2010-09-20 : Update from Hamara Manch [Eviction of dhobis]

Four dhobi families have been issued show cause notice a couple of weeks back stating that they have been staying in the campus illegally. Very briefly the facts of the case and the issues the way we understand at HM are as follows:

The Type I houses were allotted to the fathers/ husbands quite some time back. Since the person in whose name the house was allotted has passed away (in one case in 1998 and the rest of the three in the previous one year), the estate officer has issued a show cause notice in the name of their widows stating that they and the rest of the family were occupying the houses illegally. This notice has been issued without any consultation / feedback from community members (students, staff / faculty families) who are the primary users of the services provided by these dhobis and who would be immediately affected by their removal from the campus.
The nature of the work done by dhobis, which is very labour intensive, has always involved all their family members in the tasks related to washing, ironing, and delivering laundered clothes to the users of their services. The entire family, therefore, is equally entitled to the accommodation provided in lieu of these services, and the passing away of one member of the family does not in any way affect the right of the rest of the family to those accommodations as long as they continue to provide the concerned service.
Recognising the above facts, the Institute has in the past officially re-allocated houses in the names of surviving spouses in dhobi families. At least four such cases are known through the 70s and 80s. There is, therefore, the force of precedent within the Institute to protect the right of these dhobi families to continue occupation of the said accommodation so long as they provide the service for which it has been allotted.
Even though the accommodation was initially given to the dhobis rent-free in lieu of their services, they have been charged rent/ license fee for these premises since 1994, and have been paying this rent regularly. And the Institute has accepted this rent from the occupants of these four households even after the death of the person in whose name the house was allotted – even till as late as this month! In one case, this has been continuing for 12 years (since 1998). As they have been paying rent for all these years and months in spite of the death of the person who was allotted the house and have valid receipts for the monthly payments, by no stretch of imagination can their occupancy be termed as ‘illegal’. Surviving family members have also been issued I-cards by the Halls of Residence where they continue to provide essential laundry services to students. Their provision of services is thus officially recognised by the Institute, and there has been no break in this service due to the passing away of any one specific individual from a family.
Many of these dhobis were actually brought here from HBTI by our founding director, Prof. Kelkar, because it was deemed that this essential service would require proximity to the users and also access to clean water, space for drying, ironing and other activities. The dhobis were requested to move in the campus as residents with their families and were promised several facilities including ropes, detergents, water, etc in lieu of the services they would provide. The dhobis have continued to provide exemplary laundry service to the campus residents throughout this institute’s 50 year history even as the population of this campus has risen exponentially. Since the occupants of these quarters continue to provide the service for which they were first allotted those quarters, there is no justification to ask them to vacate these premises.

In the year when we are proudly celebrating IIT Kanpur’s Golden Jubilee, it is truly shocking that families that have served this Institute for nearly all of those 50 years are summarily being asked to leave the campus for no apparent reason, even when they continue to provide the service for which they were invited to serve this Institute by its founding Director.

Perhaps they are being asked to vacate precisely because this is the GJ year as the authorities want a sanitized campus where, though our dependence on workers continues to increase manifold, yet we do not want them to be seen or heard around the campus. So first there was a concerted move to oust the small vendors from the campus a few months back, then it was construction worker jhuggis behind Type III houses which were pushed out of the campus a couple of months back. Now the migrant construction workers making the buildings around swimming pool are staying in even worse hovels just outside the campus boundaries than when they were allowed to stay on the construction sites.

We feel that there is no reason to push these families out except a fascist logic similar to that of commonwealth games where the games will happen only because of the toiling people but the authorities will sanitise the place so that the real Delhi should not be visible to the visitors. If we want our campus to be different we must resist this

particular move of the authorities and must resist our authorities from becoming Delhi like, and we ought to collectively work for an IITK where all of us who have got together to make this place and institution have some minimum rights.