JOIN USIrony of 'housing for all' and evictions amid Covid-19 pandemic
What does it mean to be poor and homeless during a pandemic? Especially when the government tells us that we must review our understanding of human rights and that it is relentlessly working for the welfare of the poor, which helps protect their human rights?
For the answer, turn to the catalogue of ironies. Here is a compelling sample – the louder the talk about housing for all, the harsher the blows on homes of the poorest.
During the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the worst public health crisis in our living memory, when the State's advice to people has been to stay indoors, the state machinery has been deployed to destroy homes of some of the most vulnerable.
A recent study (Forced evictions in India in 2020: a grave human rights crisis during the pandemic) by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) reveals that evictions took place during India's first wave of Covid-19 in 2020, and continued during its savage, the second wave earlier this year. They took place "even during strict lockdowns and curfews when people were ordered to stay at home, and no movement or activity was permitted."
In short, evictions and demolitions of homes have continued amid high-decibel talk about providing "housing for all" in India by 2022, under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and other state government schemes promising houses to the marginalized and low-income groups in urban and rural areas, the study points out.
Being thrown out of one's home and have one's belongings destroyed are perhaps not what most urban middle-class Indians experience first-hand. There are images, however, that pop up whenever one hears a certain word. And some images are impossible to erase.
Each time one hears the word 'eviction', the chilling image of lungi-clad Moinul Haque flashes. Haque, a father of three children, was the man who died in a police firing last month while protesting against an eviction drive in Assam's Darrang district and was subsequently stomped upon by a man with a camera.
The gruesome video clip that went viral was eviction at its most savage and sectarian, but forced evictions are not new. Nor is brutal callousness towards those being evicted.
Activists have been demanding a moratorium against such evictions during the pandemic, and it has not happened. Though we keep hearing the words "welfare" and "human rights."
In 2020, the HLRN documented the demolition of homes of over 36,812 households/families, leading to the forced eviction of over 170,000 people across the country. These forced evictions and demolition of homes, which typically hit the urban and rural poor, occurred across the country – in megacities, smaller cities, towns, and villages. The official reasons for such evictions ranged from slum-clearance, encroachment-removal, city-beautification, infrastructure and ostensible "development" initiatives, environmental projects, forest protection, wildlife conservation, and "disaster management" efforts, to cite just a few.
A preliminary analysis by the HLRN reveals that between January 1, 2021, and July 31, 2021, state authorities across India demolished at least 24,445 homes, affecting over 169,176 people. Of these, about 13,750 people were evicted during the peak of the second wave and resultant lockdowns in April and May 2021.
The latest HLRN study also notes that in 2020, various court orders led to the eviction of over 88,560 persons. The overwhelming majority of evicted people (87 per cent) did not receive any rehabilitation from the government. Further, there was a lack of due process being followed in a large number of cases that the researchers documented. In most evictions reported in Delhi in 2020, for example, affected communities did not receive prior written notice of the impending demolition of their home.
"For those who received some form of resettlement from the State, the sites they have been relocated to are remote and devoid of adequate housing and essential civic and social infrastructure facilities," the study notes.
The HLRN study is only the latest flagging gross human rights violations that impinge on any discussion about a basic issue - the "right to the city" in rapidly urbanizing India.
Who does a city belong to?
"There is no sidestepping this issue. When we talk about slums, evictions and urban displacements, the key issue is 'Right to the City.' Who has a right to the city, and what does an inclusive city mean?" says Sandeep Chachra, co-chair, the World Urban Campaign of UN-HABITAT and Executive Director, ActionAid India.
In most countries across the world, including India, points out Chachra, a large part of the city caters to those who are numerical minorities. "In stark contrast, the numerical majority, most of whom can be best described as 'precarious informal workers' but who are actually makers, cleaners and sustainers of the city are squeezed into 20 to 30 per cent of the city landmass - often in hazardous sites. Where are they supposed to go, and how are they supposed to live in the absence of social housing? It is the State's responsibility to provide this. But currently, there is no security of tenure for such people, and they live wherever they find a spot – vacant public lands, dumps, river beds, etc.," he says.
Where do flagship housing programmes fit into this scenario?
Here, it is important to read the fine print. As Chachra, and many other experts, who have looked at the issue closely, point out, the flagship housing programmes that we have do not really cater to the poorest of the poor.
"These are meant for economically weaker sections - what one can call the relatively better-off sections among the poor, who have relatively stable incomes and are not so precariously placed. Because demand far exceeds supply, it is this section that benefits from the govt housing schemes that we have seen. Those who are most precariously placed are the ones most at risk and face evictions. We need a moratorium on evictions accompanied by regularisation of tenure if families are living on non-hazardous sites. There is no policy on this. And little discussion," says Chachra.
Without rehabilitation, based on informed consent and dignity, forced displacement is not only inhuman but also unjust. "A fundamental step to making cities inclusive is to have a policy and commitment for zero evictions, and we can't have evictions without making rehabilitation a top priority. There also needs to be citizen participation in the assessment of how rehabilitation is done post evictions. With growing urbanization, this becomes critical," Chachra adds.
What makes those at the bottom also the most at risk of the bulldozer and eviction from their homes?
Marina Joseph, who is with Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA), a grassroots NGO, says a key reason the poorest are the worst-affected is they don't often have the necessary documents which meet the criteria of the "cut-off date" and their constant mobility in search of livelihood. This also means that those at the receiving end of bulldozers are not necessarily the ones who benefit from housing programmes for the poor. The most vulnerable are also those who have no resources and are forced to build their homes on hill slopes, river banks, flood plains. When they are evicted from these hazardous areas in the name of environmental protection but are not adequately rehabilitated, they swell the numbers of the homeless. Thousands of disaster-affected are also not getting rehabilitated.
As evictions continue, tens of thousands in every city are simply falling through the cracks; their families, including children, are left without homes and any social protection, says Joseph.
Where is the Indian city headed?
During a civil society-led national consultation on forced evictions during the second wave of the Covid–19 pandemic in India in June, Manju Menon, who works with the well-known think tank, Centre for Policy Research, stressed that evictions are a result of a serious problem of
distribution of land. For instance, about two-thirds of Delhi's population lives on 15 per cent of the land. "There is no way the poor cannot break the rules while making houses as families expand. There is no land for the poor in cities. Also, what are the rights of the poor who cannot afford to buy land in cities?" asked Menon.
This brings us back to the right to the city. If human rights are about focusing on what happens to the poor, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi told us the other day, we can't afford to ignore these questions, nor the predicaments of the poorest among the poor. Especially during a pandemic.
(Patralekha Chatterjee is an independent journalist and columnist)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH