The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : They have voter ID cards but no home

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 03, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

They have voter ID cards but no home

By Karthik Subramanian

Seventy-year-old Bagyam, a pavement dweller outside the Madras High Court, will go to vote on May 10. — Photo: R. Ragu

CHENNAI, MAY 2. V. Mariappan does not have a house, a regular source of income or even a clue to where he will stay tomorrow. But he does have a voter identity card and will surely cast his vote on May 10.

Mariappan is one of the many pavement dwellers living outside the Madras High Court complex, who have not only the voter ID but also a ration card. And a host of other documents that are proof of existence. Of course, the voter ID is his trump card.

``Every time there are elections, the candidates promise us that we will get houses. All we ask for is a house in a location from where we will be able to earn a livelihood,'' said the 40-year-old, who runs a `sherbet' shop outside the High Court. His house is a tent with four logs supporting a blue tarpaulin sheet.

There are at least 60 persons, such as Mariappan, living outside the court complex with voter ID cards and ration cards. All of them have furnished the same address: 2, Law College Road, Esplanande Road, Ettapalaiyam.

Chennai Corporation officials verifying the election rolls recently discovered that some houses in George Town had an unusually high number of voters. When they cross checked, they found that several pavement dwellers had simply picked the door numbers closest to their settlements. In some cases, they had given the addresses of shops, residences or even government buildings.

The pavement dwellers said political organisations, including some espousing the cause of Dalits, had helped them to get the voter ID cards. ``They used to alert us when the photographs were taken in the nearby schools,'' said Subramanian, another pavement dweller. He lives in a fish-cart that lies parked permanently on the pavement with his son.

Most of the pavement dwellers make a living by hawking snacks or flowers inside the court complex.

Each pavement dweller has a different story to narrate on how he/she settled there. Yet, almost all of them have a common thread: They ran away from their homes when they were young and arrived at the erstwhile Broadway bus terminus. The Flower Bazaar market was in those days booming with economic activity. There was always a job to be found, as an orderly, a hawker, a cycle rickshawalla, a packer, a loader... But those days are gone now.

With the bus terminus and the markets moving to Koyambedu, Mariappan and Subramanian talk today only of past glory. The oldest resident of them all, 70-year-old V. Bagyam, who settled here 50 years ago, says things will never be the same again.

``These days nobody even talks about our welfare. Earlier, people used to sincerely promise us a better life. The political leaders used to come to us and talk. But today we run behind them.''

She treasures her voter ID in an old, faded wooden box inside her tent.

But as has been the case over the last two decades, Bagyam and others will once again exercise their franchise.

In their own words, the hope that one day they will have a concrete roof above their heads, keeps them going.

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