[This month, government
bulldozers flattened a small slum in New Delhi known as Sonia Gandhi Camp,
named after the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. At
the edge of a road called Tamil Sangam Marg, not far from one of the city’s
wealthiest districts, about 50 migrant families had lived there for two
decades. Many had voting cards or government ration cards that listed their
address as Sonia Gandhi Camp. One city agency had even built a public toilet,
though the encampment remained illegal.]
By Jim Yardley
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Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
New Ashok Nagar, an “unauthorized colony” in New Delhi. More Photos »
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NEW DELHI —
New Ashok Nagar is a typical crosscut of Indian urban chaos: Dust rises off
battered, narrow lanes, tangles of telephone and electricity lines hang between
poorly constructed, mismatched brick buildings. Sewage overflows from uncovered
channels. And people are in the streets, in the doorways, everywhere.
What is also fairly
typical about New Ashok Nagar is that it is not supposed to exist. The
district, on the eastern edge of New Delhi, is an “unauthorized colony,” with
an estimated 200,000 residents despite its lack of government approvals or full
city services. Across New Delhi, as many as 5 million of the city’s 17 million
residents live in unauthorized colonies, whether in slums, middle-class areas
or even a few illegally constructed enclaves of the rich.
Now Sheila Dixit, the
chief minister of Delhi, the state that includes the national capital, New
Delhi, has promised what amounts to an election-year urban amnesty program. She
has pledged that scores of unauthorized colonies, including New Ashok Nagar,
will be granted legal status — which could lead to new or improved sewer lines,
electrical and water connections, and better roads — a change that could move
residents closer to modern standards of living.
Possibly.
“We are on the list of
authorized colonies,” said S. P. Tyagi, who has lived in New Ashok Nagar since
1984 and seen the difference between political promises that are made and those
that are delivered. “But it is not clear if it will happen or not. There are
some doubts.”
India is often
demarcated along lines of caste or class. But many of India’s rapidly growing
cities are also delineated by the legal status of where people live. For years,
as migrants have poured into Indian cities in search of work and opportunity,
illegal settlements, often slums, have sprung up in the absence of available,
affordable low-income or even middle-class housing. Many of these settlements
have grown into bustling districts more populous than many American cities, yet
lacking amenities and legal protections, and residents face the perpetual
threat of eviction.
This month, government
bulldozers flattened a small slum in New Delhi known as Sonia Gandhi Camp,
named after the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. At
the edge of a road called Tamil Sangam Marg, not far from one of the city’s
wealthiest districts, about 50 migrant families had lived there for two
decades. Many had voting cards or government ration cards that listed their
address as Sonia Gandhi Camp. One city agency had even built a public toilet,
though the encampment remained illegal.
“They asked us to stand
in front of our homes,” said one man, who gave only his given name, Ramesh. He
said residents were told the land was needed for a road project. “We showed
them our papers and cards. But they did not listen. They started on one side
and demolished everything.” An elderly woman, Rama Devi, could not contain her
anger as she stood in the rubble. “They have left us on the road,” she said. “I
wish they would go to hell.”
This blend of demolition
and rampant illegal construction is part of the rough, pell-mell process of an
Indian megalopolis coming into being. New Delhi is one of the fastest-growing
cities in the country, adding 200,000 new residents every year, according to city
officials. Yet much of the land in the city is controlled by the Delhi
Development Authority, an agency under the national government that has been
criticized for failing to develop enough housing, especially for the poor and
the middle class.
“What happens to the
people who come?” asked R. K. Srivastava, the secretary of urban development in
the Delhi state government, who is critical of the national development agency.
“There is no housing stock. These people are forced to live in shanties,
unauthorized colonies and, shall I say, subhuman facilities.”
In the 1970s, the Delhi
Development Agency took control of New Ashok Nagar, which was then farmland.
The agency never took physical possession of the land, even as it doled out
compensation to farmers, and residents say that some farmers simply resold the
same plots to people looking to live in the capital. “I knew this was an
unauthorized colony, but I did not have the money to buy in an authorized
colony,” said Mr. Tyagi, the longtime resident. A public school English
teacher, he bought a plot of about 1,000 square feet for 8,000 rupees, or $148.
“At that time, even 8,000 rupees were too much for me,” he said.
Mr. Tyagi estimates that
when he arrived in 1984, perhaps 5,000 people lived in the colony. “We used to
live without electricity,” he said. “We made our own arrangements with candles
or kerosene lights. For water, we built our own hand pumps.” To fend off the
occasional demolition notices, residents began dabbling in politics. As the
populations rapidly grew in colonies like New Ashok Nagar, local lawmakers
realized that these colonies represented troves of potential voters and found
ways to divert funds to provide rudimentary electrical connections, roads and
other services.
Tapan Kumar Chowdhury,
62, a retiree now working as an activist in the colony, said legalized status
would be likely to improve sanitation and local health standards through
installation of a true sewage system. But he remained skeptical about whether
the election-year promises would be carried out, noting that politicians
preferred to keep colonies vulnerable so that residents remained more beholden
to them for even incremental improvements. “They have a vested interest in
keeping us illegal and unauthorized,” he said, “so they can use us as a vote
bank.”
Or as a real bank.
Merchants like Vinod Kaushik, who runs a small pharmacy, said petty officials
routinely demanded bribes to allow new construction projects. Others said that
the police routinely required payoffs, too.
Mr. Srivastava, the
state urban development secretary, agreed that even those colonies like New
Ashok Nagar that were listed to become authorized still had to navigate
loopholes, like providing layout plans for official approval. Doing this would
mean that every lane and building must meet city specifications, though code
violations are common. He characterized the requirements as somewhat
unrealistic but said the process was established under a 2007 national law. He
said state officials were planning to seek the “relaxation” of certain code
requirements, which could help illegal colonies like New Ashok Nagar pass
muster but would also leave them with substandard housing.
“Where will the poor man
go?” he asked. “That is the problem.”
Partha Mukhopadhyay, an
urban affairs specialist at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said
politicians had made promises that were not fulfilled, but that this time the
process seemed much farther down the bureaucratic track, a reason for cautious
optimism. “Usually, it is promised and not delivered,” he said. “It is possible
that this time they might actually go through with the regularization process.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.