Dilip D’Souza, who has been time and again trying to generate outrage among us apathetic middle class types by comparing the slum demolitions with the tsunami, makes this extraordinary assertion.
So because they are poor, it’s OK to pull down their homes. Why is it that not one middle-class block of flats has been brought down that I know of, even though so many of those are built flouting FSI and other building regulations, are built paying bribes, are paid for using illegal money, and often have illegal extensions?
Surely Dilip knows that this is wrong? Oh I am sure no “middle-class block of flats” has been brought down. But the demolitions have been reputed to be remarkably evenhanded. For example take this
After a month that saw the razing of 65,000 shanties, the demolition squads are now firmly targeting the city’s richer, more powerful inhabitants: owners of restaurants, five-star hotels, office blocks and residential high-rises. The targets are secret to keep violators from getting last-minute stay orders.
or take this
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation demolition squad raided Filmalaya Studios in suburban Mumbai on Tuesday and pulled down illegal structures on its premises.
and
The BMC also cleared some 750 square feet of illegal construction on Hotel Shalimar’s premises in Bandra on Tuesday.
or this
IT WAS Day 4 of the civic body’s demolition drive against illegal constructions of the rich.
And the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) hammer brought down an illegal restaurant, a gymnasium and a wholesale fruit market.
Did you hear about the middle class getting “outraged” at these demolitions?
No?
Neither did I. If anything, the middle-class I am familiar with applauds them.
I was told the story, probably apocryphal, of T. Chandrashekhar, the then commissioner of Thane (and now co-ordinator of the MUIP) who, when shown a stay order by a restaurateur, tore up the order and proceeded with the demolition. The story wasn’t told to me in outraged tones. It was recounted in gushing tones, by a typical middle-class person who hero-worships T Chandrashekhar.
If Dilip has actually met a real middle-class guy, he would know that the typical middle-class guy considers himself disadvantaged because unlike the poor, he isn’t a voting bloc and unlike the rich, he cannot bribe his way through. He sees himself as stuck in the middle.
Dilip wants the government to build houses for the illegal slum-dwellers. Surely he should know that this was done earlier? He should also know what came out of it. Most of these houses were sold off and that slum-dwellers went back to living in slums (because the slums were located at a more convenient place). Where it didn’t happen, the areas vacated by the slum-dwellers were quickly occupied by other slum-dwellers hoping to cash in on the bonanza.
What do you think a typical middle-class person, who has to work off his whole life repaying a housing loan, will feel when he sees people getting houses for free? Dilip thinks that the middle class guy doesn’t care about the poor because he is far away from the suffering of the poor and doesn’t know the extent of the suffering. That is why he thinks that comparing the demolitions with the tsunami will tug at the middle-class guy’s conscience. That is simply not true. The middle-class guy knows what is going on and has inured himself to the suffering of the slum-dwellers.
You can hammer away at tsunami comparisons till kingdom come, and it won’t faze the middle-class woman who travels by second class on Mumbai’s locals to get to her workplace, where she probably works as a clerk. Her income, small as it is, would nonetheless put her in the top 10% of India’s population. Will that make her count herself among the rich? No it won’t.
But every morning, as she nearly suffocates in the local train, she sees shanties lining the rail route. She knows that those shanties are protected by a court order, and that is what is holding up the extra railway line that would enable more trains to be run – trains that would give her standing space and enable her to breathe. You think comparing the demolition of those shanties to a tsunami would jolt her out of her comfortable existence?
The point of the post was not just to point out flaws in Dilip’s understanding of middle-class attitudes. It is also to point out the perils of coming up with policies based on the logic of class-warfare. It is possible to solve the problem of slums, but it will never be done. That’s because, you see, all the measures needed would involve benefiting the rich. Hence it follows that they won’t get enacted.
You yourself mention the flaw in your own argument: “I am sure no middle-class block of flats has been brought down”.
That’s the point. 80,000 homes were destroyed. Not a single one of them was in a middle-class block of flats. Where is the even-handedness you speak of? Am I simple-minded because I don’t see it? Are all of us who think slum demolitions are short-sighted simple-minded? Are 4 lac suddenly homeless Mumbai-kars simple-minded because they don’t see it?
And you even manage to imply that DSouza is saying the middle-class is “outraged” at those demolitions of restaurants and gymnasiums. Where did he (or anyone) say that?
You say “this was done earlier”, meaning the government built houses for what you term the “illegal slum dwellers”. Where? Can you point me to one major government scheme of housing for the slum dwellers?
You can’t, because there is no such. Luckily the government has stayed out of such major schemes — it has instead tried schemes to attract private parties to put up such housing (under the SRDS). The few success stories there are (most are failures) are those of private parties. You, the champion of private enterprise, should have known that instead of making this poorly-informed assertion.
But you do make one correct point: slum dwellers go back to living in slums because they are more convenient. That’s exactly why demolishing slums is such a foolish way to tackle the issue of slums. That’s just the point that us who try to speak out against the slum demolitions are trying to make.
You can pretend that we are instead talking of class-warfare, but the bottomline is the obvious result of the past decades, when governments have tackled slums by demolishing them. This only produces more slums. Nobody is trying to make the middle-class feel guilty. But they are trying to make the middle-class see that this policy will only perpetuate slums.
Have a good day.
Sudhakar.
Sudhakar, there was absolutely no need to parade your ignorance for the entire world to see.
If you go down the eastern express highway and take the link road to jogeshwari, you will find that just before the intersection between the link road and LBS marg, to your left there is a huge bunch of shanties. To your right, there is a block of flats coming up. This is for those in the shanties who will be displaced when the link road is widened. You can go see for yourself if you don’t believe me. That is one recent instance.
If you had any memory, you will remember that when the Shivsena-BJP government was in power, they had made a huge scheme out of slum rehabilitation. Where do you think this cut-off of 1995 comes from? All those whose slums dated from before 1995 were supposed to be given accomodation. The money for this was supposed to come from the sale of the land on which the slums stood. No further slums were supposed to be allowed to come up after that.
I can assure you that a great many buildings were actually built and a great many slum dwellers were given accomodation. If you come with me to Matunga, I can show you those buildings to house those who were displaced from Dharavi. Of course, like all government schemes, there was a great deal of leakage. My neighbours (We used to live in a two-room tenement at that time) bought two of those houses. They didn’t live in a slum of course. They had just paid off a slumlord to establish residency in some slum.
Anyway, the point about setting the 1995 cut-off was that it is really a cut-off, and any future encroachments would be treated as illegal and disallowed. If you extend the cut-off date because of competitive politics, then you can forget about ever not having slums, because people will keep settling illegally in the hope of getting “rehabilitated” and the entire network of slumlords and their political masters will be perpetuated. I don’t know what theory of human nature you use, but from what meagre knowledge of humans I have, the way to encourage slums is not to demolish them, but to reward those who live there with houses.
So as I was saying, you really need to read up on a bit of current affairs and history before you challenge me on facts.
As for the initial part of your comment, I recommend rereading the post. I was challenging Dilip’s contention that the middle-class doesn’t care about the demolitions because it is the poor whose houses are being demolished. I was pointing out that it is not just the shanties of the poor that were being demolished, the rich were also being targetted and I don’t hear any break in the applause.
Ravi,
How were the appartments priced?..the relocation ones.
Ravikiran,
Bravo!
Sudhakar, there was absolutely no need to parade your ignorance for the entire world to see.
Why? After all, you did it, and are still doing it. I’m only following your lead.
you will remember that when the Shivsena-BJP government was in power, they had made a huge scheme out of slum rehabilitation. … The money for this was supposed to come from the sale of the land on which the slums stood.
You mentioned “ignorance”, I think?
The abject failure of the sena/BJP slum housing scheme (“free housing for 40 lakh people” is the astonishingly stupid promise they made) is common knowledge. It has been analysed and written about extensively over the years (EPW, TOI, etc). Why did that escape you?
Clearly it did, because among other things, the money was not supposed to come from the sale of the land. The money for those free new houses was to come from the profits builders would make on selling flats to the middle-class. That’s the “cross subsidy” approach.
In any case, you can read an article analysing the scheme and why it failed, by DSouza himself. You’ll reach it here.
Sudhakar.
Ravikiran, you’re absolutely right, but rather than focus on the contention of the argument (that illegal middle-class homes haven’t been demolished), I’d say that the argument itself is wrong. It is like saying: if the rich and famous get away with rape and murder, so should the poor OR if all illegal activities cannot be stopped, none should be. OR, a common kind of flawed argument, why are we solving Problem X when Problems Y and Z remain unsolved.
If Dilip were to say that the government is hypocritical and has double standards, then we could carry the argument forward and consider if middle-class illegal housing has been demolished. But he is saying that the slum demolitions are wrong in an absolute sense because middle-class homes aren’t being destroyed. This is fallacious logic, often used against him in a category of argument he and I refer to as the “Godhra argument”. So what you are doing, Dilip, is trying to hoist others with a petard you feel is unfairly used against you.
In other words, I am not arguing with Dilip’s conclusion, but the logical route he takes to reach it — that if other illegal constructions aren’t being destroyed, this should not be — is flawed in itself.
“Sudhakar, there was absolutely no need to parade your ignorance for the entire world to see.”
Surely only through the parading of ignorance will knowledge be spread. If ignorance was kept within then prejudices tend to fester don’t they.
I will be interested to know what this is.
Who argued that “it’s ok to pull down their homes because they are poor?” Is this a line a real person advocated or is it an argument that Mr D’Souza hopes some adversary will advance so Mr D’Souza’s own virtue will shine in contrast?
Champion of the middle class,
Let’s forget about Dilip D’Souza’s article for a minute. I want to know your comments about the demolition itself.
Have demolition-drives in the past been successful in causing a commensurate drop in rental rates? Could Mumbaiite bloggers provide
information in this regard?
Swami,
The abolition of the draconian rent control act.
Dear Ravi,
Why only talk about middle Class and lower classes? Issue I think is all about wronge and being wronge intentionally.
One who makes the law bears the tourch and also rides the dozer.
ravi,
isnt it true that the “shanties lining the rail routes” were cleared up long ago.. (>5 years ago ??) in fact, IIRC, there is a wall along the railway tracks that restricts the shanties from coming dangerously close to the tracks.. (I think 10 meters or so). In fact, IIRC the shanties were cleared up *after* and *because* of a court order, not before..
Do you happen to know towards what end (say creating a park/school/hospital) is the BMC reclaiming this slum land ?
Question which provoke me…
– Can a poor migrant from the hinterland, arrive in the city and hope to get accomodation anywhere except in a slum?
– What government laws that protect a large ‘middle class’ vote bank, prevent low cost housing from being developed by private property developers?
– Where do low-wage service providers like housemaids, police constables and auto-rickshaw drivers live?
– If there are fewer low-wage service providers, how would that affect the bottom line of middle class family budgets?
Swami, thank you for your question. But if you answered it yourself, I’d like to know why you think abolishing the rent control act will benefit the rich. That act is the single greatest hurdle to making affordable housing on rent available in Mumbai.
Lakshmi, thank you for your question too. Pity you have not had an answer.
Shrikantk, thank you for your question too. Answer: no. rental rates have shown no drop with slum demolitions. That is one of the foolish things about destroying the slums.
Last but noy the least, thank you Gautam Bastain for your questions. They are exacty the correct ones to ask.
Sudhakar
Question which provoke me…
My two bits..
I believe most of the people live in slums out of their own choice. Not because of poverty. There are many who live in middle class localities that are probably poorer than those living in the slums.
Those living in slums steal electricity and water supplies. The middle class has to pay for it. Why should the middle class feel sorry for them?
Those living in slums near middle class localities make the place unhygienic for the middle class. If they can build slums, steal water and electricity, why can’t they build a toilet for themselves. Of course they would have the money to buy a television or build a second storey, but not a toilet. Why should the middle class feel sorry for them?
>>>- Can a poor migrant from the hinterland, arrive in the city and hope to get accomodation anywhere except in a slum?
The poor migrant will come to Mumbai, live in a slum, dirty the place and then fight for his so called rights to ownership of the place. Why cant he stay in his own “hinterland” and fight for development and his rights there? They come in and dirty the middle class backyard and think its their backyard… why should the middle class feel sorry for them?
>>>>- What government laws that protect a large ‘middle class’ vote bank, prevent low cost housing from being developed by private property developers?
Take one of these slum dwellers to your place. Let his excrete all over your house and when you want him out, lets see you build him a house.
The middle class cannot afford to buy a house and these guys get one free. They sell those houses and go back to the slums…. Why should the middle class feel sorry for them?
>>>>- If there are fewer low-wage service providers, how would that affect the bottom line of middle class family budgets?
Let the wages rise and the middle class families will absorb it and take it in their stride… wanna bet??? They have seen the prices of many essential commodities rise over time, why would the rate of a low wage worker rising affect them?
>>>>- Where do low-wage service providers like housemaids, police constables and auto-rickshaw drivers live?
Low wage service provider!!!! Cops!!! ha ha.
Do all the low wage service providers live in slums? Should any low wage service providers live in slums?
In India the Law Enforcers believe that they are above the law. If they did their job – let alone well – India wouldn’t be in the situation it is in now.
Police constables??? for pennies most of them would…. do a lot of things they shouldn’t be doing, like rape the ones they are supposed to protect…
For one that was caught there are many that got away…. You cannot call a man a thief until he is caught…
There was a time I used to feel sorry for a cop standing in the hot sun directing traffic. But now I feel that if he is standing in the middle of a polluted street directing traffic, he deserves it. They will form a union to fight for everything but against corruption.
How many would feel its justified in giving these guys a raise in salaries? They may be on duty for twelve hours or more as they say, but a question that comes to mind is, how many of those hours a spent finding a victim to pay a bribe and how many hours on doing the job they are hired for?
work beckons, gotta go..