Introduction
On 5th October 2024, the People’s Resource Center (PRC) in collaboration with Camera Commune screened two films by PRC. The first film screened was “How Ahmedabad Lost Sabarmati”, and the second was “Disappearing Diving Communities; The Gotakhors of Yamuna” Both films speak of rivers and the ecologies around rivers. There is a long-historic relationship between rivers, cities, and development. While rivers have sustained city ecologies since immemorial, the city has not done the same for rivers. There has been a direct attack on rivers in today’s context which has led to the destruction of rivers, riverine communities, and their surrounding ecology. Today cities are run by the logic of “development”. When one imagines a city, one pictures tall towers and a built environment that looks a certain way. What constitutes this imagination? And where does it come from? Cities have become symbols of aspiration and mobility, where embodying a city life would mean embodying growth and freedom. However, the lived realities of city dwellers challenge this imagination about the city.
PRC has been working towards reimagining the idea of the city from a perspective that is wholesome and sustainable. Our imagination strives to bring together different aspects of what makes a city possible. For us, a river continuum is made up of all the people that are associated with the waterbody. In order to work towards making river ecologies sustainable, one needs to look at the communities that are associated with the river. Through both of our films, we can understand in depth how the city fails its river and people. Are cities then a tool for mobility for everyone? Who gets left behind? These are some questions our films attempt to answer in some ways. The motive of making and showing our films is to start a conversation among different stakeholders of the city who come together to make the city.
Film synopsis – Disappearing Diving Communities; The Gotakhors of Yamuna
In the heart of Delhi, the Gotakhor community embodies a rich tapestry of traditional knowledge and skill, honed over generations. The film highlights the vital role that Gotakhors play in the urban landscape—whether it’s keeping waterways clean, retrieving valuable objects from the depths, or providing life-saving assistance in emergencies. Through their remarkable talents and unwavering dedication, the Gotakhors remind us of the importance of preserving traditional expertise in an increasingly modern world. With rapid urbanisation and development projects like river-fronts, the craft and economies of such traditional practitioners are on the verge of getting lost. The film urges its viewers to think about our urban ecologies in ways that it enable the sustenance of all lives.
Film synopsis – How Ahmedabad lost Sabarmati
More than a hundred riverfront projects have already been planned in different Indian cities situated on rivers. These projects claim to transform riverbanks into recreational spaces for the public and to ‘beautify’ the urban rivers. The grim reality is, however, that these projects often become a vehicle to displace the communities living on the riverbanks and destroy the social ecology of the river. Rivers in India are dying but riverfronts do not help revitalise them. Riverfronts merely mask the degradation of the river and urban environment while capturing the valuable urban space for elite usage. Sabarmati River, a seasonal river that flows through Ahmedabad and where Gandhi had built his Ashram, is now famous for the riverfront that has been built on it. This film revisits the Sabarmati Riverfront Project where it all started. Featuring: Beena Jadhav, Bharat Singh Jhala, Jay Narayan Vyas, Mudita Vidrohi, Navdeep Mathur, Nafeezbhai Allahwala, Neeta Mahadev, Sagar Rabari
Screenings at Camera Commune
The first screening, where two of our films were screened, was organised in collaboration with Camera Commune, which is a collective of people who like to watch and screen films to engage in different conversations. They have been screening various films constantly, they also conducted a Film festival called “Hope in the Dark” based on the theme of collective struggles for freedom. The Screening took place at Mool, which is an art collective that aims to discuss and critique art in a non-petty-bourgeoise fashion. Before we watched the films, we had a presentation from the Camera Commune team on Sabarmati and Gujarat. Mandeera from Camera Commune through their presentation set a context of the city of Ahmedabad. They start by delving into the “LPG reforms” and how that changed the landscape of city planning and development in India as funds were now being plunged into the city from all directions. In this capital-driven re-imagination of the city, displacement becomes a key aspect. For a bunch of these “development” projects, lots of communities were now being rehabilitated outside the city. They also elaborated on the Sabarmati River and its larger ecology. Lastly, they explained the nexus that made the riverfront project possible with a vivid timeline of the same.
Post the film screening, members from the PRC team spoke to the audience answered their questions, and engaged in discussions that followed. Through the discussion, it was noted how the model of riverfront development comes from Sabarmati and is being implemented everywhere, including Delhi. Both films link to a common thread of rivers and river ecologies around cities. For the riverfront projects to be possible for different regions, local-level governments made accommodating arrangements. In Delhi, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) changed the land use pattern around the Yamuna to facilitate the project. The logic provided there was that they were not “concretizing” the Yamuna bank, instead, they were only making a walkway. Similarly, other riverfront projects like the one in Varanasi were discussed, where tenders and architects were coming from Gujrat.
The Sabarmati model of riverfronts is rapidly spreading across India. The Sabarmati model is a method in itself, the idea of such infrastructure on the banks of rivers in cities is to grab common-use land to make them “Productive”. The productivity here is closely linked to generating economic activities around the river banks. Firstly, by embarking on the construction project, which is where the government can bring in companies that shall build the riverfront. And subsequently, there shall be shops and malls around such riverfronts which again generate economic activities. River banks, which earlier were commonly used by different groups and communities for activities ranging from survival to leisure, are now completely under the hands of corporations. This idea of the riverfront is that it grabs common-use land and gives it to corporations. One such community that survives on river ecologies is the Gothakhor community (Diving Community) of Yamuna. Such communities not only depend on river ecologies but also help sustain them. Gotakhors dive into Yamuna and can retrieve different materials as well as bodies from the river. These are skills and knowledge systems known and practiced in specific communities, with the coming of riverfront projects, such knowledge systems and skills are lost.
Another point of discussion was what happens to communities like the Gotakhors when riverfront projects become a reality. We’ve learned from all the riverfront projects in the country that communities that form a foundational part of river ecologies are uprooted from their habitats near the river and are forced to live several kilometers outside the city. Such rehabilitation projects promise compensation and “Pakka” housing to these communities. However, due to being away from the river itself, their livelihoods get affected. Even if they weren’t entirely dependent on river ecologies for work, they worked somewhere in the city. Post re-habilitation they now are forced to travel long distances to continue with their education or employment.
Screening at Studio Safdar
On 10th October 24, 2024 People’s Resource Center organised a second screening of the film “Disappearing Diving Communities; The Gotakhors of Yamuna” at Studio Safdar in Shadipur, Delhi. This time, the film screening was attended by a diverse audience ranging from college-going students to rickshaw pullers and local residents. It is always an enriching experience to share our work with a diverse set of audience. After the screening of the film, the audience while having tea discussed the film with the PRC team.
The discussion that followed touched upon a range of issues, some audience members shared their experiences of having seen clean Yamuna beyond a certain point in Delhi. Which opened up conversations on the flow of the river and what happens to the river when it comes to the city. Some members pointed out how Yamuna is cleaner on certain ends of the city at the same time some other audience members brought up the vivid imagery of foam-filled Yamuna during Chathh Puja every year. The pressure on rivers is not only to fulfill the water needs of a city but to also be used as a dumping ground for the waste that the city produces. This is the irony with which rivers in today’s economies are surviving. The same polluted water from Yamuna is cleaned and used as drinking water further in the west. It was also noted that Yamuna only fulfills a small portion of the water needs for Delhi, a large amount of water is brought in from different other places to ensure a continuous supply of water into the city. What these conversations point to is the scale at which a city functions and how the current city economy is unsustainable by itself. Not only are resources needed from several regions to fulfill the needs of an ever-growing city but also the city’s waste is not being contained within the city and spills over into the periphery. This ties to our earlier discussion on how certain communities are re-habilitated outside the city and onto its periphery. Communities once central to a river are now living alongside the waste produced by the city.
Audience members were able to sympathise with the issues of communities like the Gotakhors, who are dependent on the river for their survival. Their social and economic lives are arranged around the river and their relationship with the river. Once they are moved away from the rivers, they shall likely loose their respective livelihoods as well. In such cases, it becomes important to understand what re-habilitation then looks like for communities that are dependent on river ecologies and possess skills and knowledge about the river. One possible proposal for the Gotakhor community also articulated by the protagonists in the film is to work with the government. In the status quo, the government anyway relies on the skills and expertise of such communities. It was noted that during the 2023 Delhi floods, it was the efficient divers from the Gotakhor communities who were contacted to help rescue people stuck in the floods. If the government is already using the skills and labour of these communities and has also created departments like the Disaster Management Authority; it only makes sense to then incorporate this traditional knowledge and skills of the Gotakhor community and offer them employment. By doing so, the Gotakhors shall continue practicing their skills and possibly offer a more efficient and integrated solution to disaster management. They can also preserve this knowledge by archiving it and also maybe conducting workshops to train other professionals in disaster management.
Report by Krishanu, Research Assistant.
