After hearing so much about the Common Wealth Game's displacement, the obvious next question was, "Where did they go?" As I said before, only a quarter were resettled. No one seems to know where the rest went. After speaking with a few Indian students, we decided that visiting the CWG's resettlement colonies was not a good idea. Touring white people around a recently established camp that was created because of a colonial event seemed like an insult to injury. Instead, a local film maker who has made documentaries on resettlement colonies offered to take us an older colony where she knew people. An invitation is important in these circumstances. Here is the story of one colony:

When India gained independence in 1947, cities like Delhi boomed with construction. Workers from all over the Indian countryside came for the prospects of a job. The jobs were there, but they did not include a place to stay, so most workers set up houses nearby the project they were working on and that is how little slums emerged all over the city. The government knew they were there; they had ration cards and could get subsidized food from government stores. Then the government decided to move them because they wanted to build something where the slum was or decided that the slum was just an eye sore. In this particular case, 20,000 people were moved between 2000 and 2002 to one colony. They were told to pay 7,000 rps for a 10 year lease and were left on their own to build houses. The colony is located next to a swamp and the water table is only a foot below the surface making construction difficult. Some houses are flooded and abandoned on the outskirts on the colony.
Children don't go to school. Families work together in the neighboring landfill sorting trash. Others make brooms or do season agricultural work husking lentils. The landfill has polluted the water causing skin and stomach problems that in some cases has led to death. Many people here lost their ration cards when the Indian government eliminated 1.7 million cards, a move to keep up with its poverty reduction goals. The house next door to our host's lacked a roof, but the family was still unable to get ration cards. The application process is tiresome and expensive. You must pay money to prove that you have none, while people in other parts of the city have the pink cards and "drive Mercedes." Even for those who get their ration cards, the fight isn't over. There is supposed to be one government store for every 800 families. Here, there is only one in an area of 20,000 people. It is over 3/4 of a kilometer away meaning that they must pay more to transport the food than the food actually costs.

After 10 years they are starting to get organized. They have filed a Public Interest Litigation to help everyone get ration cards and several womans groups are active. Earlier this month over a hundred woman blocks a nearby highway to protest the Common Wealth Games despite being beaten by the police.

Its hard to know what to take out of situations like this other than feeling very fortunate and wondering how our lifestyles might be contributing to these situations.

Delhi: The Common Wealth Games

I've been in Delhi, the capital of India, for almost a week and there is one thing on everyone's mind: The Common Wealth Games. The CWG is like a mini Olympics for all of Britain's former colonies. The Common Wealth's history of brutal colonization is an accurate foreshadowing for how the currents games are playing out. The government in Delhi is set on making it a modernized city, even if only for two weeks. So far the games have cost between $10-30 billion and has been the largest corruption scandal in the past 15 years. Streets were paved, stadiums built, and the poor removed. Estimates for the number of people displaced range from 30,000 to 400,000. The parking lot outside where I am staying was filled with small houses a month ago, many who had been there for over 20 years. Only 20-25% were resettled to degraded lands normally next to dumps on the outskirts of the city. The rest were told to leave on their own. If they showed up during the games, the police told them they would spend two months in jail. The city has been plastered with CWG signs. Views of slums have been blocked with large billboards. People say the city is under siege by the military for security reason, and everyone knows that the only part of the Games that will remain are the empty stadiums and huge public debt, yet none of this can be seen on the television broadcasts. During the closing ceremonies last night the announcer claimed, "The Common Weather Games have been a demonstration of equality" I must have missed something.

The CWG is just a shocking example. India has the most billionaires in the world, and many live a stones throw from slums. Its a country of contrast and one that is impossible to explain or understand. How can one justify spending billions of dollars when a recent study in India found that 70% of the population lives on 20 rupees ($.50 USD). More to come..

As always, please comment.

Gustavo Esteva

IHP is filled with interesting people. One in particular is Gustavo Esteva. Although I have never teased out his exact age, Gustavo grew up in Mexico at a time when the term "underdevelopped" just been coined to describe the majority of the world, especially the global South. For them "underdevelopped" left only one option, and that was development. Just like everyother boy his age, Gustavo wanted to be part of it. By his early twenties he was appointed IBM Mexico's youngest executive, then he went to on to work for Procter & Gamble. Quickly, however, Gustavo found that his development work was not helping the Mexican people. It was about making a profit. Eventually, he was asked to leave to when to refused to do what was asked of him.
After working in the development business, Gustavo swung to the left, Latin American style. This was the era of the guerrilla --Che and Fidel's era. It was not long before he realized that the Guerrilla life was not for him. It was too much about killing people. Guerrillas didn't live long, so Gustavo went into government. He began to climb the bureaucratic ladder quickly, and just shy of a minister position he quit. He "saw the logic of the government." It wasn't for the people any more than the corporations were. In 1983 he met Ivan Illich. By this time the discontents of development we becoming more clear. In 1960 the wealthy in Mexico were 20 times richer than the poor. Twenty years later they were 46 times richer. For many, Mexico's struggle with development culminated in 1994 with the armed resitance by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), which broke out the day that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) came in effect. Their slogan was, "Ya Basta!" or Enough! They've had enough of development, enough of free trade, enough of the Mexican government, enough of colonization. They wanted the autonomy to develop or not develop on their own terms. Since the out break of the movement and to this day, Gustavo Esteva has been an adviser for the movement. He also helps run Universidad de la Tierra and co-coordinates IHP.

Why Am I Blogging?

For the next 8 months I am going to be traveling with International Honors Program's Rethinking Globalization. If you want to know more about the program, go here: http://www.ihp.edu/page/rethinking_globalization/

I am creating this blog for two reasons. First, I am going to have limited internet access and want to keep friends and family updated. I would love to write everyone of you emails and letters this year, but it is just not possible. This does not mean that if you write me I won't write back, rather expect a short response.

The main reason, however, for this blog is to share the ideas that we are going to be exploring throughout this trip and to ask for your thoughts and feedback. I am going to pose questions and make public the internal dialogs that will be going on in my head as I travel. I am going to keep my posts brief, so that they are easy to read. I am approaching this with an intellectual aim rather than a creative one. I encourage everyone to share their thoughts using the comments feature whether you are a Cochran's racer, relative, friend, professor, or any combination of these. Thanks for reading and I am looking forward to sharing this trip with you.