By M L Satyan

Bengaluru, Sept 11, 2023: Some of the heart-rending scenes that I watched in the YouTube/social media were the eviction of the slum dwellers in certain parts of the national capital.

Delhi has been witnessing a series of demolition drives of working-class neighbourhoods. These demolitions were carried out as part of a ‘beautification’ drive ahead of the G-20 Summit. Places where citizens’ homes were reduced to rubble included neighbourhoods in Mehrauli and Ghosiya Colony, Tughlaqabad, Kashmere Gate, and Moolchand Basti at Rajghat.

Residents whose homes were destroyed have alleged that demolitions were carried out in complete violation of laws and rules that regulate demolitions and evictions. Many have said that eviction notices were only served as the bulldozers were rolling into their street.

As the date for the G20 summit approached, the capital city of Delhi was subjected to a disturbing trend of forced evictions by state authorities. Several informal settlements and shelters for the homeless were erased or threatened with demolition under the pretext of “clearing encroachments”, “beautification drives” and “conservation of the Yamuna floodplains”, among other reasons.

The Indian government’s efforts to improve Delhi’s appearance for the G20 summit have had a profound impact on the lives of slum dwellers in the city, with many expressing anger and frustration as the government carried out what was arguably the most extensive anti-encroachment campaign in recent years. Worse, the government had not proposed a plan to resettle the displaced.

Listen to the heart-touching cries:

• “We were so frightened,” said 56-year-old Jayanti Devi as she attempted to salvage what was left of her belongings. She lamented, “They destroyed everything. We have nothing left.” For the past 30 years her home had stood on a decrepit pavement, next to an open sewage drain, opposite the sprawling Pragati Maidan.

• Savita said, “I can’t explain how distraught everyone was as they bulldozed the homes. People were screaming, crying, begging them to stop.”

• “They have covered our area so that poor people like us, and poverty in the country, is not witnessed by the people arriving from abroad,” said Saroj Devi.

• She also raised a valid point and question, “When it is election time, every politician comes to see us. They eat with us and make promises. But today, they are ashamed of our presence. Do we not have to go to work and eat food? Should we die because we are poor?”

• “I don’t miss any day of work, even when I am sick, only because I cannot afford to lose any money. But what can poor people like me do in these situations? Poor people like us will only curse this event because we are going to suffer and our bellies will be hungry” said another woman daily-wage labourer.

• “No one gave us any clear answer why we were being detained until we were produced in court,” said Ayesha Sharma, a transgender. Further she said, “In court, we were told that G20 is going to take place in Delhi so all the beggars are being picked up. I asked what G20 is, but no one replied.”

• “I thought the ‘big people’ attending the G20 summit would give something to the poor. But the opposite has happened here. Big people will come, sit on our graves and eat”, said Mohammed Shameem, another resident.

• Another shocked woman Devi said, “If they have to clean, that does not mean they will remove the poor. If the poor are looking so bad, they can make something nice, put a curtain or a sheet so that the poor are not visible.”

• “We get fed up every time the police ask us to move,” said Mala, who is partially blind and cannot walk without support.

• “Removing the poor will not make Delhi beautiful, removing poverty will.” said Bajrang, a labourer.

• “We are the fifth-largest economy in the world, but the reality is that we also have the largest population in the world of people living in poverty. Expelling the large mass of impoverished people from view is an attempt to cast a veil on this other side of economic prosperity, which is extreme inequality” said Harsh Mander, a social activist.

When residents of a slum cluster in New Delhi’s Janata Camp area heard that the G20 Summit was to be held in the Indian capital, barely 500 metres from their homes, they expected it would benefit them as well. Instead, they were rendered homeless.

In his book Rule by Aesthetics, Asher Ghertner argued that aesthetics plays a central role in contemporary urban governance and development. He explained how the aestheticization of urban space serves as a form of propaganda that promotes a particular vision of the city, one that is often exclusionary and prioritises the interests of the powerful over the poor.

The use of aesthetics in this way helps to legitimise and reinforce existing power structures, while simultaneously obscuring the social and economic realities of those who are marginalised by them.

Prime Minister Modi wanted to project at the G20 that India is one of a modern superpower, a leader of the Global South, and a voice for impoverished nations. But the government has been accused of hiding poverty, one of the country’s most entrenched and enduring problems.

For the PM Modi, the leadership of the G20 has been a year-long opportunity to showcase India as an influential diplomatic and economic power, and drive investment and trade flows into the world’s most populous country.

The pertinent questions lingering in the minds of the displaced slum dwellers are:
• “Why did G20 bring disaster to our lives?”
• “What does the logo of G20 – One Earth, One Family, One Future mean for us?”
• “What happened to the promise made by our Prime Minister – Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas?”

Will the homeless slumdwellers ever get satisfactory answers for their questions? Or will the poor be vanished from the society? With faith we need to pray, “Lord, lead us from inequality to equality; lead us from discrimination to dignity; lead us from the world of hatred to the world of love.”