Slum clearance usually termed as, urban renewal strategy, aims at removing the slums that occupy areas that are owned by the state. This is often considered ‘slum upgrading’ in a developing country like India, but it renders several people homeless and they eventually occupy other areas. Slum clearance methods employed by the authorities in most cases, raise several ethical questions about morality and humanity.
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of tightly packed old housing units in a situation of deteriorated and incomplete infrastructure. Inhabited primarily by impoverished people, according to the census of 2011, India is home to more than 65 million slum dwellers, living in 10,8000 slums, across the country. In spite of this huge population, there are absolutely no efforts taken by the state or the central government to improve the quality of life for slum dwellers.
Also, it’s important to note that this topic is completely ignored by all our political leaders, as I believe, they are more concerned about constructing temples and abusing each other instead of thinking about the nation. The citizens of our country also refuse to talk about this or do anything in favour of slum dwellers. I think we should start contemplating about what makes some of India’s citizens privileged while other fellow citizens are underprivileged; we should also consider that a person does not choose which conditions he/she is born in.
Although people living in urban society think that dwellers willingly live in slums, this is far from the truth. Slums are created and expanded due to a large number of reasons, some of these include; rural-urban migration, urbanisation, poverty, illiteracy, inadequate housing plans, colonialism and segregation, economic stagnation, social exclusion, politics and much more.
Slums are often regarded as ‘eyesores’ and a nuisance by the upper classes. They are considered to be the least preferred part of a city and the place of petty thievery, with sewers overflowing and huge garbage piles. Due to exclusion from the outside world and a lack of proper housing, slum dwellers are in a state of perpetual insecurity.
One incident that opened the eyes of sleeping and ignorant authorities and citizens to the real conditions in slums occurred a few years ago, in a densely populated metropolitan city of India. An infant was found dead during the slum clearance action and the authorities in charge stated to the press that the reason was that slums stood on the railway tracks and hence posed serious problems for train operations. It is awful how humankind has evolved to a stage where such a severe violation of human rights and the death of an infant was covered up with such statements.
Because of incidents like the one mentioned above, slum dwellers feel neglected and ignored and lose faith in the government as well as in humanity. Quite often, slums are cleared after shallow promises of moving dwellers to low-income housing boards provided by the government. But, unfortunately, these promises are not kept and many people are left homeless until they settle on an unoccupied footpath or railway tracks. Eventually, slum dwellers refuse to move out of their slum homes and stop believing promises of relocation to better housing.
I am not trying to say that slum clearances are wrong, I’m simply saying that there are more humane ways to carry out such drives. It is better to legitimise slums rather than to push out residents. Our goal as a nation should be to help people and improve their lives, therefore, related actions need to be driven by what makes the process more comfortable for those who need it.
As a person who has travelled to all of the four major cities in India and seen the slums of Chennai, Kolkata, and the biggest slum in the world, Dharavi; I can personally testify that the sight of these slums is incredibly heart wrenching and unpleasant.
I firmly believe that slums pose a problem to the country’s development, but as citizens of this country, we have to go beyond what we see on TV and fight for fundamental human rights.
The first action that the authorities or even citizens can take to uplift the lives of slum dwellers is to understand the root causes that lead to the creation of slums. Also, we need to aim for a fair income gap between citizens. The government could initiate schemes that guarantee employment and daily wages to slum dwellers.
NGOs can play an essential role here as they can educate the dwellers about the hindrance that slums pose and try to convince them to move away from such captured lands to well-built housing boards. Before slum clearances are carried out, and slum homes are demolished, proper housing should be built so that slum dwellers can be moved to affordable housing rather than being displaced.
Schemes such as the affordable housing partnership, Rajiv Awas Yojana, and Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana, all aim to provide slum dwellers with better facilities; thus, pressurising the government to re-enforce such policies would be a step in the right direction. Whenever possible, we should upgrade existing slums by providing better drinking water facilities and building proper housing.
We should asses what the underprivileged people of our country need from us. What we preach almost every day, ‘all Indians are my brothers and sisters’ needs to be practised every day, and together, we can make this country a better place for everybody to live in.