Kolkata: Less than a week after the violence in 2020, at a shelter near Mustafabad in northeast Delhi, a colleague and I spotted snaking lines. We followed them and realised they culminated at a long table at which four young women sat. They were lawyers, taking down information from people who had no small amount of losses. Some spoke to us and said that they were missing family members. Others’ shops had been gutted. The process of reparations could not begin soon enough for them.
Five years later, a report by the campaign Karwan-e-Mohabbat has shown that in this half decade, no meaningful compensation (other than ex gratia relief and death compensation in the immediate aftermath) has actually been distributed to the victim survivors – in a story of remarkable relinquishing of duties by all manner of authorities.
“This is arguably the worst performance of compensation payments after communal violence in the history of the Indian republic,” the writers of the report say. The report is titled ‘The Absent State: Comprehensive State Denial of Reparation and Recompense to the Survivors of the 2020 Delhi Pogrom.’
A garage in Mustafabad, in the immediate aftermath of the northeast Delhi violence. This photograph was taken on March 6, 2020. Photos: Soumashree Sarkar/The Wire.
Karwan-e-Mohabbat, led by activist Harsh Mander, along with the legal aid group Aman Biradari Trust are among organisations that continue to represent, aid and engage with survivors of the violence.
The 117-page report published on the anniversary of the violence has as its main authors lawyers Suroor Mander and Swati Draik, and researchers Akanksha Rao, Ayushi Arora and Syed Rubeel Haider Zaid, along with Harsh Mander.
The report highlights the failure of the Union government and the Aam Aadmi Party led state government in “all tasks of reparation” during and after the violence, in rescue, relief, rehabilitation, compensation and bridging social divides.
At the time of the violence, the Delhi police ignored crisis calls for intervention. The situation needed the midnight intervention of now retired judge, Justice S. Muralidhar, and involved the efforts of one of the authors of the report, Suroor Mander. Dozens were saved as a result of the order.
Meanwhile, the state government – whose topmost functionaries were seen praying at temples when the worst of the violence unfolded – initially did not even set up relief camps, the report said. It then converted pre-existing and occupied homeless shelters into relief camps in what the report calls a “cruel joke.”
Children sit and paint at a Childline kiosk at a makeshift shelter for victims of the Northeast Delhi violence. This image was taken on March 6, 2020. Photo: Soumashree Sarkar/The Wire.
Not only were the levels of compensation fixed for the Delhi 2020 violence are far below the levels extended by orders of the superior courts to the survivors of the Delhi 1984 pogrom, the Kejriwal government also handed over its own duty to fix compensation to the North East Delhi Riots Claims Commission by moving the high court within weeks of the violence. This commission had been formed with a very different purpose – to evaluate property losses during the violence so that its value could be recovered from the rioters. Nonetheless, courts and the NEDRCC approved several evaluations of loss but no actual disbursement was made, the report notes.
The NEDRCC appointed private evaluators whose standards are unknown to survivors, who have neither been notified nor called to public hearings once. Karwan had filed an RTI application seeking the assessors’ qualifications, powers and functions, and the guidelines laid down for assessing losses, but got no reply.
““I have often waited all day in office to get documents verified by the Secretary here. Many a times they don’t even meet us or are unavailable,” stated a survivor quoted in the report. The survivor had received a call from the office of NEDRCC to submit a claim application and required documents. At the time of submission, they did not receive a receipt or anything proving that their file had been submitted by the NEDRCC, leading to a wall of uncertainty.
The report mentions 146 compensation cases, out of which 81% pertain to matters concerning property damage/loss for residential units, commercial units or both. The cases associated with physical injury constitute 18% of the total. No amount has been disbursed under any of the cases.
The Delhi government’s total budget is over Rs 75,000 crore (as per recent budgets), yet only Rs 153 crore was requested for relief, out of which Rs 21 crore sanctioned.
Areas in and around northeast Delhi, in the immediate aftermath of the northeast Delhi violence. These photographs were taken on March 5 and 6, 2020. Photos: Soumashree Sarkar/The Wire.
Crucially, while contingency funds were allocated in 2021, as they are every year, no money from these funds was provided to the victims after the violence, the report also says. “The state’s justification was to argue that at least ex gratia payments were provided, unlike in Jharkhand or Uttar Pradesh, where even these were denied,” the report says, shifting the focus to forced gratitude from a people who had lost physical possessions, loved ones and dignity as equal citizens.
No state government agency has been asked to or empowered to disburse the funds.
The report notes how this exacerbates the financial crisis of a migrant-majority region of Delhi that was never prosperous to begin with. Based on the Household Survey Report (2018-2019) for Delhi, northeast Delhi faces significant socio-economic challenges. Almost half – 47.88% – the households have ration cards, with 90.74% of those availing themselves of food subsidies through the public distribution system, highlighting reliance on state welfare. 79.47% of households do not own a computer/laptop, limiting digital access and opportunities.
It is no surprise that Muslims are recorded as the religious group that suffered the most damages – a fact that reflects reports that have noted targeted harm to the community in the course of the violence and in its aftermath.
A family inspects the extent of losses at their hardware shop in Brahmpuri in northeast Delhi. This photograph was taken on February 27, 2020. Photo: Soumashree Sarkar/The Wire.
According to the report, 114 cases of property damage, 25 cases of injury, and an overall total of 139 cases were reported among Muslims, whereas only 3 cases of property damage, 2 cases of injury, and a total of 5 cases were recorded for individuals from other communities.
It is noteworthy that the Delhi Police’s investigations into the violence – disparaged by multiple lower courts – has led to the jailing of Muslim activists and intellectuals while Hindu politicians caught on record making hateful speeches have as yet not been booked.
The report lists case studies of how the delay and denial of compensation has affected people across a wide range of ages – 17 to 80 years. Survivors have been in hospitals, they have been denied entry into schools and have faced financial hardships that have affected their everyday lives and business in the absence of compensation.
A major issue that the report highlighted was also the lack of effective communication on compensation camps, procedures, and eligibility. Many claimants were unaware of a relief scheme at all or learned about it only after deadlines had passed.
The report delves into details of roadblocks and bureaucratic delays in a process of ensuring compensation that has not been successful yet. That the rounds of waiting and deprivation exacerbate the wounds of the violence is anyone’s guess.
