The final countdown for the dhobi eviction notice comes to an end tomorrow. Amidst all round support for continuation of the dhobi services by the students and their explicit demand for setting up an appropriate alternate arrangement before any change in the present setup is made, the Institute has come up with alternate storage space. Fourteen six feet by six feet tin shed structures made of discarded, rusted and rotting sheets and poles have been erected at one end of the dhobighat. The structures have been put up on bare ground, there is no flooring, there are holes in all the sheets and hence no protection from the elements either. So far, the coop-like structures do not have any electricity connection either. In spite of desperate enquiries from the dhobis, no one has told them the purpose of these structures so far. Following is the sequence of events since our last update on the dhobighat (previous updates are available here).

On the 19th of February an emergency meeting of the Council of Students’ Hall Affairs (CoSHA) was held only on the dhobi issue. It was attended by several hall presidents as well as a large number of general body members. The minutes of the meeting (available here) state that 6000 students get dhobi services, but students were never consulted before serving eviction notices to the dhobis. The meeting rejected the Institute plans for industrial grade laundromats and unanimously supported continuation of the dhobi services. The student body unequivocally resolved that no force should be used on the dhobis and no further action should be taken with regard to the dhobighat without three-way consultations between dhobis, students and the administration. On 20th February student representatives met the dhobis first to seek their consent on their resolutions and subsequently presented them to the Director. And yet on the very next day, the material for tin sheds was dumped at the ghat and fabrication started without any communication to either the dhobis or the students regarding the logic and purpose of these structures. Perhaps a dozen different institute officials and functionaries have visited the site of these tin sheds in the past two weeks, and yet no one has conveyed their purpose to the dhobis. In fact, every time the dhobis have approached them with questions, they have been told that this was none of their business!

We may recall that the whole episode began with the 27th November eviction notice to the dhobis claiming that the structures on dhobighat were unsafe, and so the dhobis needed to vacate the premises for their own safety. This was followed by the 3rd January notice that invoked the Eviction Act, 1971, to claim that the dhobis’ stay and work at the dhobighat was ‘illegal’. Now apparently the authorities have orally conveyed to the students that in an institute of technology there is no place for manual work and hence the dhobis must be replaced by machines.

But we must appreciate that alternatives of machines and other commercial large scale laundry operators is already available all over the campus and yet such a large number of students as well as Institute facilities such as the Health Centre and Visitor’s Hostel get their laundry services done from these dhobis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that on any given day at the dhobighat, we are likely to find 4000-5000 pieces of clothing in various stages of processing – piles of dirty as well as clean clothes, clothes soaked in the tanks, being washed over multiple rounds, drying over strings, being ironed over several platforms/ tables, and then of course individual piles that are ready for delivery to the users. It is these piles of clothes that occupy most of the space in the Type I quarters and the godowns / storerooms at the dhobighat, with the dhobi families squeezing in some living space between these stacks (see these pictures of their living premises as well as the under construction tin sheds). It is a miracle of hard work and skill of the 30+ dhobi families that with barely any proper facilities for any of the steps outlined above, working in the midst of jungle and rubble, and without a single washroom for their basic needs, they consistently deliver such clean and crisp clothes to our doorstep round the year. Instead of using our knowledge and learning to facilitate their work and alleviate their drudgery, we have decided to demolish even those bare structures that they use to serve us and shove them into these tin sheds. As one of the women dhobis put it “we work through the day in all weathers from sizzling summer to pouring rains to the very cold winter. And this is what the Institute has deemed fit for carrying out our work? Where will we keep the clothes, segregate them, iron them? Are we not allowed to take a bathroom break or rest in between gruelling labour? No one would keep even animals in such sheds. Are we worse than animals?”

Hamara Manch asks the administration two simple questions:

·      Why is the administration unilaterally discontinuing a service that is being provided to such large numbers, which the users assert is essential for them and is being done better than the other options available, including washing machines?

·      Why does the administration believe that the opinion of the users and their service providers is of no consequence and that they can decide to forcefully evict the dhobis without adhering to any due process?

We expect the administration to come clean with their real reasons for dhobi eviction, provide proper evidence for their reasons and convince the student community as well as all other stakeholders with their logic before any irreversible action is taken with respect to the dhobis. We call upon all concerned to come together in holding the administration accountable.