2010-01-06 : Ganga Charan in the Golden Jubilee Year

Ganga Charan in the Golden Jubilee Year (06/01/10)

On 6^th January, 2009, Shri Ganga Charan came to the weekly Hamara Manch meeting with folded hands, seeking some support for his lost livelihood. Ganga Charanji, around 68 years old and very frail, told us haltingly that he has lost his shop in Hall V and since he has no other support, he is barely able to feed himself. Winter this year has been particularly hostile, and, Ganga Charanji dressed in tattered clothes could barely manage to talk. This is particularly ironical given that he is a tailor and has been in the profession for over 45 years.

Ganga Charanji was set up in Hall V as a tailor in the year 1965, along with a washer man and a barber. All the three shops have been providing essential services to successive batches of students and other campus residents for all these years. Besides articles of clothing for students he also made uniforms for mess workers, security workers. He even had a few workmen working for him, and he mentioned that they also worked in residences of the American faculty in the early days of the Institute. But gradually the quantum of business declined (probably because of the abundance of readymade clothes) and most of the business came from repair and mending jobs. Probably in the year 2000 the rent of the shop was raised from Rs 15/- a month to Rs 160/- a month. This was a whopping raise for Ganga Charanji’s business and he defaulted in rent payment. Around the same time he became aware of the plans of converting his shop into a photocopy outlet. Till Hall V was a PG hall, students were sympathetic to his situation but in 2004 Hall was converted to a UG hall and things started to change. Students, who neither had an appreciation of his long years of service nor of the destitute condition he was reduced to at the present, started pressurizing him to give up his shop. The situation continued for a few months and then an official of the Estate office came and announced that all the three shops (barber, washer man’s and Ganga Charanji’s) would be taken over by the Institute. They started running around to plea their case to various authorities and faculty members. As a result the move was stalled for the time being. Subsequently the same official from Estate office summoned Ganga Charanji to his office and asked him to sign on a paper all the while assuring him that he would take care of his interests. Ganga Charanji, who is illiterate trusted him and signed on the paper. A few days down the same official came over along with a rickshaw cart (thela) and ordered his men to deposit all the stuff of Ganga Charanji’s shop outside the Institute premises. The then warden of the hall tried to intervene and suggested he be given a room in the hostel in place of his shop so that he can continue his business; but that never happened. Ganga Charanji lost his shop in 2006.

Ganga Charanji in spite of loosing his shop has been coming to the campus everyday in search of some odd jobs. It is difficult, as he is barely able to walk because of a broken leg which never healed. He is able to manage jobs worth barely Rs 500-600, which is not enough to support him. Further he has to carry all the garments back to his home as he does not have a workplace here. This makes him particularly anxious as if he looses even a single garment he would not be able to pay for the replacement. He feels if he had a shop here he would be able to generate some more business. He solemnly adds that he would sincerely pay his rent too. Fortunately some of the hostel staff and fellow service providers and workers have arranged for him to have breakfast and lunch in the hall mess, which is an enormous help to him in his present situation.

The Institute is celebrating its Golden Jubilee year with justified grandeur. It is honouring its distinguished alumni for contributions made. Why is that Ganga Charanji and people like him are not even mentioned in these celebrations? He and other like him have served the Institute and its residents for five decades and at the end of it he is thrown out unceremoniously – because apparently he could not pay up the rent! IIT which is planning to beautify its gate spending over a crore of rupees, besides the crores of rupees spent on countless buildings and roads and spiked boundaries and other things, could not afford the loss of a measly Rs 165/- a month of rent? Is this what we are supposed to be proud of? A seventy year old desperate man being deprived of his only means of livelihood as a reward for his distinguished service for 45 years?

We at Hamara Manch feel that Ganga Charanji and people like him who have served the Institute community for long years with dedication ought to be acknowledged by the community in some tangible way. It is impractical to expect that these people can go on working for ever and hence merely ensuring a space for their livelihood is not enough. Probably the least that should be done is to arrange for a small pension to augment their meager earnings in their old age.