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A NOTE ON THE THIKA TENANCY ACT  AND URBAN VULNERABILITY

V Ramaswamy


The largest concentration of poor, vulnerable and low-income households is
to be found in the bastis of metropolitan Calcutta. Despite environmental
improvement programmes in such settlements, environmental degradation
remains serious, and basti households face grave environmental health risks.
Meaningful improvements in bastis today are simply not possible, on account
of the major institutional factor related to bastis, i.e. the Thika Tenancy
Act. It may be said that the single most serious institutional factor
related to vulnerability in the metropolitan area is the Thika Tenancy Act.
This note shall attempt to outline the subject, and indicate the key issues
requiring further enquiry and analysis.

1. Bastis in Calcutta came up as the city grew and became the site of
various industries. A large labouring population was drawn to the city to
work in the factories and also to provide the range of services required by
the city's affluent population. While no formal arrangement was made to
house this labouring poipulation, an informal system evolved through which a
large number of hutment settlements came up in the city, adjoining the
factories and elite residential areas. Typically, a landlord would rent out
a parcel of vacant land to one of his henchmen, who in turn would build a
number of huts on this plot. This person was the 'thika' tenant, meaning
that he was contracted by the landlord. Rooms in such huts would then be
rented out to the labourers, who were referred to as the bharatiyas. While
these were informal settlements, they were not illegal. Thus, this system
was able to meet the shelter requirements of the large labouring population
of the growing city. Services, such as water supply, or drainage, or
sanitation were never provided, with the workers being left to fend for
themselves. However, as the locality developed and ultimately began to
attract municipal improvements, the landlord would ask the thika tenent to
vacate the plot. The workers would be asked to leave and the huts would be
dismantled. Workers would simply move to another location. Thus, while
shelter was available, it was highly insecure. In fact, one may view the
landlord's actions as a speculative operation. Giving the land out to the
thika tenant to build huts thereon was a means to enable the locality to
become more inhabited. Once there was a sizeable population living there,
demands would be made to provide basic services. Once these were provided,
land values would rise considerably, and the landlords would simply sell off
the basti lands and make huge amounts of unearned profit. As Mr Harrison,
the Chairman of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation reported in the 1880s,
"the landlords have simply grown rich in their sleep." Besides, bastis would
also be required to be knocked down for city improvement programmes such as
road laying and widening. Further, public health policies and attitudes in
the 19th century were inevitably biased against basti dwellers; public
health theories of this period tended to ascribe all ailments to odours,
vapours, water in the bastis. But responsibility for basic improvements in
basti conditions was a contentious issue; it was never clear whose
responsibility it was to undertake these. The landlord preferred to maximise
his speculative profit; and the Corporation saw no reason to play into the
landlord's game. Basti dwellers were left to suffer the resulting
degradation.

2. Thus, by the early part of this century, there were a large number of
bastis spread all over the metropolis. Conditions here were extremely grave.
Factional politics within the nationalist movement that had taken over the
CMC was also responsible for severe administration breakdown. Following
Independence and Partition, and the influx of a huge refugee population into
the city, pressures on bastis increased. With growing pressure on bastis,
the 1950s witnessed a Communist-led basti movement, which was successful in
intervening within the process of Slum Acts legislation in the state
(following the national legislation). As a result, thika tenants were
protected as tenants, and rehabilitation of the thika tenants and the
bharatiyas in case of slum clearance was also provided for. Also, with the
enactment of anti-landlord legislation in the post-Independence era, and the
legal empowerment of thika tenants as protected tenants, landlords stopped
making available their lands for bastis. By the 1960s basti conditions had
deteriorated to the extent that the WHO in its report on Calcutta spoke of
catastrophic consequences unless basic improvements were undertaken in
bastis. This led to the Ford-supported Calcutta planning efforts,
culminating in the Basic Development Plan (1966-86), the formation of the
CMDA and the initiation of the Basti Improvement Programme and the Calcutta
Urban Development Programme.

3. With the coming to power of the Left Front government in 1977, a number
of further changes were introduced in basti matters. Basti lands were taken
over by the state government, and the state replaced the landlords. However,
the rights of the state vis-a-vis those of the thika tenants were subject to
litigation and finally the High Court ruled that the thika tenants' rights
to develop their structures could not be violated. A Thika Tenancy Amendment
Act was passed through which restricted rights to develop basti hutments
were granted. Most basti lands today are owned by the state, though there
are a few cases where the ownership still rests with the private landlord,
or institution (such as jute companies). Individual holdings within bastis
are also sometimes owned by individuals, though in most cases there would be
a thika tenant associated with the holding. Bharatiyas today pay their rent
to the thika tenant, and he in turn pays rent to the Corporation.

4. Over the last decade or so, construction activity in the bastis has
grown, with the thika tenants making over the plots to promoters, and a
promoter-muscleman-politician nexus coming into existence. Unmet demand for
housing from the middle-class as well as lower middle-class began to move
towards bastis, which had experienced a modicum of improvement through the
BIP. Where this has been possible, there has been flagrant violation of
building regulations and illegal buildings have come up on basti plots,
discharging wastes into open drains, and with apartments in these having
been sold to low-income and middle-class families.
5. In all this, the concern about the actual basti hutment dwellers, about
the class  of such people, and about wholesome city development - has been a
casualty. With thika tenants being predominatly low-income persons, without
access to much capital, they themselves are unable to undertake any
developments. Second, since the land is formally owned either by the state
or some private owner, they are unable to access housing finance for
building construction. Finally, the possibility of dweller-owned units in
such plots is also out of the question now since the land is owned by the
state or private owner. Thus, they too are unable to access housing finance.

6. Thus, under the existing Thika Tenancy Act regime, all that is
undesirable flourishes, albeit illegally, but flagrantly. The lot of the
basti bharatiyas is significantly worsened by whatever happens on the ground
under existing circumstances. Unearned income at public cost is enjoyed by
promoters, musclemen and politicians. Environmental degradation is
significantly exacerbated. Opportunities for area renewal, beginning from
dweller-led basti development, is precluded. It may be recalled that with a
significant proportion of the city land being under bastis, and with bastis
spread all over the city, the city has tremendous renewal potential. Given
that bastis today are low-rise high density areas, with considerable scope
for multi-storey construction, today's bastis may be viewed as the sites for
large scale poor and low-income shelter. This can also happen in close
association with market-based commercial and residential developments, so
that as much cross-subsidy as possible is realised. But dweller control over
the development process is the key issue. The HDFC-KFW scheme, which
provides low-interest shelter loans to the poorer sections, has been a
non-starter in Calcutta - despite the potential for utilising this scheme as
a catalyst for large-scale city renewal.

7. Thus, a rapid, though somewhat in-depth, review of the Thika Tenancy Act
is called for, towards identifying the specific policy and legal steps that
should be taken - in the interest of the basti dwellers, the poorer sections
as a whole, and wholesome city development.