Come and see what they have done to your name: Haryana’s ‘Trump village’ to US Prez

Marora: Around the time Modi and Trump met for the first time in the US, a village 12,000 km away in Haryana took on the US president’s name.
Those in Mewat’s Marora village were told the new name would help draw attention to the many problems it faced. Three years on, as India prepares for Trump’s first visit, the hopes have festered into disgruntlement and the village wants its eponymous “world leader” to visit, “just to see how bad things are”.
“It was all a gimmick. I don’t think even our PM has heard of our village. How would Trump know?” asked Iqbal, a farmer. Next to him, another farmer had an idea: “This time, Trump should meet us and see how his name is being dragged in the mud.”
In 2017, Sulabh International had “renamed” the village after the US president. The promises werethe basics — the entire village would go open defecation free, there would be a toilet in each house and children of widows would get free education. Now, there are no signs announcing the new name.
Soon after the grand renaming event on June 23, 2017, the administration had said the entire thing was ‘illegal’ and the organisation hastily removed all banners and signage boards. The name, however, survived.
Three years since the grand renaming, things do seem right at first glance. The promised toilets have been built, as has a skill development centre. “The toilets are all there, painted in bright colours. They look good. But our village is facing an acute water shortage. We rely on water tankers for our daily supply. Without water, these toilets are useless,” said Manoj, an unemployed casual labourer. Women and the elderly use them, for lack of options, but use water judiciously. The men don’t.
The skill centre, just a little further along, had a promising start and held out hope for young women in the village, for a brief while. “I love designing clothes. I wanted to pick up tailoring and start my own business,” said Priyanka, who had to drop out after class X. Junior college is nowhere close and her parents would not let her travel that far every day.
“But the centre shut down in a few weeks. The trainer never returned. We feel cheated,” she added. The makeshift room with tarpaulin sheets over it — a selfie spot for those few weeks — has now been rented out.
Some are still certain Trump is responsible for no work ever being done.
“When will he and his men get us water supply? His men came here, built toilets and never returned,” an elderly villager said. Others believe Trump did send the money across but officials in India sat over it.
It’s not hard to see why the grudging hope remains alive, when even the basics like water and electricity remain out of reach. Power supply is restricted to six hours in the evening, no more. “Our village is right along the highway. The street lights don’t work and crossing the highway gets dangerous at night. There have been so many accidents,” said Dipender, a class X student.
The three villages of Marora panchayat — Marora, Nizampur and Jhawa — have to shell out at least Rs 1,000 for each tanker. It can go up to Rs 1,500 in summers. “People here don’t earn too much. We are spending way too much on water. They built toilets, changed the name of the village, took photos and went away,” said sarpanch of Marora, Shaukat Ali.
Most in the village have not found jobs for years. There is little work under MNREGA. Manoj, for instance, has not been able to find work for five months. “We rarely get work. Even if we do, it’s never more than a couple of weeks,” said Zubair Khan, a 30-year-old.
His mother, Islami, said lack of proper drainage leads to severe sanitation problems. But there is no health centre to take people to. She added: “During monsoons, there is a lot of waterlogging. Our children get sick. But we don’t have a healthcare centre, so taking them to the hospital takes time. Modi says he wants Swachh Bharat. Ask him to come to my village with his friend Trump and make my village swachh.”