Leisure is life here. The city is, by and large, laid back. A typical day begins with an extended contemplative ritual: Cleaning one’s teeth and gums with sunghani (snuff), the tobacco-based powder that does less for the teeth than it does for the senses, introducing just the right degree of intoxication through the gums as you sit on the steps of the ghats, watching the sun come up; a dip in the river, amid the cacophany of bells, aartis and mantras all around…But rage and violence lie just below the surface of the 3,000-plus-year-old city.
Last week, an eight-year-old was found on a rubbish heap after being raped. Her lips had been sealed with glue to ensure she didn’t call for help. Earlier, convicts in the central jail went berserk and took some police officials hostage, after some overzealous officers tried to prevent them from meeting kin in the open, seeking to confine them in a hall, divided by layers of chicken mesh.
The district magistrate had to drive to the jail, klaxons blaring, to sort the matter.Part of the problem is the serious urban problems the city faces. Once dug, no road has been completed. The National Highway is motorable but only just.
The Ganga Action Plan observed its silver jubilee last June; it has been unable to prevent the Ganga, the Varuna and Assi (tributaries of the Ganga) from turning into a huge sewage drain. Uttar Pradesh claims it gets less than 2,300 Mw power from the central pool than its scheduled quota.
As a result, like the rest of the state, Varanasi swelters in the summer and shivers in the winter, with daily outages of three and six hours during peak season.
So, development is a big issue in the election. Not just on the ghats, where the soul of Varanasi holds all its press conferences, but also in Banaras Hindu University, Besant College and among those who count themselves as part of India’s demographic dividend.One such is Bablu Pandey, who fashions himself on Salman Khan in Dabangg. A student and guide, he has strong views.
“Just look at that,” he said, pointing to a half-burnt corpse bobbing in the Ganga. “That happened because there was no electricity, so the crematorium (set up in 1984 to cut down strain on the river) didn’t work. The family must have had to burn the body on the ghat and probably didn’t have enough money to pay for the wood. This is what our city has been reduced to.”
Pandey says his friends and he are fed up of shortages, having to make-do, the chalta hai… “What Rahul Gandhi said -- that he would restore UP’s izzat – means a lot to us. We want to be liberated from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s goondaism and Mayawati’s corruption.”
Both Mayawati and Mulayam are selling employment in this region. “If we come to power, we will make Mayawati and the UP government accountable for every penny it spent – and what it didn’t,” thunders Yadav in nearby Ghazipur.
“Remember the goondas? They will be back if the Samajwadi Party is back,” says Mayawati at a public meeting in Azamgarh.Varanasi is poised to decide on February 15 whether it will go back to its roots – this was the city that gave Kamlapati Tripathi to the state as a chief minister, admittedly more than four decades ago. Four other CMs of the state belong to Poorvanchal, the eastern region that accounts for 100-odd seats in the legislative assembly, sprawling over 22 districts. Varanasi is its heart. The Bahujan Samaj Party swept the region in 2007, the Congress getting just four.
