SWASHRAYA BARODA
My name is Usha. I have come from Baroda, I live in GIDC there. We have been living there for the past 10 years. The Municipality did not give any notice; they did not tell us. The police came and broke our homes. The sun was so harsh that day that even a mother would find a child a burden… Our pots of water were smashed, our vessels thrown out. They brought hammers, broke our walls, threw away our fuelwood…We said, bhai, we are poor. Let us be. Why are you driving us out. They said, where do you come from. We said, our desh is very far away. They said go back to your desh. We were driven out of our desh (Country), we replied, that is why we have come to this pardesh (Foreign country). Why should we have come here otherwise? This is sarkari land. Sarkar will not allow you to live here, was their final answer…They came and broke our homes. We kept watching. We went to the corporation office. They did not listen to us. We filed a case in Ahmedabad. We went for hearings too. The case is still going on…At our basti (settlement) we do not have electricity or water. The garbage of the whole world is dumped at our doorstep. It stinks; diseases spread in the basti. We live there in bad conditions; the poor have no status…