The situation between India and Pakistan has been always tense at the border, but a locality situated well inside India and referred to, colloquially and officially, as ‘Pakistani Wali Gali’ (Street of Pakistanis) is making life difficult for its residents.
The Gautampuri Basti in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri area which falls under the Gautam Buddh Nagar district houses the quaint lane called ‘Pakistani Wali Gali’. While the unique name has not been a problem so far, residents now complain of it.
A team from The Wire visited the area and found that although Dadri is merely 50 kilometres from Delhi, it takes a bus ride of two and a half hours to reach there. After alighting near the Dadri railway station, the journey to reach Gautampuri gets quite difficult. On the day the correspondents visited, a light downpour had caused the roads to be waterlogged, making it a challenge to drive through them. Rain water and sewage had mixed to form puddles of mud.
As we walked through the narrow labyrinth of lanes, looking for the ‘Pakistani Wali Gali’, the water began to recede. In some places, the lanes were so narrow that we could only walk in a single file.
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No vehicles except two wheelers can pass through these lanes, which have open drains on both sides. A few houses are built so low that drainage water could be seen overflowing into them.
When, finally, we reached our destination, a few bystanders pointed to an electric pole and laughed that it was the ‘Wagah Border’. Turning left at the pole, we reached a narrow cul-de-sac.
In the street, we first met Jayasingh (55) a de-facto spokesperson for the residents of the street. Jayasingh said his father Daujiram, mother Kaushalya, father’s elder brother Kishanlal and wife Sagmanti travelled to India some time ago from an area in Pakistan bordering Rajasthan.
Jayasingh, who came to India from Pakistan. Photo: The Wire.
Jayasingh is a Dalit belonging to the Jatav caste, as are most of his neighbours from the street. Jayasingh’s two families have now expanded to eight households.
Lawyer and Bahujan Samaj Party city president Raj Kumar Gautam who lives right next to the street described Jayasingh’s unique story to The Wire. “His forefathers immigrated and settled in Jarcha village, 15 kms from Dadri, during Partition. After working as labourers they earned some money and purchased a plot in Dadri’s Gautampuri, built a house and started living here,” he said.
The street on which Jayasingh, his sons, brothers and nephews reside is the ‘Pakistani Wali Gali’. This has been its name for a long time, with no sign of trouble, according to Jayasingh.
Problems started when the street came to be registered on their Aadhaar cards by that name.
“When we go looking for work and show our Aadhaar card, employers refuse to give us work claiming that we are Pakistanis. We are facing problems even during the admission of our children to school,” said Jayasingh.
Poverty is evident in the colony where almost all the people are daily wage earners and few are educated. A young man, Jitendra Kumar, who is a resident of the area, said, “All of us are labourers. Only a few women go out to work as maids.”
When the process of issuing Aadhar cards began, the street came to be registered as Pakistani Wali Gali but nobody took the naming very seriously. Several people standing nearby told The Wire that a hue and cry over the issue is being raised over the unique name in the past couple of weeks alone.
The Aadhaar card of a Dadri resident reads’ Pakistani mohalla’. Photo: The Wire
When asked what in the past two weeks could have led to the upheaval, a bystander, on condition of anonymity, said it was all because of “propaganda by the Bajrang Dal.” He added, “Some 8-10 days ago, a boy from the colony went to work when a few Bajrang Dal members noticed Pakistani Wali Gali mentioned on his Aadhar card. They spread it on social media.” He refused to divulge the name of the boy.
How did the street come to be registered as Pakistani Wali Gali on Aadhar cards? Was it the fault of the Aadhar centre employees or did the residents themselves give this name? Jayasingh said that the residents of the locality must have given their address as such.
Executive officer of the Dadri Municipality, Sameer Kumar Kashyap, says that the contract for registering names in Aadhar cards is given to private entities.
“The address is recorded in accordance with what is mentioned by people,” said Kashyap. “The people must have mentioned the name as a landmark themselves which is why it was recorded thus. However, there is no mention of any such street in any documents with the municipality. We have numbered the various streets in the Gautampuri area.”
A municipality board outside a house on the street. Photo: The Wire
We looked at the municipality plates at the various doors of the Pakistani Wali Gali. They display a house number, the ward number, the five-digit UID number. and the name of the colony as ‘Gautampuri Mohalla’ but make no mention of the street name.
Besides Jayasingh, several others also confirmed that they had no problem with their street casually being nicknamed Pakistani Wali Gali, but now that it has been registered by that name on their Aadhar cards, problems have come thick and fast.
Harveer Devi (55), a resident of the street, said, “Now when we take our children to schools seeking admission, people are shocked to see Pakistani Wali Gali on our Aadhar cards and say that we must be terrorists.”
Two school girls Dolly (Class 10) and Sonam (Class 8) share a similar experience. They allege that they are teased in their school because of their address. They don’t want this name to be used to refer to their street.
Another resident, 58-year-old, Jaypali Devi, said, “Marriage proposals are also turned down the moment Pakistani Wali Gali is mentioned.”
A school student whose Aadhaar card bears her street name. Photo: The Wire.
Several other discrepancies were also found in the addresses recorded in the Aadhar cards in the locality. Often, members of the same family have different addresses registered on their cards. For instance, the Aadhar card of Deepak Kumar (35) mentions Chamaran in his address while his wife’s says ‘Pakistani Mohalla’ and the addresses of their two sons simply say ‘Gautampuri’.
Raj Kumar Gautam also expressed annoyance that his colony is mentioned as Chamaran. Calling it sheer casteism, he said, “Most of the residents of Gautampuri are Dalits. There are four more colonies adjacent to it. Brahmapuri has a Brahmin majority. There is a Muslim colony and a Rajput colony too. It is wrong to give colonies caste-based names.”
When asked what problems he is facing owing to the area being called Pakistani Wali Gali, Rajkumar Gautam said, “If the problem is 10%, it is publicised as 90%. I have been living in this colony for 20 years. I have studied here. I never faced any problems. It is just that the name of the colony sounds weird.”
Meanwhile, the Municipality executive officer Kashyap says that it is not such a big issue. According to him, “The media has blown it out of proportion. It has been in colloquial usage for years, but posed no problem till now. People know and use it as a landmark.”
Kashyap said that this matter has come to his notice and he has spoken to the Aadhar centre. “The card holders will need to visit the centre themselves and give an application in order to get the name changed. It is no big deal,” he said.
Rajkumar Gautam, on the other hand, said that the correct solution to this problem is that the Aadhar officers should run a special camp and remove Pakistani Wali Gali from the address of all Aadhar cards.
Translated from Hindi by Naushin Rehman. Read the original here.
