Get your coat love, you’ve been pulled! – The Indian Traffic Cops

I was working at the weekend. Shocked at getting up at 4am on a Sunday, I got the train to Agra for a Deaf event. My colleague and I were doing a presentation on interpreter training and some filming. He had been there a few days so I got the train there and he gave me a lift back. We were waved off after a productive day and we settled in for the 4 hour drive back.

Not even out of Agra, my colleague answers a phone call on his mobile. Two minutes later, we’re pulled by the police. Now I’ve heard a lot of stories from people about the police and corruption, especially in Delhi.

One friend told me he got pulled for no reason late one night and he knew the police were going to make something up and charge him. He hid his cash under a floor mat apart from 200 rupees. They duly came over with a charge of speeding and told him he could pay the fine of 1000 rupees. He said he had nothing on him and offered up his 200 rupees which they took and went on their way.

Another work colleague told me a story of her husband. He is Deaf. He was pulled one night and as Deaf people are not allowed a licence, but drive anyway, he was a bit stuck. With no one to communicate between him and the police, it was a bit tricky. He ended up paying a 400 rupee bribe.

The stories of the traffic police and their bribery are endless but as another work colleague tells me their pay is so bad it is how they top up their wages. Actually, people queue to get government jobs. They are coveted positions as they provide the security of a job for life with pension benefits. So much so that recently one young man was sadly killed in a stampede at recruitment centre. 

So back to Agra, my colleague pulls into the slip road and follows the policeman to this little hut. The car is in the middle of the road and autos are beeping, weaving their way round, going up on the pavement and down onto the road again. Other cars mounted the other kerb and got round somehow. I sat in the passenger seat wondering whether my presence was a help or a hindrance. Watching the cops was interesting. I could sense they like being able to wield their power but are open to negotiation. Possibly as they know they are in the wrong but it’s just what they do.

I saw my colleague negotiating, gesturing at the car. The policeman was fingering his licence deep in thought. Meanwhile, one of the Deaf guys at the meeting came out of nowhere, jumped in and moved the car to one side. He leapt out again and was signing to the police who was waving at him to go away.

Ten minutes later and my colleague jumps back in. He’d had to pay 1000 rupees but he had negotiated down from actually having his licence taken away and having to appear in court. He’d told the police he was staff at an NGO, I was a teacher visiting and they were embarrassing him in front of me. Apparently it was good I was there. It was even better when our Deaf colleague turned up just on time to back his story up.

We started talking about the corruption and how it is so inherent. To prove this he took out a slip of note paper out of his pocket that the cop had given him. It had the date, the place and was signed by the cop. My colleague explained the paper was in case he was stopped again. He could show it to the next cop just so he wouldn’t be bribed again.

Pic - http://world.casio.com/system/pa/solution/20090820/india_police.html

Delhi's Homeless

We had a visit organised for tonight to one of the homeless shelters run by AAA, an Action Aid funded project. It was a little different to a Friday night back home.

In two cars with my group of 14 volunteers, we dodged the Delhi traffic then ground to a halt. We were bemoaning the fact the visit had been organised on a Friday when presumably traffic is worse. I’m not actually sure it makes a difference what day it is but the traffic did seem worse. We spent an hour inching forward and passing time by discussing the difference in the political structures of the UK, USA, Kenya, Canada and Ireland. As we approached Old Delhi it was apparent what had caused the delay. A melee of goats and their owners were struggling in the space where cars should have been, reducing the number of lanes from three to one. Translated this is space for six cars abreast which had been reduced to space for one car and perhaps a rickshaw. Our taxi driver explained the chaos. The next day was Eid al-Adha, a Muslim festival celebrating the prophet Abraham by sacrificing a goat. Our companions on the road were all going to die tomorrow.

We finally arrived and with dead legs and grumbling stomachs, any moaning ceased as we entered the shelter. It was hard to make out the entrance in the chaos of Old Delhi. We went through a door between the market stalls and cows. Inside was a long corridor with huge rooms leading off into masses of people covered in blankets on metal cots or lying on the floor. We were lead by P and S, two incredibly passionate and dedicated men, to the children’s room at the back. We went through the room one-by-one to a space at the back a room for a talk on the centre. As we passed the room full of 30 boys aged 10 – 13 years old, they shouted ‘Namaste!’ at us. I was astounded at the work done by the volunteers at the centre and the initiatives that have helped the people that shelter here. With 150,000 homeless in Delhi the managers of the shelters and the volunteers work hard. This figure does not include those that live in semi-permanent shacks and structures that aren’t fit for humans to live in.

S seemed to be drained and he mentioned that it was a 24/7 job campaigning for the rights of the homeless in Delhi and trying to keep the shelters open. AAA has a few shelters open around the city but does not cater for women or girls due to one of the shelters being shut down. That leaves an estimated 10,000 homeless females on the streets.

There are many projects at AAA, two of which belied a shocking fact. Firstly, AAA runs a ‘beggar’s court’ where homeless people put in prison can have access to a lawyer and time away from the jail. Secondly, there is a scheme where people can register and get ID cards enabling them to have access to banks, other services and a proof of their ID. The reason for these projects is the Police can ‘push’ on people without ID. They can also arrest anyone seen to be begging or even if they look unwashed, unkempt and homeless. This brings me to the shocking fact: someone may then be put in jail for three years just for being homeless.

Rather than resolve the issue of the homeless, this is a way of rounding people up and sticking them in jail away from public sight. The government however, do seem to be recognising that there is such a thing as ‘homelessness’ which they haven’t in the past. No doubt the issue will have to be addressed. It is one that hopefully will be increasingly more important with the run up to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010.

YouTube clip online now.