ABSTRACT:
William
Darlymle is a very famous Scottish writer, critic and historian. His travelogues
and books won many awards. The City of Djinns is such an attractive narration. It is all
about the historical capital of India Delhi and New-Delhi. In the book he
narrates real tales of his stay in Delhi and explores the history, geography,
sociology, politics, administration, corruption, perversion, eunuchs, ancient
ruins of temples, partition violence by Pakistanis, etc in Delhi. The book
follows his grand and established style with real historical digressions,
connected magnificently with real contemporary event and other any tales.
it has never been told before, unfolding a
timely cautionary tale of the KEYWORDS:
1- glitzy, 2- juggis, 3- Mughals, 4- nawabs,
5- encroachments, 6- traffic jams, 7- medresses,
8- drainage, 9- millennia, 10- Exxex Man, 11- namaste, 12- Corruptions.
INTRODUCTION:
In most
of his writings, fascinating books to date, William Dalrymple narrates the
story of invasing Moguls, East India
Company and crumbling of ancient Indian cities and cultures in a very fascinating
manner done never before, telling a timely advisory tales of the deadliest
invaders and first and the strongest
global business power. In the City of Djinns he has described the
fall of Delhi. He is very apt and relevant in describing the various
facets of Delhi. Till date nothing has
changed and Delhi is crumbling.
Notwithstanding with all the ruling party leaders' tall claims about the glitzy and high-ranked
metropolitan city, Delhi is, but still, the city is without an efficient link
of drains, it is always on knees during every change of season.
Delhi, usually calls to mind images of Islamic invaders,
nawabs, and Britishers on one the hand and juggis, slums, unauthorized construction,
illegal colonies and information technology aptitude on the other hand.
"It was precisely this gift for judgment that makes
City of Djinns such a mournful, witty treat. When Dalrymple came to Delhi in
1989 at the age of twenty-four, he found a city full of people mourning their
pasts—albeit very different pasts. He wrote movingly about the Punjabis, who
had been dispossessed by a partition; the Anglo-Indians, still aggrieved by the
loss of the empire; and the Muslims, who felt their once-proud culture had
entered irreversible decline. He was also quick to show that these people hated
one another to death. At a remove from these factions, who were busy bickering
over the ugly corpse of modern Delhi, lay India's peace-loving Sufis and the
figures of the British Raj who had gone native in the eighteenth century,
adopting Indian costumes, languages, religions, and wives—men like Kirkpatrick,
the subject of White Mughals, who had briefly brought everything together
before it fell apart again. It was in these figures, seeking a multicultural
ideal, that Dalrymple found a reflection of himself."
(BOOKFORUM, Karan Mahajan, FEB/MAR 2011. (Google)).
But for the last many years, the metropolitan city,
notorious for its traffic jams, has made it to the international news for all
the wrong reasons. Pollution, encroachments, traffic jams and road accidents
have FEB/led to the loss of many lives besides causing immense miseries to the
citizens. Nothing has changed. William Dalrymple, noted historian and travel
writer, has witnessed the same almost three decades back. Nothing has changed.
" In both Delhi, it was the ruins that fascinated me.
However hard the planners tried to create new colonies of gleaming concrete,
crumbling tomb towers, old mosques or old Islamic colleges-----medresses--
would intrude, appearing suddenly on roundabouts or in municipal gardens,
curving the road network and obscuring the fairways of the golf course. New
Delhi was not new at all. Its broad avenues encompassed a groaning necropolis,
a graveyard of dynasties. Some said there were seven dead cities of Delhi, and
that the current one was the eighth; other counted fifteen or twenty-one. All
agreed that the crumbling ruins of these towns were without numbers."
(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, pp-2-3. )
Delhi has always been a big attraction to Islamic invader as
well as a vibrant city for big industrial houses and multinational corporations
as well. All alike want to set up afoot.
This is due to rich surroundings, easy access to other parts of the
country, and good systems created by the people that attracted all including
foreigners and their plunder and investments. Plus, being the de-facto centre
of power, wealth and knowledge of the country, the city has a plentiful supply
of manpower, talent, and wealth. These features are serving the city high
points over other established choices like Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai
and Bengaluru.
Not only invaders, traders,
migrants, families, politicians and individuals, corporations too, are
more and more preferring to settle in the city their home. However, Delhi has
been rated among the poor Indian cities according to various surveys including
one by the Mercer's Quality of Living Ranking survey. Hyderabad, Bengaluru,
Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata are ahead to capture the label. Almost the same
results were supported by other surveys of 34 cities including done by
holidify.com that put is behind other big cities to live in. The survey tinted
the pollution, traffic jams, encroachments, slums and juggis, crime although
the charm of a metropolis steeped in rich past diminished all the attractions
and facilities of world-class new development like the Financial and political
power city and NCR HITEC Cities.
The other changes in the city were less promising. The roads
were becoming clogged, pollution was terrible. Every day the sluggish waters of
the Jumna were spiced with some 350 millions of raw sewage.
"...there was also a great increase in poverty. Every
week. it was said, six thousand penniless migrants poured into Delhi, looking
for work. You could see them at traffic lights along Lodhi Road, hand
outreached for alms. The juggis - the vast black cloth cities in which these
people lived - had quadrupled in size since 1984. New juggi outposts were
spreading along the dry drainage ditches, ..."
(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-22.)
Moreover, the old part of the city, popularly known Old
Delhi, that is whirling now and the root cause of the ills in the city which
was the otherwise a splendid city during British rule. The new residential,
industrial and commercial areas of Delhi have for all time designed better
civic infrastructure but all have been ruined by the corruption and
encroachments. The civic infrastructure, electricity and water supply, drainage
and sewage system all have been crumbled. In papers and files, all made tall
claims of improved layout plans and civic facilities like the hollow claims
made by the NGO those are in millions in India but nothing been done. Now, Delhi has low-lying colonies, encroached
river beds and water bodies, green belts full of illegal colonies and
unauthorized construction. As a result of this during the rainy season, water
enters colonies. The old city areas are
worst maintained and the water, drainage and sewage infrastructure is still
unchanged which was built by the Britishers. It seems citizens are also not
bothered and they are satisfied on the relics of the British Empire era which
has now completely crumbled.
The situation has gone from bad to worse which William
Dalrymple described in the City of Djinns three decades back: "Delhi, it
seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of
palaces, an open gutter, filtered through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes,
an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices." (City
of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-2.)
The New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has relatively
done a slightly better job of managing the civic infrastructure of New Delhi
areas. But the unauthorized and
unplanned colonies, illegal construction, encroachments, slums and juggis has
come to stay and haunt the entire metropolitan city today. There was
free-for-all encroachments on the river Jumna, constructions in the lake beds
and other old water bodies those must have otherwise been free of
encroachments, slums and juggis.
The river Jumna, it's catchment areas, the other water
bodies, wetland, green areas those works as the margin spaces of a city and
absorbs the surplus or excessive rain waters. They also protect the
biodiversity and ecosystem of the city by spreading the green cover and control
the road dust.
"The reason for the structure was that the central idea
is that Delhi does seem to act as a sort of flypaper on time. Time doesn't seem
to have its destructive power in Delhi in the way it does in some other places.
…What was lovely was that you could—and this is what travel books often do—tell
the story of the past through bits that are still alive but do it in reverse
chronological order. You can go backwards and see living fragments of each, not
just that there was an old building here which was from the fourteenth century,
but there living nearby or reflecting some aspect of that was a guy who in some
ways related to that fourteenth-century building. There is a lot of this sort
of play of time in Djinns, but while it contained 5 years of research,..."
(Journeying and Journaling, (Ed.) Giselle Bastin, Et-, p-5.))
However, all these bodies have been encroached by slums
juggis, illegal colonies, traffic jams, pollution and urban floods are the
apparent outcome. Over the last few decades, these big metros and national
capital has experienced the painful reality of environmental degradation,
pollution, traffic jams, slums, juggis and urban flooding. This is the story of
every year. The reality that the city
observed such huge paces of unplanned and chaotic development has not solved
its problems of encroachments, pollution and floods.
"Delhi was unique and it still holds that uniqueness,
this quality is scattered all around the city, there were human ruins too. All
the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different
millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same
pavements, drank the same water, lived in the same surroundings and returned to
the same dust. "
( IMPACT: Harshita Rathee, pp-189-92.)
Another side that is making situation unbearable for the
disciplined and civilised citizens is the lawlessness and anarchist nature of
people of Delhi that is accepted wave that proliferates. These disturbing and
assorted levels in the city's speak volumes about city's social life and
behaviour of the people resulting in the law and order problem on the one hand
and sense of insecurity in the mind of the people on the other side. The women
feel highly insecure due to this attitude of the people. The New and Old twin
cities need to quickly shun this anarchist tendency and knock out this tag to
handle the high expectation of the masses. Since Delhi is the capital of the
nation, so people have high expectations.
..., he has never seen the necessity of giving way to the
tiny new Maruti vans which, though taller than his Ambassador, are not so
heavily built..., a warrior, and lie his ancestors e is keen to show that he is
afraid of nothing. He disdains such cowardly acts as looking in wing mirrors or
using his indicators.
,...Olivia is quick to point out that Mr Singh is in many
ways an unattractive character. A Punjabi Sikh, he is the Exxex Man of the
East. He chews paan and spits the betel juice out of the window, leaving a red
'go-fast' stripe along the car's right flank...He leaps out of his taxi to
urinate at traffic lights and scratches his groin as he talks. Like Essex Man,
he is a lecher. His eyes follow the saris up and down the Delhi avenues; plump
Sih girls riding side-saddle on motorbikes are a particular distraction. Twice
a week, when Olivia is not in the care, he offers me to drive me to G.B.Road,
the Delhi red light district: Just looking, ' he suggests.' 'Delhi ladies very
good. Having breast like mangoes.'
((City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-12)
Corruptions, inefficiency, irresponsibility and
unaccountability are big issues those not only affects the image of the country
but the economy of the nation. It is a big hindrance for the economy and the
nation reaching new heights, but rampant incompetency and corruption have
eroded and the reputation of the country.
The government of India needs to resuscitate the image of
the nation and the government by eradicating the inefficiency and corruption.
Additionally, all the government departments and system must be interlinked
with the other departments so that all the work is seamlessly channelised and
customers are not harassed and cheated by the employees, agents and middlemen.
This will save the resources, time and money of the government and the customers
as well. This enhance capacity can afterwards be utilised in nation-building
and people will be more positive for the nation-building and society.
The government will do well to take lessons from other
developed countries that faced and handled similar problems but not almost
wiped out corruption and inefficiency. Many western countries and including
America have now almost completely overhauled the system and the governance of
corruption and inefficiency. This has
also strengthened the democracy and the patriotism of the people without any
undue stress. No matter how glitzy or well-ranked a nation is, without an
efficient and honest network of governance and the system, it can be brought to
its knees by it's corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats. That is what is
happening to India. has happened in Hyderabad.
Surprisingly, this issue was raised very forcefully by
William Dalrymple in his travelogue the City
of Djinns, A Year in Delhi. The description is very honest and firsthand
experience.
"More depressing even than Shastri Bhavan is the
headquarters of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited..., and around this certainty
has been built and empire dedicated to bureaucratic obfuscation; the collection
of bribes and, perhaps more than anything else, the sinning of great glistening
cocoons of red tape."
"As if in deliberate subversion of Mahatma's message,
Mr Lal held in his hands 'The Times of India,' open at its sorts page. The
paper formed a barrier between Mr Lal and the asylum of supplicants who were
bobbing up and down in front of him, holding out chits of paper, arching their
hands in a gesture of namaste or wobbling their turbans from side to side in
mute frustration. A Punjabi lady sat weeping in a corner, repeating over and
over again... but I have a letter from the Minister of State for
Communication..."
(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-17)
Nothing has changed, even after three decades of the visit
of the writer of the City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi. The situation has gone
from bad to worse. It is also the failure of the system and governance. Such
stories of harassment by the government machinery are not new. The biggest epic
of the world can be written on the corruption in India. This malaise is very
deeply rooted in the system. In every
elect, zero tolerance to corruption is a big issue but after the election,
again all indulge in the corruption. Many action plans are prepared but nothing
is achieved.
The issue of unlimited rights and benefits for the employees
are underlying the good and honest governance. Moreover, there are no
incentives for honest and sincere bureaucrats. The bureaucrats are so powerful
that they are almost law to themselves. The system has rotten so much that
nobody is afraid of law or high powered enquiry. Even the much-hyped reforms
initiated by foreign-educated economist and reformist and his team, fail to
check the corruption and inefficiency. His initiatives like outsourcing,
disinvestment, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model also failed.
Corruption in India is an issue which affects the economy of
central, state and local government agencies in many ways. Not only has it held
the economy back from reaching new heights, but rampant corruption has stunted
the country's development.[1] A study conducted by Transparency International
in 2005 recorded that more than 62% of Indians had at some point or another
paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done.[2][3] In 2008, another
report showed that about 50% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying
bribes or using contacts to get services performed by public offices, however,
in 2019 their Corruption Perceptions Index ranked the country 80th place out of
180, reflecting the steady decline in the perception of corruption among
people.[4][5]
........
The causes of corruption in India include excessive
regulations, complicated tax and licensing systems, numerous government
departments with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly of
government-controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and
the lack of transparent laws and processes.[11][12] There are significant
variations in the level of corruption and in the government's efforts to reduce
corruption across different areas of India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
Reference:
1-William Dalrymple, City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi,
Penguin Books, 1993.
2- IMPACT: International Journal of Research in
Humanities, Arts and Literature (IMPACT: IJRHAL) ISSN (P): 2347-4564; ISSN (E):
2321-8878 Vol. 6, Issue 1, Jan 2018, 189-192, EXPLORING HISTORY AND CULTURE: A
STUDY OF WILLIAM DALRYMPLE' S CITY OF DJINNS Harshita Rathee, Sonipat, Haryana,
India, 27 Jan 2018.
3- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India.
4- BOOKFORUM, Karan Mahajan, FEB/MAR 2011, Hauser
& Wirth Publishers. (Google).
5- Journeying and Journaling, (Ed.) Giselle Bastin, Kate Douglas, Michele McCrea
and Michael X. Savvas, Wakefield Press,
1 The Parade West Kent Town South Australia 5067, 2010.)
