Appendix II: Siddharth Surana’s blog on Slum Dwellers

reprinted with his permission

Jhaggis (like slums only much worse) in Mumbai. Some of the people living in these little homes made out of other people’s rubbish survive by sifting through the rubbish in the foreground, finding any recyclable materials they can sell; others are working building the blocks of flats in the background. They’ll never be able to afford to live anywhere like that, though.

We all must have noticed ever increasing number of people living in shanties along the roads or sleeping on footpath. In metros like Delhi and Mumbai, I’ve seen such pitiful (sometimes sickening) sights of slum/footpath dwellers’ lives. It pains me to think how human life can be so degraded. Where from have these people come? Were all of them born thus, without a piece of roof on their heads? Why are they in this condition? For sure, not by choice, unlike what some of us like to believe. Given a choice, no human being would like to live a life of a rat in these four foot square holes covered with plastic rags; to get run over by some rich drunkard coming back from a late night party or to get washed away in floods without leaving a trace behind.

Most of these people come from places like some tribal village in Dungarpur, from the hills of Uttaranchal, or the forests of Chhattisgarh, where they have been living a respectable life, albeit within limited means. They had their land, cattle, or even small scale enterprise there. Some of them have left behind some beautiful crafts of which they were masters. As India begun to embark on the path of fast economic growth coupled with massive industrialization, their skills and abilities started to become obsolete. Further, the ‘democratic’ government in collusion with business houses took over their land for ‘developmental’ purposes at low rates of compensation without providing alternative employment or arable land. Means of livelihood dwindled down in their native places and the survival instinct brought these people to bigger cities.

Sure they use the urban infrastructure without paying for it, like filling water from some broken pipeline nearby or tiny amounts of electricity to light up a 100 watt bulb. But do we ever realize how much they contribute to the urban economy in form of cheap labor? Faces of the kaamwali, sabziwala, dhobi and the ubiquitous chhotu in the neighborhood restaurant promptly come to mind. From construction laborers to rag-pickers, they all contribute in their own way while living on the edge. They produce more than they consume. Do we ever stop to think, had these people not been living on so little or had they been paying for house rent, water and electricity, how much would their services cost us? In a way, they are subsidizing our cost of living and in the process trying to achieving their sole objective of survival.

Such is the hypocrisy of our society that we all want to benefit from the cheap services/products but when it comes to taking moral high ground we don’t think twice before branding them as illegal inhabitants. Since their lives are not formally ‘registered’, the society is free to disown them or even deny their existence at its convenience.

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