The Hindu : New Delhi News : Documenting the plight of riot victims

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Sunday, Feb 11, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Documenting the plight of riot victims

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Five years after they were forced to leave their homes and settle in makeshift colonies, more than 5,000 families in Gujarat are seeking recognition as internally displaced people. Victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots, these people spread over 69 colonies are seeking a perch as citizens of the country with the very basic right to a life with dignity.

Documenting the sub-standard lot of their life in these rehabilitation colonies, a new book, "The Uprooted: Caught Between Existence and Denial", was released here over the weekend. Based on a survey conducted from December 2006 to January 2007 by social activists Gagan Sethi and Farah Naqvi, the book lists the existing 69 internally displaced colonies where committees of the internally displaced have been formed.

"These are people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and made to live in slums. They were not poor people, but are being made to live a sub-standard life," said Ms. Naqvi, describing the internal displacement as a violation of basic human rights.

Seeking rehabilitation of these internally displaced people, a charter of demands has been drawn up that asks for regularisation of all makeshift colonies, ration cards and voter cards for all the residents and schools and health centres to be opened in all colonies.

Pointing out that it took a lot of effort and money to make these internally displaced people "visible to the rest of the country", Mr. Sethi said there was a crying need to understand the concept of displacement.

"It (displacement) is different from being riot-affected. All the people in Gujarat are riot-affected in one way or the other," he said.

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