Slumming India
I’ve been enjoying an interesting book recently: ‘Slumming India’ by Gita Dewan Verma. Perhaps ‘enjoying’ is the wrong word. It’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. The book is about India’s cities and the ever-multiplying thousands of slums that exist within them.
As it happens, Hans has made off with my copy but since I’m holding several of his books hostage in return I’m sure I’ll get it back eventually.
Gita makes many thought provoking points during the book. Why have so many cities been allowed (or even encouraged?) to get to this state? She suggests that the slumming of India’s cities is a wholly preventable phenomenon, if only there was the will to tackle the problem head-on. Essentially, she challenges the (almost universally accepted) paradigm that slums are inevitable. As the blurb puts it, “The real problem… is not the pervasive urban squalor that offends us all, but rather the moral and intellectual bankruptcy that sustains it.”
Often, slum politics focuses on the ‘Right to Remain’. This is the right for slum residents not to have their dwellings bulldozed when somebody has their eye on the land that they’re occupying. Slums are frequently categorised with varying degrees of ‘legitimacy’, usually based on how long they have been in existence. One of the strongest points Gita makes is this: is the so-called ‘Right to Remain’ really much of a right at all? She says that this ‘right’, and the other popular fix – resettlement – aren’t worth much. How about proper settlement in the first place, decent minimum standards and defined legal entitlements? Someone who has a ration card stating that they’ve lived in such-and-such a slum since 1975 possibly deserves more than just a temporary reprieve from the bulldozer.
Deep Griha Society is not a political organisation. The slums exist; therefore DGS exists. It serves members of the local community. Gita rightly points out that many NGOs could not exist without poverty and some may have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s not the case here – I bet everyone would be delighted if there was no need for DGS to operate. Sadly, thirty years in, the need is as great as ever.
As it happens, Hans has made off with my copy but since I’m holding several of his books hostage in return I’m sure I’ll get it back eventually.
Gita makes many thought provoking points during the book. Why have so many cities been allowed (or even encouraged?) to get to this state? She suggests that the slumming of India’s cities is a wholly preventable phenomenon, if only there was the will to tackle the problem head-on. Essentially, she challenges the (almost universally accepted) paradigm that slums are inevitable. As the blurb puts it, “The real problem… is not the pervasive urban squalor that offends us all, but rather the moral and intellectual bankruptcy that sustains it.”
Often, slum politics focuses on the ‘Right to Remain’. This is the right for slum residents not to have their dwellings bulldozed when somebody has their eye on the land that they’re occupying. Slums are frequently categorised with varying degrees of ‘legitimacy’, usually based on how long they have been in existence. One of the strongest points Gita makes is this: is the so-called ‘Right to Remain’ really much of a right at all? She says that this ‘right’, and the other popular fix – resettlement – aren’t worth much. How about proper settlement in the first place, decent minimum standards and defined legal entitlements? Someone who has a ration card stating that they’ve lived in such-and-such a slum since 1975 possibly deserves more than just a temporary reprieve from the bulldozer.
Deep Griha Society is not a political organisation. The slums exist; therefore DGS exists. It serves members of the local community. Gita rightly points out that many NGOs could not exist without poverty and some may have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s not the case here – I bet everyone would be delighted if there was no need for DGS to operate. Sadly, thirty years in, the need is as great as ever.
posted by Paul Heron at 12:25 am
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