Between bouts of heavy rains, Ambedkar Nagar residents on July 17, 2021 assembled with placards hanging around their necks to demand their relocation from the red-zone area. Adults and small children alike stepped out of their bamboo-and-plastic shacks, sporting messages that in different ways voiced their one single demand – decent housing in a safe region as per Bombay High court orders dating back to May 7, 1997.

People stood outside their makeshift houses with signs that read, “We request Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to rehabilitate us disaster-ridden Ambedkar Nagar residents.”

One child standing outside his shack showed a placard that read, “The people here live in bamboo houses. There are no basic amenities here. Why is this place called a house?”

Another child held a placard questioning why the move was delayed despite directions by the Court.

According to actor Anish Yadav, residents have been living in fear ever since the infamous Malad wall collapse of 2019. Around 29 people including two children had died in the incident, claimed residents.

“Our only demand is for rehabilitation because we fear something like the wall collapse may happen again,” said Yadav.

Similarly, labourer Kiran Asogupta, who found two bodies behind her shack two years ago said that children often cry at night during monsoon, fearing their death.

“Even today, it has been raining for four hours. We are scared our kids will get washed away. They ask us to leave this place but we cannot even leave,” said Asogupta.

In other areas, slum-dwellers have an option of exiting their place until conditions improve. However, the people here are at risk even in the open in the red alert zone. They also cannot go to their workplace because employers claim “they might spread diseases.”

“How many days are we supposed to go without work? Children can’t even attend online classes now because we have no money to pay for internet access,” she said.

Another resident, domestic worker Niranjan Rana said he lost his job during the coronavirus pandemic. However, despite economic troubles, he still wanted the government to prioritise the issue of rehabilitation.

“We have many problems. We lost fathers and children. But we don’t want electricity, water or toilets. Just give us a house. Why? Because even if we get facilities, we still live in garbage,” he said.

As per the Indian Constitution, people of India are entitled to the Right to Life, including the right to live with dignity and with all aspects that make life worth living. While courts interpret this right under Article 21 to encompass clean water and good health, the slum-dwellers here only speak about the need for concrete houses.

Further, Rana criticised the government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for their delay in complete rehabilitation. Even after Cyclone Tauktae, residents saw municipal officials visit the area for a survey. They assured people of new flats in the city but failed to give an estimate as to when.

Moreover, after the recent cyclone, the High Court directed the BMC to submit a report regarding the status of living conditions. Rana claimed that even 25 days after the visit for the report, the same hasn’t been submitted to the court. He asked, “If we had violated any such High Court order, we would have been penalised but here the BMC has violated their directions and no complaint has been lodged. Why?” 

Recently, environmental communications collective Let India Breathe also reached out to the residents. Member Yash Marwah said that volunteers reached out to the BMC, the disaster management department and even the social justice department but did not receive a response.

“The only time the residents come into focus is when there are heavy rains. The important fact is that rain from a single day disrupts their life for at least 4-5 months. The government talks so much about climate justice but they need to realise that social justice is also a part of it,” he said.

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The Delhi High Court has directed state authorities to rehabilitate slum dwellers whose hutments were demolished by Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The court observed that the residents cannot be left on the streets to fend for themselves. 

The bench of Justice Najmi Waziri is determining whether the members of Dhobhi Ghat Jhuggi Adhikar Manch have the right to rehabilitation as per the stipulated cut-off date of January 2006. While they claim they have been living on the land since 1999, the DDA claims the opposite.

The petitioner, Dhobhi Ghat Jhuggi Adhikar Manch is the Union representing many slum dwellers who lost shelter when their hutments were demolished. The court stated that it was up to the State to ensure that some arrangements are made before the rain sets in and that measures towards betterment of health and hygiene standards are implemented, especially in view of the current pandemic.

The counsel for the respondent, DDA submitted that the cut-off date for being eligible for rehabilitation was January 1, 2006 and the members of the petitioner Union were not residing on the land before that and hence they are encroachers and have no right to rehabilitation. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that as per Delhi Slums and JJ Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy, 2015, no demolition of a JJ Basti in existence prior to January 1, 2015 can be carried out without providing alternate rehabilitation.

The court observed that to simply say that none of the petitioners were on its land prior to the cut-off date is a bald and unacceptable submission as the members of the petitioner Union claim to have been residing in the area since 1999. The petitioners have proof like ration cards, school certificates to show that they have been living on the land before the cut-off date, which the court directed them to submit within 2 weeks.

The court pointed out that the pressing need was their rehabilitation as they were living under tarpaulin sheets.

“While their right to rehabilitation is yet to be determined, members of the petitioner-Union cannot be left on the streets to fend for themselves, finding themselves evicted from a place where they claim to have been living for the past two decades. In the circumstances, due arrangements must be made immediately,” the court observed.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), the other respondent, submitted that rehabilitation would require payments by the land-owning agency which is DDA. The court thus directed DUSIB to make necessary arrangements, the cost of which shall be reimbursed by DDA. The DDA will be liable for the rehabilitation of the persons who were uprooted/evicted, if it is proven that they were residents on the land, prior to the cut0-off date of January 1, 2006, the court said.

The court further directed the Deputy Commissioner(south)/Deputy Magistrate to arrange for requisite numbers of toilets for the displaced persons and ensure that there is no water logging in the area. The court also directed that other facilities including medical facilities, temporary tents should also be set up on or before June 8 and sought an affidavit with photographs showing the said arrangements being made.

The DDA sought 4 weeks’ time to submit a counter affidavit along with the relevant records, videograph, satellite pictures, which it may have and the court directed for a rejoinder, if any, to be filed on or before July 22, when the court will hear the matter next.

The order may be read here:

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HLRN is an human rights organisation that works on issues related to adequate housing and land, whereas IRCDUC is a policy think tank focused on work related to deprived urban communities.
 

The displacement dilemma

According to HLRN’s 2018 “Forced Evictions in India” report, 2,02,233 people, mainly from the low-income communities, have been forcefully evicted in 2018 across India.

Tamil Nadu is especially notorious for forcibly evicting communities along water bodies, a trend that has only intensified since the 2015 Chennai floods. The public discourse surrounding the issue, however, has been limited to treating the poor as “encroachers.” This notion, then, adds more obstacles in the discussionof their constitutionally guaranteed rights of residing in the locales.

HLRN reported in 2018 that particularly in Chennai, evictions were executed under the guise of “disaster management,”“restoration of water bodies,” and as execution of a Madras High Court order“to take expeditious steps for early removal of encroachments by construction of alternative tenements.”

Interestingly, Venessa Peter of IRCDUC said to Chennai’s DT Next, “The government is removing ordinary people but they do not touch commercial establishments encroaching the waterbodies.”
 

The eviction

For three days since November23, 2006, these 10,700 families who were living in the Porur Lake area were forcibly evicted by the Public Works Department and the District Administration without due processunder the guise of “restoration of water bodies.”

The International Alliance of Inhabitants (IAI) reported that police personnel arrived in large numbers with earth movers and bulldozers to demolish the present settlements in the area. A three-year-old girl fell into the water and died, while two people died of heart attacks.

IAI further reported that the evicted families had no time to remove their valuables from their houses before the demolition, and lost all their household possessions within a few minutes. Some people were not even able to take their children’s certificates.

The report

Titled “Deprivation By Design—An Assessment of the Long-term Impacts of Forced Relocation from Porur Lake, Chennai,” this collaborative report covers findings fromtheir primary research study focused on the long-term human rights implications that the forced evictionshave had on these families.

Out of the approximately 10,700 families evicted, only 4,000 families were provided alternative land in two sites—Collector Nagar and Nallur—are situated over 20 kilometres from Porur Lake.Both resettlement sites are situated in interior and remote locations without adequate access to public transportation, and yet, these resettled families are better off than the remaining 6,700 families evicted from Porur Lake in 2006 did not receive any relief or rehabilitation from the state whatsoever.

As per the report, the study uses the human rights framework to analyse the process of eviction and relocation of 4,000 relocated families, and to assess the housing and living conditions at both sites. 
 

The findings

Here is a brief summary of the report’s findings.

Violation of the Right to Restitution, including Compensation and Resettlement:The 4000 resettled families have not been provided with any restitution as against what they have lost. They don’t have any legal title over the new land, and have only received ‘tokens’ [a piece of paper with a seal of the tehsildar (revenue official)] for the plot of land six days after they were evicted, on 29 November 2006.

Violation of the Human Right to Adequate Housing and Work/Livelihood: The resettlements sites of Collector Nagar and Nallur are in remote locations with no connectivity to the main road. Nallur is located very close to a water body,which is why the resettled families experience flooding during the monsoon season every year. They also report regular encounters with snakes.In Collector Nagar, even 13 years after relocation, people do not have any legal security of tenure over the land that they have been living on for over a decade.

The lack of connectivity further affects the residents’ opportunities to earn livelihoods. Only 16 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women are employed in informal work in and around the locality; the rest continue to commute to locations near Porur Lake for their livelihoods.

Violation of the Human Right to Education: Children’s education has been severely impacted. In Collector Nagar, an AWC was started only 11 years after families moved there, while in Nallur, it took the state 10 years to set up a functional AWC.

Violation of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation:

In Collector Nagar, one common overhead water tank supplies water for only an hour a day. Government water tankers aimed at meeting the drinking water shortfall, only visit the settlement once in two days. Women bear the burden of fetching water for their families, as most households do not have individual water connections.

In Nallur, water tanks were installed only 10 years after relocation. The settlement does not have household water connections; neither does it have adequate drinking water facilities. Women walk to the end of the road to fetch water from a common tap.
 

Conclusion

The recommendations made by HLRN and IRCDUC to the Government of Tamil Nadu include:

• To ensure the right to adequate housing and security of tenure is protected by developing a state-level human right to adequate housing law, which commits to ending forced evictions and ensures the provision of legal security of tenure without any discrimination.

• To develop a human rights-based, gender-sensitive, and child-friendly policy on rehabilitation and resettlement, in order to ensure a comprehensive and planned approach that respects the human rights of affected persons and adheres to national and international laws, policies, guidelines, and standards.

• To ensure that resettlement is provided within a distance of three kilometres from people’s original sites of residence.

• To announce an inclusive land reservation policy for deprived urban communities. Such a policy should focus on equitable spatial allocation of land for the poor, based on their proportion to the total population.

• To incorporate human rights standards in law and policy related to housing, land, and resettlement in the state.

As Executive Director of HLRN Shivani Chaudhary, noted, “The tendency of the state to consider low-income marginalized communities as dispensable in its broader agenda of non-inclusive urbanisation, while being discriminatory also violates national and international human rights law.”

The entire report may be read here:

An Assessment of the Long-term Impacts of Forced Relocation from Porur Lake, Chennai

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The post Cutting the Ground: Human rights impact on forcible eviction appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The constrained mobility and stressed livelihoods created by displacement and resettlement to sites like Vatwa is a form of structural violence inherent in the development paradigm adopted in Ahmedabad over the past decade. Four dimensions of urban planning produce this structural violence. Distant relocation along with lack of appropriate and affordable transport options negatively impact the mobility, work and livelihoods of a vast majority. Both men and women are impacted negatively but in gender-specific ways. Lack of adequate social amenities nearby, coupled with lack of appropriate and affordable transport options, have also negatively impacted livelihoods. Increased expenditures for basic services and housing maintenance create further challenges for livelihoods. Finally, the unsafe environment at the resettlement sites, which is borne out of planning and governance dynamics, constrains women’s mobility, also impacting livelihoods.

“Poverty, Inequality and Violence in Indian Cities: Towards Inclusive Policies and Planning,” a three-year research project (2013-16) undertaken by Centre for Urban Equity (CUE), CEPT University in Ahmedabad and Guwahati, and Institute for Human Development in Delhi and Patna, is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and Department of International Development (DFID), UK, under the global programme Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC). The research analyzes the pathways through which exclusionary urban planning and governance leads to different types of violence on the poor and by the poor in Indian cities.

The CUE research takes an expansive approach to violence, examining structural or indirect violence (material deprivation, inequality, exclusion), direct violence (direct infliction of physical or psychological harm), overt conflict and its links to violence and different types of crime. We note that not all types of violence are considered as crime (for example, violence by the state), and not all types of crime are considered as violence (for example, theft).

In Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat state, the research focuses on two poor localities: Bombay Hotel, an informal commercial subdivision located on the city’s southern periphery and inhabited by Muslims, and the public housing sites at Vatwa on the city’s south-eastern periphery used for resettling slum dwellers displaced by urban projects.
 

1. DISTANT RELOCATION, TRANSPORT AND IMPACTS ON MOBILITY, WORK AND LIVELIHOOD

The households resettled at the Vatwa sites are 7-15 kms from their former neighbourhoods where they had lived for long and hence had found work places that were easily accessible. Many used to walk or cycle to work. Distant relocation has forced them to spend high amounts on motorized transport to reach work (See Box 1), entailing a reduction in their effective income. Many women have stopped working consequently, coupled with the difficulties that longer travel time creates for juggling paid work and household work. Many youngsters who used to walk to nearby central city areas and find casual work have stopped working since the irregular nature of casual work (i.e. no guarantee that one will find work on any given day) does not justify the transport expense. For casual workers, searching for work now depends on having money for transport. As a result, searching for work has itself become more irregular. Dropping out of the workforce and higher underemployment has severely impacted livelihoods.
 

Box 1: Public Transport (PT) and Intermediary Public Transport (IPT) Connections from Vatwa
Public transport at Vatwa consists of three Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) buses. Given the distance and the fare increase in 2012, buses do not connect to all the work destinations of residents and have inadequate frequency (KBT Nagar local leaders have appealed to the government the AMTS fares to central areas of the city are high (e.g. Rs.14 one-way to Lal Darwaza – See map). These for one more AMTS bus route, but this has not yet been provided).
 

“Transport fares kill us.”
“We have been broken by transport fares.”

For those who have continued with their previous work, travel costs have reduced their effective income. For example, women domestic workers who walked to work from their homes in the Paldi, Lal Darwaza, Khanpur and Shahpur areas now spend one-third to one-fourth of their income on transport (Rs.30-40 per day; therefore, Rs.900-1200 out of a monthly income of Rs.3000-4000). Vendors used to keep their vending cart at home and walked with it to the wholesale market and/or their vending place. Now, they have to spend about Rs.300 per month to rent a spot for their vending cart at walking distance of the market or their vending place as well as on transport to reach it.

Many residents have shifted to other work due to the distance and transport issues. Many women have taken up home-based work. However, earnings are low. For example, women making plastic flower garlands or rakhis make less than Rs. 100 per day since the piece-rates are low (Rs.8 for making 12 dozen pieces). Earnings are more for stitching clothes (Rs.30 for dozen pieces). However, their earnings before resettlement were higher (Rs.100 for stitching dozen pieces) as they directly procured work from the trader. Post-resettlement, reaching the trader entails high travel costs (transporting raw materials / finished goods requires spending Rs.100-120 one-way for a metered rickshaw), making them dependent on middlemen who give work at reduced rates.

Some of the residents have shifted to self-employment by opening shops and stalls at/near the resettlement sites. Not all, however, have been able to maintain or improve their previous income levels as many sell the same few items and the clientele (mostly confined to the sites’ other residents) thus gets distributed among them.

Note that the nature of work available nearby (industrial work at the Vatwa GIDC industrial estate) is of a vastly different kind than what most residents have done (vending, domestic work, casual labour in construction or small-scale trade activities). Since it pays less for longer hours and harder labour, many do not see it as a legitimate option. Some Muslims also reported discrimination in the GIDC estate. Domestic work is available nearby, but this pays less than in the city’s centrally located areas.
 

2. LIVELIHOOD IMPACTS OF THE DEPENDENCE ON TRANSPORT TO ACCESS SOCIAL AMENITIES

Residents were close to, or better-connected to, social amenities at their previous localities due to the latter’s more central locations. At Vatwa, only a primary municipal school, whose education quality is poor, is at walking distance. Reaching other amenities like the children’s former schools or private schools, public healthcare, colleges, and recreational open spaces entail new or higher transport costs. Residents also spend more on transport to access the public distribution system as the state has failed to facilitate the transfer of their ration cards from their previous ration shop to a nearby one. All these transport costs impact livelihoods. In many cases, residents have pulled children out of school, compromise on getting healthcare, etc, which would reduce their life chances.

Distant location de-links people from their access to social amenities given that peripheral locations in Indian cities inevitably lack these. The city’s expansion pattern is that people first move to the periphery, water and sanitation follow, and the last to come is transport. The costs of transition to the peripheral locations are therefore entirely borne by the households. For low-income households, this transition leads to reduction in effective family income through many routes.
 

3. LIVELIHOOD IMPACTS OF HIGHER HOUSING-RELATED EXPENDITURES

There are increased expenditures on basic services and infrastructure maintenance. Many residents have been getting high electricity bills that entail paying more than double of what they used to pay in their previous locality. The maintenance of building corridor lights and water and drainage infrastructures entails new costs for residents. Residents have to pay the bore-well water operator Rs.20-30 per month. They are also expected to pay for repairing damaged water and drainage pipes and valves in their buildings. After AMC stopped repairing the motors in the underground water tanks in mid-2014, residents have had to pay for this also. The frequency with which motor repairs are required depends on various factors and can be monthly or once every several months (See Policy Brief 2 for a detailed discussion on basic services and infrastructure).
 

4. IMPACTS OF UNSAFE ENVIRONMENTS ON WOMEN’S MOBILITY AND LIVELIHOODS

Theft and robbery, illicit activities, sexual harassment and sometimes even sexual assault, and kidnapping of children have been widespread at the Vatwa resettlement sites. Fear lurks even among those who have not directly experienced these crimes. As a result, many women have stopped work, which has also negatively impacted livelihoods. The planning and governance dynamics that have created this unsafe environment are discussed in Policy Briefs 3, 4 and 5.
As a result, many turn to shuttle / shared auto-rickshaws, a form of Intermediary Public Transport (IPT). These auto-rickshaws ply along fixed routes with fixed fares (instead of metered fares) and illegally take up to eight passengers (instead of the permissible four passengers). Women find the experience uncomfortable as they are forced to sit in close proximity to men. Shuttle fares are also quite high (e.g. Rs.15 one-way to Lal Darwaza).

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Displacement should be minimized and development decisions made after thorough consideration of the displacement it would cause and the risks posed by this for vulnerable groups.
• If displacement is unavoidable, resettlement should be in nearby locations so that residents’ mobilities and livelihoods are not negatively impacted. Distant relocation has negative repercussions for mobility and livelihoods as it entails higher transport costs as well as de-links people from the socio-economic networks they have established in and around their neighbourhood.
• Public housing for low-income households should be developed along with provision of good-quality, functioning social amenities so that they are accessible and minimize the transport expenditures of the resettled households.
• Enhancing livelihoods is essential for households to have the economic capacity to incur the higher expenses around basic services and maintenance in public housing. If livelihoods are not enhanced, these higher expenditures can create severe livelihood stresses (then residents cope by leaving infrastructures unmaintained, which affects their access to basic services and can also lead to conflicts).
• Government authorities should plan basic services provision and maintenance over the long-term after a realistic assessment of done before housing interventions begin. This would help to reduce the possibility of housing-related households’ economic capacities. This planning should be expenditures becoming a driver of violence and conflict.

Research Methods

• Locality mapping and community profiling
• Ethnography + ad-hoc conversations
• 11 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)
• 7 unstructured group discussions (GDs)
• 35 individual interviews (leaders, water operators)
• Total 51 men and 53 women participated in the FGDs, GDs and interviews.
• Interviews with political leaders & municipal officials
• Master’s thesis: 10 FGDs (46 women) on transport and women’s safety.

*With this counterview.org begins a series of Policy Briefs, prepared by the research team of the Centre for Urban Equity (CUE), CEPT University, Ahmedabad, on “Safe and Inclusive Cities – Poverty, Inequity and Violence in Indian Cities: Towards Inclusive Policies and Planning”.

Courtesy: CUE, CEPT University, Ahmedabad
 

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