I live in Delhi, the capital of India. In a small area of 1,483 sq kms, it holds a population of nearly 13,782,976 people. Everyday I step out of my home I see soo many people, some delhiites and mostly not….the reason….? Being the capital, it has been looked upon as the land of opportunities by people from all over the country which makes them pack their bags and migrate over here. Most of them are from Bihar and UP. Over the years these people have formed another community which has become a part of this state. Treading into the city, there is not a single area where you wouldn’t find slums…poverty has been creeping up; crime has been increasing at an exponential rate. Inflation in the economy and lower living standards are just worsening the current scenario.
Majority of the delhiites lend the blame to the people who come from other cities for the present situation. And the fact is that it is true…people from other cities commit most of the crimes. The question at hand is that whether anything is being done to change this status. Why do people migrate from small villages and cities to metropolitans- in search of jobs, better livelihood, opportunities. Yes. That’s what we all need. So would it be reasonable to blame those people who come here just to find the most basic necessities of life…? Certainly not. Everyone has the right to lead a nice, comfortable life. So why are these things not being made available to people in every region…? Why is it that people are left with no other choice but to leave their home grounds and wander into the unknown streets…? Why does this phenomenon needs to take place….?
Yes, Delhi is the capital of the country and yes, it is looked upon as a dreamland and yes, it has everything that might just lure a person to settle here. But for how long…? For how long will it be able to support people from the entire country, for how long will there be enough land to dwell on, for how long will there be resources to sustain life…? What happens when the city would be nothing more than a dump of frustrated souls living in a place with scarce resources, inflation reaching new heights, the very prosperous middle class crumbling into the pressures giving way to the two extremes-the rich and the poverty stricken?
The problem of migration from villages to the cities and from countries across borders is something that occurs everywhere, every time.
While on his trip in Anatolia, Robert D Kaplan mentions Naci Garve, man selling crockery from a battered pushcart. Naci says, ‘’I am an Arab, an Alawite, the same religion as Hafez-al- Assad [Syrian ex president]. But I have no loyalty towards Syria. Sure we’ve got our problems here. Ozal’s reform did make the rich richer and poor poorer. But in Syria for decades the economy has been much worse. The Syrians cross the border to Antakya to shop. In Syria people need ration cards, but here we have so much more freedom in Syria you cant even breathe.’’
In another such encounter in turkey, he writes about a 25 year old woman named Suna from Anatolia itself. She points to a row of grim modern apartment blocks, all cheaply constructed, and says, ‘’that’s where my family is headed. Every day I look at those houses and want to live there. My husband and I have only one child. We don’t want any more. We want to give our child a life we never had. We can’t depend on the government. We’ve got to do it ourselves.’’
Overriding emphasis on the metropolitans and duly neglecting the suburbs adds to the cause. The dynamics of a country while referring to development has always been elite based and favored the political interests and ambitions of the politicians- be it Sheila dixit in Delhi or Hafez in Syria. But can development take place in only a handful of hundreds of cities? This kind of strategy leads to migration when people are forced to leave their lands in pursuit of a better life. This is exactly what leads to the ever increasing gap between the poor and the rich. And this is what leads to the condition of cities like Delhi, Anatolia. The terms and the meaning of progress need to be reassessed and readdressed. The meaning of progress is not only political and technological but most importantly a social reform.
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