Jodhpur

Last Thursday we migrated from Bikaner to Jodhpur. We arrived in the late afternoon, and since there was nothing else on our agenda, we all went up to the fort to get our tourist on. It had some pretty amazing views of Jodhpur. It's known as the Blue City because a bunch of the houses are painted blue. I heard that it was to denote the Brahmin homes in the city, but I fact-checked this with my host sister when I got home on Sunday and she didn't know if it was true or not. Anyway, there were a lot of French tourists which was interesting - we hadn't (to my knowledge) encountered many French tourists before. A lot of people that I've talked to have said that they studied French in addition to English and Hindi in school though so maybe there's some connection there.
The next morning we visited a Hindu-Pakistani refugee camp outside of Jodhpur. After Partition, Pakistan declared itself a Muslim state, leaving the Hindus in the country feeling threatened (and rightly so as they were often discriminated against & had acts of violence committed against them). Many Indians also traveled between India and Pakistan to visit family and to work as laborers. So when the border closed, a lot of Indians were left trapped on the other side. There's one train a week that runs from Pakistan to Jodhpur. Hindu-Pakistanis have to come over with Indian visas, then begin a long process of extending their visas until they finally gain citizenship. However, citizenship doesn't get them much, as they're on the lowest rung of society (most were already scheduled castes/dalits so that didn't change once their citizenship did), so their economic condition hasn't really improved. However, being in a majority-Hindu nation where they feel safe and at home is the primary concern for many. The settlement that we visited is illegal - like the Basti, the government considers it occupied land and comes by every couple months and tells the inhabitants to leave because they're going to tear it down. They never have, but it's a constant worry. They can't register for below-poverty-line cards to get subsidized foods & supplies from the government...I'm a little unclear as to why but I think it's essentially that they don't know how to go about starting the process.
We asked one woman if, had she known about the conditions in the camp in India, she would have still come over. She said yes - and that she did already know - because of the increase in available technology she had been able to communicate with family members in India about what the settlement was like. However, when her mother-in-law crossed over she didn't know what it would be like. I talked to a woman later who had never lived in Pakistan - she was from Jodhpur and had married a refugee who had gained his citizenship (gaining citizenship allows refugees to participate in Indian social society as they can travel through the country, attend festivals, and get married). Because India is a patrilocal society though, she had to move to the illegal settlement to live with her husband. That they both have citizenship makes getting things like healthcare and education slightly easier for them - and she doesn't have to work - but not by much. I was confused about why she couldn't help to secure a BPL card for the family, and my Hindi teacher, who was interpreting, didn't really answer my question. But I think it's a case of Indian bureaucratic red tape - applying for anything from the government is a long, convoluted process that people simply don't have the time to invest in.
Right before we left for the organization we met with the head of an advocacy NGO that works on behalf of the refugees. We were given two articles to read that described the refugees' situation and what sorts of things had happened to them in Pakistan. I think that going to the camp immediately after reading the articles made it a much more powerful experience - we were able to connect the abstract notion of "Hindu-Pakistani Refugees" to the people sitting in front of us.
After a quick lunch at a restaurant that was decorated with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Miley Cyrus - though probably not affiliated with Disney and thus a lawsuit waiting to happen - we were off again to GRAVIS, a development NGO working in the Thar Desert. They basically gave us an overview of their projects (elderly care, revitalization of indigenous knowledge with modern technological improvements, reforestation with native plants that require less water, etc.) via power point. Interesting, but in conjunction with the fluorescent lighting in the room, our energy level quickly declined. There was a mystery white man sitting at the table that we were all curious about - we later learned that his name is Ben and works for Traditional Medicinals, a tea company out of Berkeley. He's in Jodhpur working with GRAVIS on their development projects on behalf of the company, because they source some of their plants from the Thar. We invited him to dinner at the same Disney-fied restaurant we had lunch at, mainly because we had seen pizza advertised and wanted a break from Indian food. It was nice to be able to talk to an American in India (outside of our group) about being an American in India, and also to learn more about his work, since that sounds like the kind of job I would potentially want in the future.