Several
meetings were held with the police officials of the area for the
prevention of Nigerians and transgenders. An account of the wrongful
activities going on here was given to them. As a result, the SHO
closed down the places for vending liquor and other nefarious
activities in the neighbourhood. All landlords are requested not to
let their properties to Nigerians or other such disruptive elements.
This
is the translation of a paragraph in a pamphlet issued by the Khirki
Residents' Welfare Association earlier this year after a raid was
conducted by Somnath Bharti, law minister in the Aam Aadmi Party
government. Members of the African community were accused of being
part of a drug and sex racket, searched, and publicly manhandled. The
premise of this attack was not the due process of law. It derived its
confidence of legitimacy from the complaints of many of the
'aggrieved' residents. These grievances emerged from a prevalent set
of stereotypes that can get thus proliferated only in gullies that
rub against and merge into each other, as in Khirki. The murmurs
collude in insisting that Africans, especially Nigerians, are here
for drug dealing and prostitution. When Joanna (name changed), an
African student from Malawi says that she gets a three-year visa in
one go while her Nigerian friends have to get it renewed every year,
sometimes every six months, it becomes clear that one is dealing not
just with mohalla rumours here but set perceptions at a much more
deep-rooted level. The comfortable gullibility with which accusations
become trusted facts stands out in sharp relief against the city's
famed hospitality, its readiness to accommodate and fete guests.
Would the prejudices in the Khirki lanes be so pronounced,
authorities so casual, had the accused been from the other side of
the Mediterranean? It is difficult to imagine the RWAs subjecting
European visitors to such obloquy, though they have their own
challenges to deal with.
Ola
Jason, an erstwhile resident of Khirki who moved out to Chhatarpur
some time after the incident, says, 'When you have pain, you have a
story.' It is to trace this story that I traversed the streets of
Khirki, to learn about the lives and aspirations of the African
dwellers there beyond their status as victims. When I had moved to
Malviya Nagar, the first piece of information I had received about
Khirki was, 'You can get places at low rents there. But because the
buildings stand so close together facing each other, not enough light
comes through.' My visit to the place happened once or twice only to
go to some Internet cafe for a print-out or to go to the ATM. I
remember feeling, on these couple of occasions, more conscious of what I
was wearing as the narrow lanes made you feel that not just the
buildings but also the people were standing too close to you. Then a
few months back I signed up for a dance workshop in Gati studio
there, a privileged space, a protected corner in Delhi where you
could feel completely free learning about how much exalting movement
and expression your body is capable of, instead of just being
something you're always trying to protect.
Gati Studio/Photograph courtesy: Soumik Mukherjee
As I stepped out of the
studio each day after my class, my perception also changed. Far from
being intrusive, the alleys seemed to contain an open community
space, a common courtyard where people weren't just locked up inside
their homes but were out there, interacting with each other,
bargaining, selling, living the ease-and not the paranoia-of being
the part of a crowd. The lanes came alive with the chatter, robust
humour, bustle . . . the sheer assertion of being there. Those days
I would take my own time getting back home, leisurely walking to take
in the surroundings, buying vegetables, getting a recharge for my
phone.
Now,
when I notice the remarkable number of CCTV cameras perched over the
streets like birds of prey waiting for their death feast in silent
alertness, asking everyone to remember they are under the gaze, I
wonder if, like me, for other residents of Khirki too their own
mental state determines what they find in their surroundings. Are the
lenses a source of reassurance or an infringement for them? Do they
feel more secure or violated? Do the machines instil confidence or
lend insecurities to their daily milieu? I try to think about what
may have happened for them to project their fear upon what has
otherwise been a safe space. What was their reason for having
unleashed this vigilantism upon their African neighbours?
A CCTV camera notice in Khirki
Khirki's
own landscape defies definitions. A road going uphill will suddenly
plunge into a godown of watermelons. You enter one end not knowing
what you will find at the other. The lanes which house Khoj, an
artists' association, and the NGO Swechha, along with Gati, best
illustrate the tone and temperament of the place. Looking around the
labyrinth of lanes you can quickly make out why members of other
nationalities feel more at ease there. The street is abuzz with
people, shops and vendors so that the walking area is reduced to a
narrow strip. One 'apartment gate' could lead to basement parking,
another could be an opening to an entirely distinct lane of houses,
and yet another could be the entry to a salon with 'Namaste' graffiti
stamps on one wall and bold, colourful, 'India Beyond' on the other.
A closet-like tailoring shop rubs shoulders with a pakora shop, and
the entire scene is duly punctuated with vegetable vendors. The mix
of voices tells you that you are amidst people from many places-India
and beyond.
Basement salon
I
look at the African residents purposefully going out for their
planned evenings and question the ethics of accosting them to ask my
questions. On the first day I decide not to, until I have got
appointments through friends. After a few days have passed with no
leads and I have grown more desperate, I visit again and finally
decide to ask a girl who has been walking in the area for some time
and therefore, I try to tell myself, may be relatively free. I
approach her and tell her about the idea behind this story and she
agrees to speak to me some day soon, giving me her number of her own
accord. I am surprised by and grateful for her trust. However, on the
appointed day she does not turn up, either understandably upset about
my not having been able to confirm an earlier appointment or having
had apprehensions about the interview in retrospect.
It
is not easy to establish contact with the Africans living in Khirki.
Some of my mails to Indian artists and photographers well versed with
the area-full of promises to respect my interviewees' privacy and to
tread with sensitivity-go unanswered. These are people who in all
likelihood are by now tired of people plaguing them with similar
requests, having already complied with many. Other, closer friends do
their best to help and succeed in putting me in touch with a couple
of their African friends. My friends warn me that it was months
before they could win the trust of their neighbours from another
continent and, as it turns out, even with a reference many choose not
to talk to me. After the raid and the subsequent controversy, and the
tension gripping the area, there has been a certain amount of
mistrust around Indians. There could also be the threat of being
singled out because of their statements. Talking to African students
studying in the universities here, whom I also met to get their
perspective, was a little easier. As Jason tells me, like him, many Africans
also decided to leave Khirki after the raid and are now settled in
different areas from Chhatarpur to Janakpuri.
Srishti
Lakhera, a filmmaker living in the colony, says that while Indian men
gawking at or harassing women in the city is a common enough
experience, she never faced any trouble from anyone of African
nationality. In fact she has some good friends in the community.
While I and my friend wait outside an apartment to meet an African
contact for this piece, we find ourselves being looked at by many
men. Some are also of African origin, though considering my several
visits to Khirki the latter could be called an exception. In spite of
knowing that generalization is a dangerous tendency in the social
paradigm, we still let stereotypes target a community, more so if it
is small and vulnerable. The media makes us feel so outraged every time there is news
about Indians insensitively frisked at airports. We are incensed over
'our' people being subjected to discrimination in high-profile areas
of corporate affairs, sports and diplomacy. Have we still learnt
nothing about the injustice we commit and the intolerance we
encourage by 'othering' communities? If Marie Curie is to be
believed, 'Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be
understood.' But we tend to feel fear, not healthy curiosity,
wherever we find difference. We discriminate not just on the basis of
countries but states, regions, caste, sub-caste, language, dialect,
class. In Khirki, Muslim landlords prefer African Muslims as tenants
rather than Christians from the same place. Halilu Babaji, a Nigerian
doctoral candidate in Delhi University, asks, 'How can you judge
someone unless you know them personally?' There are drug dealers and
prostitutes in India too, even if we do not get into a debate over
their legal status here. Srishti says that such Indians have learned
to be more discreet, and even know their way around authorities. On
the other hand, Africans, used to a much more open culture, aren't
used to such caution. They literally have to pay for being 'them' as
the rents they are charged are higher than those paid by 'us',
Indians.
Babaji with a memento received in a university conference
Women of African descent have to sometimes face the worst of it. Unlike most Indian women, African women can be seen carrying themselves unapologetically and easily. Probably for several Indian men this becomes, as other signs of independence in women, a cause for insecurity, or disturbs their religious sense of virtue that is seen as reposited with women, and they pass lewd comments on the women. Despite such attacks, I notice with great respect that the women retain their uninhibited body language and often dress in their traditional attire, instead of always trying to conform and escape undue attention. Babaji recalls an African friend who once went up to an Indian woman to ask something and she panicked and started screaming. He finds the African culture better in this regard for it allows men and women to have regular interactions and does not compel them to remain alien to each other. He adds that while behaving in such spaces men know the laws and the consequences of not respecting women, or of trying to impose themselves on women. If India too, he feels, would be less conservative about following a rigid code of separation between men and women, there would be far fewer instances of violence on women.
In
Khirki there are Africans who have earlier lived in other cities like
Hyderabad and Pune, and find them much better and open minded.
Temidara, a student from Ekiti, Nigeria, who has lived in Chandigarh
and Mohali, describes her overall experience there as 'pretty good'.
A Master's student Yucee Okoronkwo, whose name doesn't seem so
unfamiliar to his literature friends who have studied Achebe's Things
Fall Apart in Delhi University, has recently finished his
dissertation on the anti-terrorism laws of India and Nigeria and is
an avid blogger on the legal-political issues of both the regions. I
ask him if he would have liked to stay in a place other than Delhi.
He replies that despite its discriminatory practices, Delhi would
probably still be more adaptive to foreigners, being more used to
them. He remembers a trip to Himachal, which for all its beauty had
irked him when people there would go around clicking his pictures
without permission. Once he leaves, he says, he would miss India's
cultural variety, which he had best experienced living in DU's
International Students House and while organizing the intercultural
festivals there. In these festivals students from different countries
would participate with their music, dance, food, dresses and crafts.
Kelvin Obi Olisamuni from Lagos, Nigeria, who has passed out of
Ramjas College and Jamia Millia Islamia and lives in Kalkaji, also
appreciates this about Delhi and is glad to have met his French
girlfriend here. He agrees finding friendships becomes easier if you
are in the university, that too as an undergraduate when other
students are also new, still trying to find their footing. Joanna
feels the same. She met her best friend from Assam on her very first
day in Miranda House as a political science student.
However,
students cannot be on campus all the time, where they have
understanding, camaraderie and much more respect for differences.
Once out on the road, they too have to face stares and catcalls.
Kelvin says, 'When I hear them calling me names like kalu and
habshi, I really want to ask them to grow up. I am a black man
and proud of it. But what's wrong with Indians who are so crazy about
fairness creams? For me someone's fairness doesn't make a difference.
You have to be smart to get my attention. That's why I like Deepika
Padukone and Priyanka Chopra better.' Joanna quips, 'Why am I always
asked what I am doing in India? Do Indians feel that their country is
not worth coming to? I would understand if they would ask me
something more specific like what my special motivation was or about
the particular things I like in this country.' Her response to hoots
is to plug in her earphones and block the voices out, though she
frets about her sister in Daulat Ram College who is much more
vulnerable. Babaji feels that while racism exists in a country like
the UK too, there people are careful not to let it show blatantly, 'I
once boarded an auto here and the driver asked me to get off. After I
did, I saw that a few metres ahead he picked up an Indian passenger.
He describes another incident, 'I used to go to this shop where the
shopkeeper would keep attending to other customers, ignoring me for a
long time. Once a foreigner intervened on my behalf and called out
the store owner.' In India other foreigners would often reach out to
him, though he ultimately made Indian friends too and grew close to
them.
Jason's
experience of being gazed at was slightly different. 'When I was in
Khirki, I used to work out in the gym for an hour. Eventually I had
to reduce it to fifteen minutes because people would be gaping at me
all the time. When I would ask them why, they would compliment me on
having a great body and ask for tips about what they should eat and
drink to have a body like mine,' he blushes. He continues to have
this experience on the Metro and on the road. Like Kelvin, he too has
had modelling offers and even accepted some (though one couldn't help
notice that Lee Cooper chose to dress up Kelvin as a Masai warrior
and a white guy in jeans to show stages of evolution in human
clothing styles). Jason elaborates, 'When people look at me, it makes
me anxious about what they might be thinking. So I ask them why. And
even if they had something else on their mind, I would prefer if they
say that they were admiring something about me, though such stares
too can be tiring.' He is often benign in his treatment of onlookers,
'When a man once asked me if I were a south Indian and asked to touch
my hair, I let him. By doing so, I helped him accomplish a mission
going on in his own mind or it would have kept troubling him.' In
strangers he was able to find some of his closest friends. An old man
befriended him on the Metro and later had his son pick Jason up and
bring him home. It developed into a relationship with all the family
members, joining them for lunches and dinners and learning to cook
Indian food. When not too tired to opt for KFC or Domino's, Jason
cooks Indian and African food and is aghast that I cannot make
chapattis.
For
Chike, another Nigerian, who owns a salon on the outer side of Khirki
facing the Saket malls, the 'auto man' is his best friend who comes
whenever Chike gives him a call and takes him wherever he needs to
go. He has been in Delhi for a year and while the salon is doing well
with several Indian men as part of its clientele, he could do better,
Chike feels, if he could also open his cafe. He proudly recounts how
all his meat pies got sold in the Antarrashtriya Khirkee Festival
organized in March 2014 by a community of resident artists and
others. But because of language issues he is unable to communicate
with his landlord for a little more space for the cafe.
Chike in his salon
For
Kelvin and Jason, Bollywood fans with a host of Indian friends,
language isn't a similar barrier. Jason remembers how at home he
would be doing dishes to the tune of 'Yeh duniya ek numberi, toh
main das numberi' as a child. Even then he knew that he would be
coming to India one day, though people at home often miss him and
feel he should come home now. Talking of his reasons for leaving
Khirki, Jason shares that he used to be an articulate, vocal member
of the community. When the raid happened, national and international
journalists were coming to speak to him. His name became familiar in
the locality and he also got a call from Somnath Bharti's office
about creating an Indo-African community. All this created suspicion
around him in the community; some felt Jason was trying to sell them
out. He felt that his landlord had started seeing him as a threat.
His apartment was broken into, and money and valuables were stolen.
He then decided it was time to move out and keep to himself for some
time. In response to a question about what he does, his answer is, 'I
can sing, I can cook, I can make someone look good, like in a salon,
I can write, and I can make documentaries.' His current passion
project is to start a magazine, which would serve as a space for
African voices, 'Many people have faced many troubles but don't have
the space to share. Reading about others will help them believe they
too can do something.' Leaning against a portrait of Martin Luther
King, Jr., he talks of how Gandhi and Mandela had to struggle so
much, 'But ultimately it is their success that is celebrated.' He
refers to a park in Malviya Nagar as his example, saying it won't
have been named after Bhagat Singh had he not been a revolutionary,
'A strong leader has a clear vision and clears all the roadblocks in
his path.' This is the sort of vision he now has for the magazine.
His other dream is to have a storytelling place for children called
'Tales by Moonlight'. He wants that kids from different national
backgrounds should get together to share their stories, play games
and attend and participate in dance and musical performances. Through
this, he hopes to make them culturally rich and tolerant from the
very beginning.
Ola Jason
Possibly
the Antarrashtriya Khirkee Festival organized in Khirki and Sheikh
Sarai was a glimpse of the dreams Jason and others like him cherish.
The 'friendship festival', through the participation of the numerous
nationalities living in Khirki, had a photo exhibition, food stalls,
video screenings, singing and drumming. It had Indian kids joining
their African friends in hip hop performances and African youth
rapping in Hindi. Another significant effort in bridging interracial
differences was Gabriel Dattatreyan's film Cry Out Loud,
which not only documents the community's experiences but also uses
young local talent to put the film together. Baba Da Dhaba, an open
air eatery run by Indians, is a place Africans come to for their
north Indian fare. One hopes that through the contribution of both
Indian and African communities more such spaces for mingling and
dialogue grow, and that soon enough, along with Sai Mandir and
Krishna Mandir, 'Tales by Moonlight' becomes a popular landmark in
the area.
Baba Da Dhaba
Srishti
Lakhera and Smita Rakesh participated in conducting some of the
interviews. All photographs of people and their properties have been
taken with permission.
First
published in The Equator Line,
Jul-Sep, 2014. Later published in the anthology The Best of TEL, May 2015.
