Urbanisation, Citizenship and Conflict in India by Tommaso Bobbio

Author:Tommaso Bobbio [Bobbio, Tommaso]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, India & South Asia, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317513995
Google: Z5vwCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-06-19T16:15:26+00:00

5 How to create a slum

Figure 5.1 Slums in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation

The presence of substandard housing in Ahmedabad increased along with the general growth of the city. At the beginning of the 1980s slumdwellers represented a large portion of the urban society living in highly degraded settlements, without any security of tenure over the land or access to civic services and infrastructure. A survey conducted in 1981 by a local NGO described the living conditions of slumdwellers in the city:

Ahmedabad has slums where the most elementary services are absent. The only source of water supply in the slums [are] the municipal water taps but considering the total number of households in each area, the source is highly inadequate. … the water points are badly maintained, the broken taps are hardly replaced and the surrounding area is so filthy and dirty that the nearby houses consider it a curse on them to have a water tap near the hut … . The slums on the Eastern part [of Ahmedabad] are so overcrowded that their situation really demands immediate attention. In many slums, it is just impossible and nauseating to even pass by the latrines. You may come across rows of children defecating in the by-lanes which are cleaned only the next day when the sweeper comes to clean the latrines. I came across slums where the latrines were not cleaned for months altogether … . The slum of Shankar Bhuvan where about 5000 families live has got only 6 latrines, which means there is only one latrine for 4631 persons … .1

This description shows how living conditions in a slum were not much different in the 1980s than they were at the end of the previous century, when the first settlements emerged around textile mills. Throughout the twentieth century, slums had become an integral component of the progressive expansion of Ahmedabad as they absorbed a large proportion of the most backward sectors of the urban population, mostly migrants and casual labourers. From the late 1970s, with the progressive dismantling of the textile sector in the city, slums also absorbed part of the army of impoverished former industrial workers. Most slumdwellers belonged to lower castes, tribal groups, and had rural origins. Regional and communal ties assumed great relevance in influencing the social and cultural composition, as well as the ways in which slumdwellers organised their spaces and work activities. In fact, while in the early stages of industrial expansion migrants came predominantly from nearby regions like Marwar, Kathiawad, or Kachchh, in post-Independence times the further expansion of the textile industry, and of the city at large, broa-dened the gravitational field of the city and groups of migrants began to arrive from the more distant regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, and the Punjab.

The wide gap in terms of quality of housing between slums and the rest of the city, as well as the living and working conditions of most slumdwellers, contributed to keep slums in a sort of isolation from the urban territory.

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