[Reader-list] Slums in Calcutta

[hpp at vsnl.com]

SLUMS IN CALCUTTA

V Ramaswamy, Calcutta


A few weeks ago, the Calcutta newspaper "The Telegraph" had carried an article in its weekly property / real estate supplement ('propertt'). It reported the preparation of a proposal for slum redevelopment and the resettlement of slumdwellers by the property / real estate developers' lobby CREDAI.

In today's 'propertt', The Telegraph once again highlights CREDAI's slum proposal, and says that the city cannot afford to neglect the 1.5 million slumdwllers of Calcutta.

Its interesting that The Telegraph has made itself the mouthpiece of CREDAI.

The article also quotes a couple of so-called experts from Calcutta. However, the credentials, character and activities of these people are well known to others in the city. Suffice it to say that they do not have an iota of first-hand  experience of slums, nor any demonstrated concern for their real plight. (Birds of a feather flock together - these so-called experts, CREDAI, Telegraph etc etc.)

The CREDAI proposal may be seen in the context of the close nexus that has been established between the West Bengal state govt - read   CPI(M) - and some favoured real estate developers, who have been blessed to catapult to becoming big-time operators, undertaking large projects around the city, with even bigger ambitions. 

The major British govt funded Kolkata Urban Services Project (KUSP), aimed at poverty reduction and infrastructure provision in slums in the Kolkata metropolitan area was initiated last year. If one made a first-hand observation of what's happening in KUSP - its a scandal! This is a project that is being implemented by the party, which lacks any capability to implement such a project, or even really cares a fig for the plight of the poor slumdwellers. The result - shoddy, superficial work, waste and misappropriation of resources.

The project's implementation design involves a bottom-up structure, beginning with women from poor slum households, and leading to Community Development Societies. In a bizarre travesty of this, what really exists are Community Development Societies set up from the top, by the party members in office in the municipalities, involving their friends and associates. In some cases, the supposed lower level tiers of this CDS have also been notionally enumerated, and people have been tutored to say the right things about this CDS structure.

Key concerns in KUSP should have been slumdwellers' shelter, the Thika Tenancy Act, basti redevelopment, and building grassroots capability for community-manged slum redevelopment. But these are conspicuously absent from the project.

For years and years, there has been a studied silence on the question of slums in Calcutta, even while the overcrowded and degraded living conditions worsen, and illegal construction flourishes (led by party cadres).

The bastis of Calcutta and Howrah are spread throughout the cities, including in or near the 'poshest' locations and occupy prime real estate. Howrah - is very close to "social infrastructure" possessing Calcutta, thanks to the Vidyasagar Setu (2nd Hooghly bridge). With a huge stock of land under closed industries (where illegal construction projects have come up), and also a huge amount of land under bastis - Howrah is also a prized destination of developers' intentions.

It is clear that the CREDAI wants basti lands to be given over to them. As far as the slumdwellers are concerned - either some token shoddy in-situ re-housing will be provided, where that becomes absolutely unavoidable; or they will be removed altogether from there and resettled in the city fringes. Its significant that the CREDAI leaves this off-site resettlement option open.

Given the party's love affair with favoured real estate developers, its very likely that basti lands in Calcutta and Howrah are going to be handed over to them. The party will make the right noises about resettlement; eventually, a small number of people, the party faithfuls and potential leaders, will get some form of resettlement and the rest - will be expected to simply go to hell.

The love affair with developers is actually not so new. In the early 90s, thanks to the good offices of the former chief minister, private land along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass (opposite the Salt Lake Stadium) was summarily acquired by the state govt and handed over to a business house to build a hospital. This business house brought in a foreign hospital chain to build and start the hospital; and then sold its share to them. Over a period of a few years, using its good access to the party / chief minister, i.e.its 'fixing' capability, this business house made a neat and sizeable profit. Needless to mention, this is a posh hospital, where one will have to search very hard to find any low-income or economically weaker section patients.

And next to this poeple's hospital, on the Kadapara hillock, is another example of public land being quietly given over to another business house, this time a real estate company, to build a folksy mall. Though the city is starved of open and recreational spaces, public land is privatised; one has to pay a stiff entrance charge to get into the mall. There one will find costumed pseudo / kitschy vendors of street foods, giving a feel of the 'real' thing. And so many of the beautiful and wonderful intellectuals, artists, poets etc would regularly be found in thismall, gracing cultural events, celebrating the favour with which they are feted. But nobody ever questions the privatisation of public land, and the rape of the public domain (they would of course talk about Vietnam, Cuba, now Venezuela, imperialistic globalisation and what have you...).

In the early 1980s, a foreign NGO had obtained land from the state govt. in the fringes of Salt Lake to construct a large number of good quality houses for pavement dwellers. Some of these were allotted by the party to its favoured clients. The remaining lay unoccupied, because those whom the party wanted to give these to refused to move (the pesky Duttabad households, the survivors of the erstwhile fisherfolk of the area, so that they would go away from the side of the new Bypass that had come up). Many houses were vandalised (by party- and police-backed criminals), leaving not a trace of a housing complex. A couple of hundred houses still remained. In 1987, a group of homeless people from various parts of Salt Lake, rickshaw pullers, labourers, maidservants etc, who had been repeatedly evicted, occupied the empty NGO housing complex. They then appealed to the govt. to permit them to live there. In January 1988, using brute force, they were evicted. Today there is not a tra
ce of these houses either, and the whole site has become part of the Salt Lake electronic / software complex.

The CPI(M) is now going to be making proposals to the UPA govt. regarding slumdwellers and squatters, in keeping with its social conscience-keeper role at the centre. That is indeed interesting. In West Bengal, where they have been in power for 28 years, they have systematically ignored the plight of slumdwellers and squatters, not doing even what was definitely in their power to do. And instead they have had a love affair with real estate developers, and doing a merry Tandav dance over the bodies of the urban poor.