc. Rs. 10,000
Money for spending on school fees, school bags, stationary,
Textbooks. Rs 30,000
Total Rs. 40,000
Learning (English classes) / Recreation material (for children
and Adults):
Beginner’s books for English Language learners, charts, games
- ABCD blocks etc. Rs. 10,000
Newspaper, Books (in Gujarati and Hindi), Paintings about
Communal harmony etc; Rs. 3,000/pm
Total Rs. 19,000
Material for Sewing Classes for women:
Sewing machines (4 machines are already pledged for by Delhi
friends),
Plain Cloth, Scissors, Chalk, Measuring Scale Rs 5,000/ pm
Total Rs. 15,000
Establishment and Administrative costs for 3 months; Rs. 30,000
Grand Total Rs. 1,22, 000
(Rupees One lakh and twenty two thousand only for a initial trial period of 3 months)
We are also documenting on Video…the ongoing process of our work in the two localities. So far we have utilized our own meager resources from our personal savings towards the cost of shooting the video footage and for our stay in Ahmedabad. We would hope for some monetary assistance for this project also.
People wishing to contribute in cash can send us their Cheques and DD's in the name of:
"GUJARAT EDUCATION SOCIETY / PRASHANT"
Addressed to:
AJAY RAINA.
C/O Raiz Sheikh,
ELITE FLATS,
OFF NARAYAN NAGAR ROAD,
NEAR JETTABHAI PARK Bus Stop
PALDI,
AHMEDABAD 380 007.
Our Tel: No in Ahmedabad is 079 – 6608537 (PP)
079 – 5329018 (PP)
All contributions will be exempt income tax under the relevant sections of Income Tax act.
This account will accept only contributions from within India. We will keep you posted about the progress and about the money received and spent.
Ajay Raina / Leya Mathew
ajayraina@vsnl.com AJAY RAINA
B - 8, SAI MILAP,
SAI BABA COMPLEX,
GOREGAON EAST,
MUMBAI 400 063
Tel: 91 22 8414339
ajayraina@vsnl.com rainaajay@hotmail.com 
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