Carlo Torriani

SWARGA DWAR

The conversion of a catholic missionary

presented by

Card. Simon Pimenta

PIME Publications, PIME Regional House, Eluru - 534 0-07, A.P., India

JANATA COLONY

 The decision to live in Janata Colony has not been an easy, nor a peaceful decision. Anyone can understand it from some expressions of the previous letter written at that time: “my need of action, my need to show off”, ”the feeling of being useless”, “a shred of my soul”. That was a time of searching and a time of crisis. As I wrote in the next letter, at November 1973 I was already thinking  “to leave Janata Colony in its desperation”.

 Letter No.5, Bombay, November 1973

Dear Friends,

    After my letter of one year ago, many of you wrote to me asking: “ what  are you doing in

Janata Colony?  To tell you the truth it is a difficult question and my fist reaction can be expressed like

this: “In Janata Colony I get angry”. I will try to explain to you.

Imagine that in a place not larger than one square kilometer no less than 40,000 people are living. This settlement was established  in 1952 when the authorities collected here all the laborers who were living on the footpath near the port. In 1958 the Bhaba Atomic Research Center was established. All the land around Janata Colony was requisitioned by the Government for building the residential area. So those poor people, who had just been shifted from the port, they learned overnight that they should be shifted again somewhere else. The new site and the conditions for shifting were not at all alluring.  The people never agreed to move. But since the decision of shifting had been taken, the municipality never did any maintenance work in the colony. Water connections, drainage, public toilets, roads remained untouched for two decades. The population kept increasing and multiplying but the infrastructures remained the same. School rooms overcrowded, health services left to private initiative.

    What can I do in such a situation? I helped some people to repair their huts. I distributed plastic sheets during the rainy season to cover the roof. I helped for digging wells where municipal water was not available. Water is supplied only four hours a day. I organized a small saving bank, giving loans to people with the guarantee of five others. In the evening I teach myself English to those who hope to migrate in the Gulf. I got also a second hand typewriter for those who want to learn typing. But I never lose the chance to make the people aware of their rights and their duties.

    One confrere of mine came for a visit and noticing that the public toilets were all without doors

(private toilets are not permitted), he wanted to leave a donation for fitting the doors. I refused saying that I did not come to substitute the municipality but to make people aware of their rights.

Then which results did you get? Nothing! That is why I am telling you that I am getting angry.

You realize that this is not the way of living of human beings. You realize that there is something wrong in a world in which a few hundred people can spend for a night in a five-stars hotel what millions of people earn in a month of hard work.

    Living with the poor you realize that nobody listen to them. Nobody pay attention to their needs. They are always exploited. Those who give them a paltry daily wage they say: “They are lazy, They don’t want to work”. It is true: their ignorance is their curse. They don’t realize they are exploited.

They easily take to drink, to gambling. They don’t care about their health. They don’t bother to send their children to school. They don’t know how to talk politely and so they pick up quarrels. The well-to-do people say: “See what kind of people they are!”

     What can I do alone? Those who have power and money they use it only for themselves. Starting from the politicians who use their power to feed themselves. Then you understand why during the riots people give vent to their anger against public busses and trains. They react irrationally to an irrational situation. Tell me what can I do in this situation? You may dream about a revolution. But, I think, you can start a revolution only in your country. Then what is left? I have only my voice to shout against injustice and have only the way of the cross to suffer with the victim.

I do not know how long I will resist in this situation. Clearly it is a choice of principle: if the world is unjust and nothing can be done, then I will stay on the side of the victims. May be one day I have to leave Janata Colony in its desperation with its problems without solution, but it will be a defeat.

Those who have power and riches must understand that the world cannot go on like this.

Either we convert ourselves or we will all perish.