Varanasi: In Varanasi’s Assi Colony, The Wire came across a story that is not being featured by any other media or news outlet – the plight of the residents of Kashi whose houses happen to fall in the path of the Jagannath corridor.
As plans for the corridor have been proposed, residents have received information from the subdivisional magistrate (SDM)’s court that the land they inhabit belongs to the government and they must leave it soon.
These are the people whose forefathers registered their land and built their houses, and yet, almost 300 houses are expected to be demolished to accommodate the Jagannath corridor.
A local recounts that upon hearing this information, some of them went to the SDM court, where they were met by an office staffer who informed them that orders ‘from above’ prohibit him from receiving them.
They then went to the high court and finally got an order from the SDM court just so the latter could listen to them.
In the case of the Vishwanath corridor, many of the demolished houses belonged to the kings and were eventually taken over by the common people. However, the houses in the path of the Jagannath corridor are legally owned by these locals, and they claim there is no concrete proof that their land is not indeed theirs.
They say they have written to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Chief Minister’s Office, and even to other important people, and yet their plight is being ignored.
In the name of progress, how much destruction can the government justify? Residents of that area recall that during the lockdown, more than a thousand houses were demolished to build another corridor.
Residents of the Assi Colony are furious. Historically, people have often come to Kashi ‘to die’, in the name of ‘receiving moksha’, and these locals claim they are ready to die and let the demolition of their houses become their burial ground and let the Jagannath corridor become their samadhi.
‘Vikaas ke naam pe vinaash’ (destruction in the name of progress), claimed one resident, expressing his frustration. He said that Kashi is the city of enlightenment and freedom, mukti and moksha, not an amusement park that can be used for high revenue collection.
Doing this would signify a complete misunderstanding of what Kashi stands for, of what ‘dharma’ truly means. These people consider themselves to be dharmic people who revere their guru Shankaracharya. However, they insist that the dharma of Modi seems a lot like commercialisation disguised as dharma. After all, even Ravana was a dharmic man!
Their argument is that Modi has misunderstood Kashi, and if he continues upon this path, then Kashi’s identity will soon be destroyed and replaced by something new and alien. The presence of rampant commercialisation has already sold off Kashi’s soul.
One angry resident said that Kashi and India are being sold by two Gujaratis and bought by two other Gujaratis – from the hands of Modi and Shah, to the pockets of Ambani and Adani.
Unfortunately, however, the vote of these 10,000 people doesn’t seem important enough for the media and news outlets to cover. The truth is that these are Hindus, the residents of Kashi, who understand what the holy city was meant to be, and they feel that in the name of ‘dharma’, Kashi is being slowly destroyed and sold off.
