Some photos of the disputed site

The South City towers sometime in August 2006.

The little house on the left is where Shambhu Prasad continues to live.

A close up of Shambhu's residence with his family visible on the balcony.

Ranu Ghosh shooting.

The Saga of Shambhu Prasad Begins

In 1994, before the staff quarters were demolished, Shambhu had filed a petition in the High Court, asking for a stay till such time that his full and deserved compensation was paid by his employers. The workers had never been informed of the sale of the factory land, nor been given advance notice of their eviction and the subsequent demolition of their residences. Instead, they had been forced out with a token amount paid under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme. Shambhu was the only one who refused the VRS payout, and despite the threats to his life and well-being by hoodlums as well as the police, he took the matter to court from where he obtained a stay on his eviction as well as on the demolition of his residence. Because of this, Shambhu says that about forty lakhs of rupees remains unpaid to the Usha factory owners by the developers as on date.

Subsequently, Shambhu was deserted by two of his lawyers, who he suspects were bought over by the developers. In 2005, the High Court ruled that Shambhu's case was not a matter for them and belonged to the jurisdiction of the City Civil Court in Alipore. He had to go through the whole procedure all over again, and it is where it still stands as Shambhu continues his fight in the face of big money and even bigger odds with his meagre and dwindling resources.

Apart from the environmental issues that such a huge construction raises, causing genuine concern for not just me, but all citizens, I also see two other film projects in this story both of which will highlight the human interest side. These are the 'case studies' as it were, of the group of ex-workers who continue to live like lost souls along the boundary wall of South City, and the story of Shambhu, an individual, who by the courage of his convictions, has dared to confront the big money of corporate developers, and has unwittingly challenged the injustice they are perpetrating on the community.

What Do I Want To Do: by Ranu Ghosh

I had been following the workers and their dependants mentioned above for some time, documenting their stories, recording their disbelief at their reduced status, how they were trying to adjust to the vicious change in their lives, and how they continued to live in 'jhuggi-jhopdis' beside the wall of the South City development. Skilled workers were now caretakers of private property; running tiny shops; plying cycle rickshaws; itinerant vendors; or simply sitting by the blocked gates despondently watching what is touted as the one of the tallest constructions in this part of the world, growing skywards in leaps and bounds every day.

At the same time, because of my own interest in environmental issues, I interacted with the local Nagarik (Citizens') Committee who have filed a case against the developers in the Calcutta High Court, accusing them of illegally filling up a large natural water body – the Bikramgarh jheel - to construct the fourth tower of the high-rise complex, and of also causing untold damage to the environment as a consequence of their activities. The case, filed on the basis of a signature campaign among 250 or so resident families, initially seemed to have received unexpected, but indirect support from the West Bengal Pollution Control Board who submitted to the Court that no clearances for the real estate project had been issued by them. But construction continues unabated. In fact, at last count, a high powered committee chaired by the Chief Secretary of the state government is “looking into the matter”, and it is popularly believed that all vested interests will be served, completely denying former Usha factory workers of their rights and further justice, and resulting in an irretrievable loss of environment for the local residents, many of whom have been living there for decades before the Usha factory came up in the 50s.

Popular belief also holds that the PCB and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation have told the developers that were they to create an artificial water body within the South City complex equivalent in size to the natural water body they have usurped, the official clearances required to complete construction would be forthcoming!

In 2006, when I returned to document how the staff living quarters, the school and playground had been destroyed, the walls raised and the gates blocked to make way for the construction, I accidentally got to know of Shambhu Prasad, a second-generation worker of Jay Engineering. While talking with the other workers, they told me of Shambhu who stubbornly resided in his officially appointed quarters, slap-bang in the middle of the mammoth real estate development. South City's four gigantic towers are actually rising around his house.

How It All Began - Ranu Ghosh Tells A True Story

1992: I was working on a film project on closed and sick industries in Bengal for CINDIT of New Delhi who were involved with development issues. While I had earlier worked on a voluntary basis and in a sort of activist mode with small, local organisations, this was the first time I was to professionally explore the issues that have always interested and concerned me.

In 1994, Jyoti Basu then Chief Minister of West Bengal, made some significant remarks regarding closed and sick industries of the state, which would have far-reaching implications. With this background I began to privately work on documenting and filming social issues which concerned me, many of which were shown in India and abroad. Simultaneously, I also worked on a commercial basis in the industry for personal sustenance, but I always tried to work on projects in which a certain level of protest and activism was apparent. These included environmental issues like water and air pollution in which their severity and ill-effects were highlighted.

In 1995, I was living in rented accommodation in the locality right behind the erstwhile Usha Factory on Prince Anwar Shah Road, the site of the present mammoth real estate development known as South City. The Jay Engineering factory (a unit of Usha Industries) which occupied most of the industrial enclave was still partly functional and had not yet been shut down. The smaller workshops and sheds of ancillary manufacturers and vendors abutted the factory and I could see a lot of them from the rooftop of my house.

A year before, while doing a film on the Calcutta wetlands, I closely observed the changes that were taking place because of the new constructions and real estate development in the areas off the bypass including Salt Lake. We projected effects on the environment and were amazed to find that town planning norms had never actually included the development of these areas. In fact, this side of the city was never meant to be developed so drastically at all. The sites proposed for development were meant to be on the other side of the river, in the Howrah region!

Over the last few years, I can see how the eastern and southern areas of the city have undergone rampant development, how built-up settlements have rapidly expanded, and I am a witness as well as a co-sufferer of the many problems facing the residents. This aspect was made acutely aware to me one day when the cycle rickshawala taking me home, in an aggrieved tone full of aggression, suddenly told me that the housing complex in which I resided was built on a paddy field, and that the manicured lawn on which I often spent some relaxed time was exactly the spot where his own paddy crop had been cultivated. He, along with other farmers, had been forcibly evicted from there with a miniscule compensation and he was now trying hard to earn a living as a rickshawala while his wife worked as a domestic help in that very complex. This piece of information shocked me out of my comfort zone and strengthened my resolve to do something positive .

In 2004 I heard that the Usha factory land had been sold to the consortium developing the high-rise South City complex. This was completely contrary to what Jyoti Basu had declared in '94 when he said that the Usha Factory land would be used for the construction of Apollo Hospital and that a pharmaceutical factory would also come up there, providing employment and other benefits to the local population.

I am personally against the real estate development in the Eastern Metropolitan bypass and adjoining areas. I visited the Usha factory location in '04 and talked with the residents who lived around it. From them I learned that the employees of Usha factory still living in their allocated staff quarters were to be evicted very soon. I also heard that CITU, the CPI(M)'s labour union, had taken over the negotiations with the factory owners, depriving the affected workers of a large portion of their deserved compensation.

Most of the workers had quietly accepted whatever handout came their way and had left the quarters. As soon as they vacated their premises, the housing was dismantled, making it inhabitable. I interviewed the women and migrant workers most affected by the strong-arm tactics of the developers, documented my findings, and saw the last vestiges of two generations of a community on the brink of oblivion. I saw these people, immigrants from neighbouring districts and states, unable to accept the changes that had been forced on them. I saw the way they tried to cope with the drastic degradation in their lifestyles, their lack of suitable employment leading to penury, and how all this affected them so deeply that they were unwilling to take leave of the area, opting to live in crude hutments and shacks beside the high wall that now enclosed their former place of residence, without the benefit of basic amenities. This is when I firmly decided that I would devote my time, energy and limited personal funds to highlight their plight.