Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [44]
The gift that Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of India’s prime minister, had in store for several million of his country’s poor that same winter was of a very different nature. Taking advantage of the state of emergency his mother had imposed to establish her power and muzzle the opposition, the impetuous young man had taken it into his head to clean up India’s principal cities by ridding their pavements and suburbs of “encroachments,” in other words “squatters.” It was alleged that one-tenth of vacant land was, in certain towns, taken up by people with no title deeds. This was the case with the bustees on the Kali Grounds. The sanitary conditions there were so abominable and the risk of epidemic so flagrant that the municipal authorities had often considered destroying the neighborhoods. But the local politicians, more concerned about keeping votes in the next election than getting rid of islands of poverty, had always opposed such radical action. Strengthened by the support of the beloved son of the all-powerful Indira, however, Bhopal’s municipal leaders had decided this time to take action.
One fine morning, two bulldozers and several truckloads of policemen burst onto the esplanade in front of the teahouse. The officer in charge of the operation clambered onto the leading truck, which was equipped with a loudspeaker.
“People of Orya Bustee, Jai Prakash and Chola! By order of Sanjay Gandhi, central government and the city authorities, I am charged to warn you that you must leave the sites you are occupying illegally,” he declared. “You have one hour in which to vacate the place. After that deadline, your huts will be destroyed and all people remaining will be apprehended and taken by force to a detention camp.”
“Oddly enough, the appeal didn’t provoke any reaction at first,” Ganga Ram, the former leper, recalled. People formed a silent mob in the alleyways, stunned. Then suddenly, one woman let out a howl. With that all the other women began to shriek as if their entrails were being torn out. The sound was terrifying. Children came running from all sides like crazed sparrows. The men had rushed to the teahouse. Rolling along on his wheeled plank, Rahul, the legless cripple, rounded everyone up. Old women went to take offerings and incense sticks to the statues of the gods in the district’s various shrines. In the distance, the inhabitants of the bustee could hear the bulldozers roaring like wild elephants eager to charge. That was when Belram Mukkadam appeared. When he began to speak outside the teahouse, he seemed very sure of himself.
“This time the bastards have come with bulldozers,” he thundered. “Even if we lie down in front of their caterpillars, they won’t stop at crushing us to pulp.” He paused after these words, as if thinking. He fiddled with his mustache.
“You could see things were churning away in his head,” Ganga Ram would say.
“We do have one way of blocking those scum,” Mukkadam continued, swiping at the air several times with his cane. He seemed to be savoring what he was about to say. “My friends, we’re going to change the names of our three bustees. We’re going to call them after the much-loved son of our high priestess, Indira. We’re going to call them the ‘Sanjay Gandhi Bustees.’ They’ll never dare, yes, I can assure you, that they’ll never dare send in their bulldozers against a neighborhood named after Sanjay!”
The manager of the teahouse then pointed his stick at a rickshaw waiting outside the entrance to the Carbide worksite.
“Ganga!” he directed the former leper. “Jump in that rattle-trap and hurry to Spices Square! Get them to paint a big