[Reader-list] Nizamuddin Basti Faces Massive Demolition on April 10 to Create Vistas to the Dargah

[Sudeshna Chatterjee]

*Nizamuddin Basti Faces Massive Demolition on April 10 to Create Vistas to
the Dargah*

* *

As Delhi adorns herself for the appreciative gazes of visitors to the
Commonwealth Games in 2010, several habitats and lifeworlds are being
destroyed "in public interest" to make way for beautification projects in
place of dense, unseemly residential areas.



Nizamuddin Basti, the thriving, bustling, colorful settlement with over of
800 years of recorded history of continuous human habitation, is going to
come under the developmental bulldozer next week, on April 10 according to
residents. The grand urban revitalization vision for this master plan
designated heritage zone does not include anything in the foreground of
Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's Dargah.



The thriving settlement of Nizam Nagar, a neighborhood populated by migrant
labor for the last thirty years, will definitely be flattened to create lush
landscaped foreground for beholding the monument from all three roads
bounding the Basti—Mathura Road, Lodi Road, and Lala Lajpat Rai Marg. The
Dargah however had never been a separate piece within the settlement but an
integral part of the residents' lifeworlds. The next layer of colorful pucca
houses with many floors will also be demolished as they too block the view
of the dargah from all three roads. Several shops on Lodi Road have already
been sealed. A major part of the open space on Lala Lajpat Rai Road has been
walled up and residents said that it will be made into a parking lot for the
Dargah tourist coming from that direction.



The pucca house owners will receive deals for resettlement while the
majority of the migrant settlers along the periphery will be evicted without
rehabilitation. No one has any information as to what exactly has been
proposed and by whom. There are rumors of MCD and Aga Khan Trust and ASI
working together to create a beautiful tourist paradise with paved walking
routes, lush landscapes and showcase remnants of the old village and way of
life of people.



I visited the basti yesterday and felt people's helplessness. I made several
phone calls to everyone I knew to find out about the development plan. No
one has a clue. Nothing is discussed in the public domain. But how come all
the residents knew? MCD has really been smart about this one to avoid undue
attention and therefore resistance to the beautification project with Aga
Khan Trust's money. I did the only thing I could. I filed a RTI this
afternoon with MCD. But as I am not a directly affected party the
information will be made available in a month's time, long after the
demolitions had taken place. I got the Hope Project, an NGO that works
within the Basti, to mobilize the community to exercise their right to
information and get it within 48 hours. But community mobilization is easier
said than done. Moreover, this is a long weekend. The governmental machinery
will be resting.



If anyone has any advice on how to put up a resistance to an uncontested
beautification scheme for a contested urban space, please email me. Some of
us are working on first assessing what exactly will be demolished and what
rehabilitation proposals had been made for displaced people to prepare a
case for resisting the demolitions and demanding adequate rehabilitation for
all displaced people. In addition I would encourage this forum to engage in
a much stronger public debate on the future of the city and its quietly
outrageous beautification/revitalization/development plans ahead of the
Commonwealth Games.


-- 
Sudeshna Chatterjee, PhD
New Delhi, India
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