Mere lip service won’t solve class conf lict
T
he problem is not to set class against class, but to educate labour to a sense of its dignity...To inflame labour against moneyed men is to perpetuate class hatred and all the evil consequences flowing from it. The strife is a vicious circle to be avoided at any cost. It is an admission of weakness, a sign of inferiority complex.
Violent social conflicts in India's metropolitan cities are increasingly taking on a class rather than a caste character. Stark inequities and a growing sense of entitlement among the havenots have fuelled a backlash against privilege and a demand for a greater share of public services. The recent attack on an up-market housing society by a mob from a jhuggi cluster and the assault on officials of the capital’s leading power distribution company both spring from the same source.
The urban middle class and the jhuggi dweller are interdependent; the former needs services and the latter needs a livelihood. Not too long ago, the rules were clear. The feudal mindset of the former demanded servility and loyalty and a prioritisation of their interests. In return, they offered not just a monthly income but a sort of safety net.
The maid could depend on the matron for an interest-free loan or even a grant. In case of dire need, she could be counted on to assist the maid in accessing medical aid, school admissions, gas connections, etc. She was an endless source of secondhand goodies, from clothes and shoes to refrigerators, coolers and TVs. She would provide a sympathetic ear to the maid’s everyday woes, like an alcoholic husband or obnoxious mother-in-law and take pride in the academic progress of the maid’s children. Of course, all too often, the aid came with gratuitous (and misplaced) advice.
It was – and is – a relationship open to abuse. Domestic workers, particularly those cut off from family or community support, are treated as slaves and subject to exploitation, humiliation and cruelty. On the other hand, home-owners may be attacked or robbed by trusted workers or become the subject of false accusations.
Increasingly, the mutual dependence has become mutual antagonism and assertiveness has become aggression. The case of Zohra Bibi – the maid who claimed she was physically abused and illegally detained by her employers, who in turn charged her with theft - is not an unheard of occurrence, regardless of where the truth lies. The question is why the jhuggi dwellers felt compelled to descend on and attack the luxury condo, the very source of their livelihood – akin to factory workers destroying the factory where they work. Judging from media reports, the principle complaint of the domestic workers was not that they were underpaid, but that they felt de-humanised by their employers. Thus, they felt perfectly justified in teaching their oppressors a lesson.
Money is no longer enough. Stomachs filled, the poor now want more – better treatment and better services. In the cities, rich and poor are in competition for services. Nothing illustrates this better than the ubiquitous colony park. The pressure on land is such that public parks in residential areas are now used more by denizens of neighbouring slums, who have no access to open spaces, than by those who actually live there. The ‘colony’ residents resent this intrusion, particularly when it is of a boisterous nature. Their efforts to safeguard their turf leads to frequent confrontations with the ‘outsiders’.
Parking spaces, likewise, are bones of explosive contention. Residents of upmarket localities fume when cars from the adjacent unauthorised colony are parked on their roads. The slum dwellers – by which we mean not just jhuggis, but urban villages and unauthorised colonies – feel no compunction in commandeering public land, to build houses/places of worship, park cars, dump garbage and sewage or hold a wedding function. Or in slinging a hook over the electricity cable overhead to run the TVs in their shacks. After all, they are citizens and in return for their votes, are entitled to basic services, which the government has failed to provide.
The sense of entitlement sometimes takes an ugly turn, as it did when a team from the power distribution company, BSES, recorded instances of electricity theft and found itself the victim of a mob attack. BSES engineer Abhimanyu Singh died while fleeing the irate crowd. Prior to privatisation of power distribution, enforcement of the law against power theft was so lax that now, it is treated like an imposition.
The middle-class, for its part, is tired of being law-abiding and tax-paying and getting very little by way of return. Corruption and the proliferation of slums, it feels, has sapped civic agencies of their ability to provide services. It retreats increasingly behind high walls and iron gates, with “full power and water backup”, because the government cannot be relied upon to provide amenities or even security.
For decades now, lip service has been paid to urban renewal, resettling slum dwellers and redeveloping urban slums. It appears to be too mammoth a task for any administration to tackle seriously. But if the increasingly in-your-face inequities continue to grow, so will class conflict.
THE urban middle class and the jhuggi dweller are interdependent; the former needs services and the latter needs a livelihood. Not too long ago, the rules were clear. The feudal mindset of the former demanded servility and loyalty and a prioritisation of their interests. In return, they offered not just a monthly income but a sort of safety net.