Ground Report: Their Houses Bulldozed, Pakistani Hindu Migrants In Jaisalmer Camped In Government Shelter After Dharna

Amid debris of broken huts and shattered tarpaulin sheets, Mauja Ram’s is the only family that continues to stay at the Pakistani Hindu migrant camp that was demolished by the district administration in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer city on Tuesday.

The rest of the nearly 30 families have shifted to a government shelter about 2 kilometres away, their huts reduced to rubble.

Mauja Ram’s house was spared of demolition as his daughter-in-law delivered a child the same morning the officials from the Urban Improvement Trust (UIT) turned up at the camp with JCB bulldozers to clear “encroachment”.

“They started bringing down the huts, cement water tanks and their temple. We jumped in front of the machines begging to be spared,” said Mauja Ram. “We pleaded that we had a newborn. Some women police officers then entered our house, verified our claim, and told the machines to spare our home.”

The child, a girl, was lying on a cot with no ceiling fan above her when Swarajya correspondent visited the bulldozed Amarsagar camp on Thursday. Mauja Ram was the only man in the kuchcha house; his two sons were at work. His two daughters-in-law and granddaughters were hovering around the newborn.

The temperatures in the arid, rocky area are crossing 40 degrees these days. Asked about the fan, Mauja Ram laughed, “From where do we get electricity?”

Mauja Ram’s family shifted from their village in Pakistan’s Sindh province to India three months ago. Like most Hindu families from Sindh who migrate to India, Mauja Ram obtained a pilgrim visa to visit a religious site in India that was valid for less than a week.

With help of activists, he settled in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer city, where thousands of Hindu families from Sindh have been staying for several decades. He obtained a long term visa (LTV) to stay in India for the next four-five years, which he plans to get extended till the family gets Indian citizenship.

Rajasthan’s border areas such as Jaisalmer and Barmer are inhabited by the same castes and tribes as the Sindh province of Pakistan.

Mauja Ram belongs to Bhil jaati of Sindhis, as do nearly all the residents of this camp. In several states including Rajasthan, this jaati comes under the Scheduled Tribe category. Almost all members of this jaati in India are Hindu even as some are converting to Christianity in some tribal areas under influence of the missionaries.

Mauja Ram said that though the officials spared his house that day, they gave the family seven days to vacate the UIT land on their own.

He said he had not identified a place to shift yet. He has left the decision on other residents of the camp, who are currently living in a government-run ‘rain basera’.

“Whatever decision they will take, my family will abide by it,” he said.

Swarajya correspondent visited the rain basera, which literally translates to night shelter, built inside the premises of a bus terminal. The shelter comprises two rooms and segregated toilet facilities. The floors are covered with mattresses.

In the room occupied by women, where most children were sitting or playing, a woman said that during the demolition drive, the officials set fire to a hut adjoining a temple built by the residents.

The fire created panic among residents, and some women fainted on the spot. At least three women who tried to come in the way of bulldozers were lathi-charged by the police, she said.

Residents shared videos of the demolition, the injured women being hospitalised and the fire, which can be watched here and here.

In the other room sheltering men, a group is preparing the list of families affected by the demolition to give to the district administration.

This group is led by three men from the Bhil community, of whom Rajveer is a native of Rajasthan while Kishanraj and Bhoora Lal are migrants from Pakistan. Bhoora Lal has got Indian citizenship while Kishanraj is waiting for it.

Kishanraj told Swarajya that a day after the demolition, the residents staged a dharna outside the office of district magistrate Tina Dabi, on whose order the demolition drive was carried out.

They left the place only after she assured them of rehabilitation. The same evening, that is on Wednesday, the residents were packed into two buses and brought to the rain basera.

“She [Dabi] has asked for a week’s time. So for seven days, we all are here, but we are waiting and watching what the administration does for us,” said Kishanraj.

Bhoora Lal said that the administration verbally told the residents to not accept help from non-government organisations and wait for the government’s decision on relocating them.

Rajasthan is currently governed by the Congress party, with Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister.

On Tuesday, Dabi, who also comes from a Scheduled Caste and was 2015 UPSC topper, had told the media that the anti-encroachment drive was carried out after complaints from the sarpanch and residents of Amarsagar gram panchayat.

She also said the state government had not issued any guidelines for rehabilitation of migrants from Pakistan who are living in India without Indian citizenship.

The demolition of the Pakistani Hindu migrant camp in Jaisalmer came less than a month after a similar camp in Jodhpur city of Rajasthan was demolished by the local administration. The drive uprooted more than 70 families. Swarajya visited Jodhpur a week after the demolition, the ground report of which can be read here.

In Jodhpur, the affected families have rebuilt shelters a few hundred metres from the site where they earlier lived, helped by some non-government organisations.

(Dileep Kumar Bhil visited the spot in Jaisalmer and contributed to the reporting. All pictures have been clicked by him. He is a migrant from Sindh living in Jodhpur, awaiting Indian citizenship)

Also read: After Jodhpur, Pakistani Hindu Camp Demolished In Jaisalmer; Women Lathi-Charged, Children Left Without Water