Shakurbasti demolition: The uncertainty is still intact
On the last Friday morning of May, thousands of residents of Shakurbasti slum woke up to the sound of the whirring of bulldozers and falling roofs and walls of their shacks. Within a few minutes, everything was razed to the ground. They didn’t have enough time to even move their belongings.
Carried out under the order of the Shakurbasti Railway Authorities, this was the latest of more than 200 such forced evictions carried out by officials in the last 10 years.
At least 10,000 Jhuggis have been demolished during this time in Shakurbasti, an isolated slum Sandwiched between the Shakurbasti Railway Station and the rest of the city, where 17,85,390 people live, as per 2011 Census data.
In December of 2015 as well the railway authorities had destroyed about 500 huts, leaving almost 2,000 slum dwellers homeless.
But most of them didn’t leave, as they did not have anywhere else to go. But so long they stayed there, they were under the constant threat of dispossession.
The May 31st’s eviction was the major one since the 2015 eviction drive. Authorities had indeed issued an eviction notice, on May 25, 2019, asking the residents to vacate the area by the end of June.
Following the recent demolition too most dwellers seemed to have restored their shelters by building temporary hunts of tarpaulin. Most of them have reopened their small businesses and stalls too. But they all know nothing can stand permanent here.
“We have been living here since the past 15 years and not for once have we been able to build our permanent houses here,” says Mohammed Salim.
Most residents here work as daily-wage labourers, paan-beedi seller, own small roadside businesses or domestic help.
“We fear they will try and demolition the Basti once again. We have no other places to go”, said Kanta rani.
Against court order
In March 2019, the Delhi High Court acknowledged that the occupants of the Basti with a right to adequate housing and ordered the authorities to rehabilitate them. It was hearing the case against the December 2015 demolition.
Officials had argued that the slum dwellers were not entitled to relocation as they were encroaching. But the court rejected the argument.
“Once a JJ Basti/cluster is eligible for rehabilitation, the agencies should cease viewing the JJ dwellers therein as ‘illegal encroachers’,” said the order.
It also said the dwellers have a ‘right to the city’. “The right to the city acknowledges that those living in JJ clusters in jhuggis/slums continue to contribute to the social and economic life of a city,” the order said.
The court also said that no eviction can be conducted until a survey is conducted and people are safely rehabilitated to other places.
In spite of the court order, the residents still stay apprehensive of an approaching annihilation.
SITUATION IN PICTURES
- Shakurbasti Railway Station
Shakurbasti Railway Station is a small railway station with four platforms. The station complex is huge since it houses cement sliding, platform area and railway residential complex as well.
2. Cement Siding
The Shakurbasti railway station also houses a cement siding. The place has become a playing spot for the basti kids. Some men from the nearby basti also work here.
3. The Tents
People have made their settlements using Tarpaulin, planks and iron sheets. Most houses have been rebuilt again after the demolition that took place on May 31.
4. Railway Colony
The residential houses of Railway employees are well-built in hygienic surroundings unlike the area where the basti dwellers have been living since the past 20 years
5. The Shakurbasti dwellers live in midst of garbage heaps and debris.
6. Some people have reopened their small businesses near and within the basti.
The news story was first published on www.developmentchannel.org .
