Slums in India

TABLE OF CONTENTS SLUMS IN INDIA INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 DEFINITION OF SLUM ....................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 CAUSES OF SLUM............................................................................................................................. 3 1.2.1 Absence of adequate housing facilities in the urban areas .......................................................... 4 1.2.2 Poor Wages................................................................................................................................. 4 1.2.3 High cost of urban land and building material............................................................................4 1.2.4 Population explosion, poverty and unemployment ...................................................................... 5 1.2.5 Vested interests ............................................................................................................................ 5 1.2.6 Negligence by the Government .................................................................................................... 5 1.2.7 Slum mentality ............................................................................................................................. 6 1.2.8 Urbanization and Industrialization ............................................................................................. 6 1.2.9 Natural calamities ....................................................................................................................... 7 1.2.10 Desire to improve their status of living...................................................................................... 7 1.2.11 Unemployment ........................................................................................................................... 7 1.2.12 Migration ................................................................................................................................... 7 2 SLUM IN INDIA ............................................................................................................................. 8 3 PROBLEMS OF THE SLUM DWELLERS ................................................................................. 9 3.1 UN-HEALTHY HOUSING CONDITIONS. .............................................................................................. 9 3.2 POVERTY ....................................................................................................................................... 10 3.3 ELECTRICITY ................................................................................................................................. 10 3.4 DRINKING WATER .......................................................................................................................... 10 3.5 TOILETS ......................................................................................................................................... 11 3.6 BATHROOMS .................................................................................................................................. 11 3.7 SANITATION .................................................................................................................................. 11 4 EVIL EFFECTS OF SLUMS: ...................................................................................................... 11 4.1 EFFECTS UPON THE INDIVIDUALS ................................................................................................... 11 4.2 EFFECTS UPON SOCIETY ................................................................................................................ 12 4.3 PROBLEMS OF THE CHILDREN: ....................................................................................................... 12 4.4 DISEASES ....................................................................................................................................... 12 4.5 LIFE STYLE .................................................................................................................................... 13 5 SUGGESTIONS............................................................................................................................. 13 5.1 IMPROVEMENT OF THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS .............................................................................. 13 5.2 EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT ....................................................................................................... 14 5.3 ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT ............................................................................................................ 14 5.4 CULTURAL IMPROVEMENT ............................................................................................................ 15 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 16 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................................. 17

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Slums in India Introduction There are two ways in which the city is looked at , the city is a product and generator of man’s creative talents. Despite the miserable conditions of life it imposes on a large section of its inhabitants, the city offers the most conducive environment for the flowering of the best of talents in man, be it engineering or embroidery. Luminaries in arts, literature and science are by and large produced by the cities alone. The city therefore favors the development of intellectual life.

The other view magnifies the pathological features of urban life. The city is man’s undoing. Depersonalization of the individual, soul-shattering competition, the conversion of man into a commodity, commercialization of values, anonymity, boredom, alienation, avarice, crime and deviation to a high degree, overcrowded and unhygienic living environment and shelterlesnessthese are but a few conditions that the city offers.

Both the aspects of the city are realities and are to be looked at as such. The city is both the hope and despair of man. Millions find a way to prosperity through the channels offered by our industrial-urban civilization, and millions on the other side find themselves placed in the midst of unemployment, hunger and lack of a proper shelter. It is this last aspect that we are at present dealing with.

The urban malaise of shelterlessness and man’s efforts to solve it in the most adverse circumstances of poverty and illiteracy are seen in, most concrete form in slums, shanty-towns and squatters’ colonies. Reduced to its basic features a slum is nothing by an area of sub-standard housing. The slum problem is, therefore, essentially the problem of shelter for the poor.

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1.1 Definition of Slum According to a Unesco document, “a slum is a building , a group of buildings, or area characterized by overcrowding, deterioration, unsanitary conditions or absence of facilities or amenities which, because of these conditions or any of them, endanger the health, safety or morals of its inhabitants or the community”.

Bergel says: ‘‘Slums may be characterized as areas of substandard housing condition within a city a slum is always an area. A single, neglected building even in the worst stage of deterioration does not make a slum.’’1 A UN Expert Group has created an operational definition of a slum as an area that combines to various extents the following characteristics: “inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowding; and insecure residential status. To these one might add the low socioeconomic status of its residents.”2 Studies on slum have stressed the fact that the slum is an area of darkness, an area of poverty.

By now it is well-known that poverty is the prime

characteristic of slums. The poor have always lived in the worst of quarters in the city. The mass of artisans and workers of some of the most glorious ancient civilizations have had to content with inhuman living conditions.

1.2 Causes of Slum Any problem of symptom of social disorganization is due to several factors.

Naturally, the slum is also a complex product of many factors. To some sociologists, the urban slum is one of the effects of industrialization and mass unemployment. For this reasons the urban community as such is not alone responsible for slum grown misery and famine, for death on the sick-bed and moral depravity. These conditions are part of our industrialized society. The 1

S.D, Pillai, and A.R. Desai, A Profile of An Indian slum (Bombay: Popular prakashan, 1972)p.3 2 S.D. Singh, and K.P. Pothen, Slum children of India, (Delhi: Deep and Deep, 1982)p.14

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modern city functions as a climax area for the damages of modern industrialization.

With particular reference to India, the following causes may be mentioned for the origin and growth of slums:

1.2.1 Absence of adequate housing facilities in the urban areas “Most of our cities are highly congested and over-crowded. They have sprung up in an unplanned and haphazard manner. When people throng in the cities to work in industries, transport and trading concerns, they fail to find housing accommodation. Some employers do take care to construct and provide house for their employees, while many remain utterly indifferent.

It there are

thousands of industrial workers without adequate residential facilities they naturally try to make some temporary arrangement near the place of their work.”3 Thus, large number of unhealthy and unhygienic huts spring up near the factories or commercial concerns. These naturally turn into slums because the area is small, proper roads are not available, facilities like electricity, water and larine do not exist and life becomes miserable.

1.2.2 Poor Wages “Large number of our industrial and commercial workers is unskilled labourers earning poor wages. Many of them are employed on a temporary basis. Some of these industrial laborers have migratory nature too. They cannot afford to have pucca houses with proper facilities. Thus they are forced to live in slums.”4

1.2.3 High cost of urban land and building material.

“Urban land is very costly. The building materials are also very costly. Even if some workers desire to own land and house, it can only be a wishful thinking.

3 4

S.D. Singh, and K.P. Pothen, Slum children of India,p.14 Ibid.,p.15

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Some workers, however, succeed in fulfilling this dream by the fag-end of their life, by spending their life-earnings.”5

1.2.4 Population explosion, poverty and unemployment “Population explosion, Poverty and unemployment all work together in a country like ours for the formation of slums. With all the efforts of the Government and private agencies, there is no satisfactory reduction in our population growth. Rural masses are still highly illiterate and cannot comprehend the seriousness of the problem so as to adopt family planning and welfare techniques to control population. This is very significant, because, even it the relatively more educated urban people are trying to take to family planning , it has not much impact on the realities because of the high rate of illiteracy among them. Illiteracy promotes ignorance, superstition and fatalism. Unemployment and underemployment are also serious problems facing the entire country, whether rural, urban, educated or uneducated. In other words, in India, as it may be elsewhere too, economic inadequacies create slums.”6

1.2.5 Vested interests “There are some landlords who own slum lands and slum houses. They collect rent from the slum dwellers without improving the conditions of the slum houses. Thus, the dilapidated condition of the slum-dwellings perpetuate due to the exploitation of some vested interests. Such landlords also prevent the Government or the Municipal Corporation to interfere.”7

1.2.6 Negligence by the Government “In the past, the Municipalities, and State as well as Central Government also did not pay sufficient attention to the prevention of slums, nor for their improvement or clearance. One important hurdle for them was non5

S.D. Singh, and K.P. Pothen, Slum children of India,p.14 Ibid., 7 Ibid.,pp15-16 6

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availability of funds for the purpose. Of late, the Government has started various housing schemes to prevent the growth of slums and to clear or improve slums, spending crose of rupees. This will definitely be helpful to solve the problem in the days to come.”8

1.2.7 Slum mentality “There are people who continue to remain in slums although they could easily live in better areas. They prefer to rent out their own well-built houses and live in slums, because they are habituated to live there. They have completely adjusted with the slum environment, and if uprooted from the slums, they would find it difficult. This is a matter of attitude. Perhaps, education and enlightenment can change their attitudes.”9 Slums are universal problems, that is, slums are found almost in all countries of the world. In a country like India, where socio-economic problems are in abundance, and where we are moving from the backward and underdeveloped condition to that of developing, the problem of slum has too many causes working together simultaneously.

1.2.8 Urbanization and Industrialization “Industrialization is the growth of manufacturing industries and Urbanization is a process where by population tends to agglomerate in clusters of more than a certain designated size” Many sociologists consider that industrialization and urbanization go hand in hand. Industrialization brings changes in the work ways of people while urbanization brings about changes in the ways of life. “Because of this urbanization and industrialization the land becomes scare and all people are not able to build good houses according to their needs. The acute shortage of housing forces the whole family to live in one or two rooms. Due to this shortage, the urban areas become congested, over crowed and the people are

8 9

S.D. Singh, and K.P. Pothen, Slum children of India,p.16 Ibid.,

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heaped together in one room like filthy garbage. They are accommodated some how and some where. The places are filthy, marshy and unfit for human habitation.”

1.2.9 Natural calamities 76.27% of Indian population to the census of 1981, majority of rural mass depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The sudden and unexpected natural calamities such as draught, flood, cyclone, had driven large number of rural people out of their original habitat. Because of these abrupt calamities, there is no job accessibility to find means for their life. So the penury for meals which they are unable to do in villages.

1.2.10 Desire to improve their status of living Bombay sociologist Chandan Sin Gupta describes the migration as “several thousand lifeboat heading for new islands.

For them it is a question of

survival. A city satisfies a biological need. It is a choice between survival and starvation.” Here to improve the status of living means not the high style of clothing, 3eating but to earn enough for two meals which they do not get in villages.

1.2.11 Unemployment “In India the majority of the people are dependent on agriculture.

The

population increases but the cultivable land remains the same. There is more population but less work. With the advancement of science and technology man’s power is subtracted by the machines. So the poor feel the pinch of nonavailability of works in the villages. Thus they flock into cities in search of jobs.”

1.2.12 Migration “Large-scale migration to the cities became a natural consequence as huge factories, aided by power-driven transport to market their goods, began to appear. The factory, the railroad and the slum-this is how Mumford delineates 7

the elements of the new industrial city. In the industrial order that emerged the human being became a forgotten element. Workers were accommodated somehow and somewhere: quarters were ‘often placed within the left-over spaces between the factories and sheds and the railroad yards,’ and on ‘land filled in with ashes and broken glass and rubbish…’ If this was the condition of the new towns, it was much worse in the older towns that began expanding with industrialization. To quote Mumford again, in these towns ‘workers were first accommodated by turning old one-family houses into rent barracks.

In these made over houses, each separate room would now enclose a whole family.”10

2 Slum in India According to NSSO, the total number of urban slums has gone down from 56311 in1993 to 51688 in 2002.

The total number of household’s livingin slums has increased from 5.93 million in 1993 to 8.23 million in 2002. The NSS survey in 2002 has also found that 35% of slums exist on private land while the 63% of slums are on public land at All India level. 

640 cities/towns in 26 States/Union territories in 2001 have reported

slum population. Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of towns (77) reporting slums followed by Uttar Pradesh (69), Tamil Nadu (63) and Maharashtra (61) 

42.6 million Populations live in slums in 2001. This constitutes 15 per

cent of the total urban population of the country and 22.6 per cent of the urban population of the states/union territories reporting slums. 11.2 million of the total slum population of the country are in Maharashtra followed by Andhra Pradesh 5.2, Uttar Pradesh 4.4 and West Bengal 4.1 million. 

17.7 million Slum populations have been reported in the 27 cities with

million plus population in 2001. Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation with 10

S.D. Pillai and A.R. Desai,. A Profile of An Indian slum (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1972 )pp.5-7

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6.5 million slum dwellers has the highest slum population among all the cities followed by Delhi Municipal Corporation (1.9 million), Kolkata (1.5 million) and Chennai (0.8 million). 

6 million children in the age group 0-6 have been enumerated in

slums. Maharashtra alone accounts for 1.6 million children in slums. 

7.4 million (17.4 per cent) of the total slum population belong to the

Scheduled Castes and one million (2.4 per cent) to the Scheduled Tribes. 

Sex ratio (females per thousand males) of the total slum population is

876 which is lower than 905 for the corresponding non slum urban population. 

Child Sex Ratio in the age group 0-6 is 919 in the slum population

which is higher than 904 for non slum urban population. 

Literacy rate in slum areas stands at 73.1 with 80.7 per cent male and

64.4 per cent female literacy against overall non-slum urban literacy rates of 81.0 for total, 87.2 for males and 74.2 for females in the states reporting slums. 

32.9 per cent slum population has been returned as workers. Male

work participation rate is 51.3 and female work participation rate is 11.9 per cent in 2001. 

91.1 per cent workers in the slum population are ‘Other workers’ and 5

per cent have been returned as ‘Household Industry workers’.11

3 Problems of the slum dwellers 3.1 Un-healthy housing conditions.

“To possess a proper shelter is not only a basic human need but also a basic human right. However a large number of slums in India seem to be deprived of this basic need and right.”12 Housing conditions in the slum are extremely unsatisfactory and unhealthy. The houses are too small in their size. There will be no windows to them. Most of the rooms are not having bath rooms and latrines.

11

http://www.censusindia.gov.in/data_products/datas_highlights/data_highilights_links/metada ta_highlights.pdf.

12 M.V. Bijulal, City Slum and The Marginalized. (Delhi: Indian social Institute, 2004)p.26

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3.2 Poverty The inhabitants of slum areas are extremely poor people. Majority of them are industrial workers. They will have inadequate income. “It is something like transferring the rural poverty to urban slums. It is because of economic conditions that the majority of them will become helpless and isolated from the main community.”13

3.3 Electricity Using electricity for lighting and other domestic purposes has become very much a part of modern living. However it does not look as though the poor sections of our society can avail of this facility which is a common necessity today. It is found that in a slum about” 55.30% houses have luxury of electricity.”14

3.4 Drinking water Of all the problems faced by the slum-dwellers, the one relating to drinking water in the most serious as well as perennial. Drinking water is a basic human requirement such as air, and bight which are necessary for human survival. “It is found that about 0.75 households have the privilege of having their own drinking facility at home, 22% of the households are in a some what privileged position because for them drinking water is available with in a short distance. But majority of the households have to walk a long distance to get sufficient water.”15

13

M.S. Dhadave, Sociology of slum (Delhi: Archives books, 1989)p.7 Bijulal, M.V. City Slum and The Marginalized.p.27 15 Shiri, Godwin. Our Slums: Mirror a systemic Malady (Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation,1999)p.49 14

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3.5 Toilets Sanitary toilets are a perquisite for healthy living. It is revealing that except for an insignificant number, all the slum households are deprived of this basic requirement

3.6 Bathrooms As in the case of latrines, with regard to bathing rooms too, an over whelming majority of the slum households are a deprived lot. The bathing facilities which the people have are not really full-fledge bathing rooms but one mostly a corner within their small houses which they use while bathing. Most of the men folk bathe outside the house with or without a makeshift enclosure.

Many women use a corner of their house for bathing purposes.

3.7 Sanitation “In rainy, chilly or warm weather, the slum-dwellers suffer all the time due to their poor housing and habitation. However of all the seasons the rainy season in the period in which the slum dwellers experience their worst nightmares.

These are fills up with water.�16

4 Evil effects of slums: Slums are having certain evil sequences both upon the individuals and society. We may discuss these effects under two heads namely, effects upon the individuals and effects upon society.

4.1 Effects upon the individuals Slums are having certain evil consequences on the mind and moral life of the people. Environment which prevails in the slums leads to the personal disc organization. Most of the people living in the slums become dissatisfied and disappointed.

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Some people are engaged in anti-social

Godwin, Shiri, Our Slums: Mirror a systemic Malady,p54

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activities. Some people are engaged in criminal and delinquent activities.

Children will become the victims of child labour. Suffering of the people in the form of poverty and diseases is to be found in a large scale in the slums.

The various symptoms of personal disorganization such as prostitution, gambling, unemployment etc. are found in the slum areas.17

4.2 Effects upon Society Slums are having evil effects upon society also.

Increase in the

number of slums leads to the increase in the prostitution, juvenile delinquency, beggary, unemployment etc. disorganization of society.

Such problems result in the

In such a society economic and social

development will become the difficult task.18

4.3 Problems of the Children: Every infection spread fast in an over crowded area, infant death will be higher Normal developing is impossible when children are denied sufficient quit sleep and rest. Persistent crowd destroys the sense of individuality which can only develop when a certain amount of privacy is provided for individual children. Children often witness the sex acts of their parents and at this age are unable to understand the true meaning of such relationship. Excessive curiosity towards sex or aversion towards sex develops.

4.4 Diseases 

Asthma



Heart-related



Ulcer



Polio



Fits



Blood pressure



Skin diseases

17 18

Godwin, Shiri, Our Slums: Mirror a systemic Malady,p54 Ibid.,p.57

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

Tuberculosis

4.5 Life Style “The slum-dwellers are part of the poorest of the poor and are in the lowest strata of economic conditions.

Their occupation, income level, wages,

habitation, everything reflect their hand-to-mouth existence.

However, in

spite of all this they do not leg behind in spending unproductively. Habitual cinema-going, drinking, smoking, betel nut-chewing tobacco chewing, stocking, gambling, pan chewing are some of the most prominent habits found among them.”19

5 Suggestions 5.1 Improvement of the physical conditions Special officer may be appointed for the slums that will look after the sanitation of the slums. (a)

Financial help in the form of building material may be provided to the

slum dwellers to improve their existing housing conditions. (b)

Some kind of co-operative society may be organized in slum areas to

supply building materials and to supervise their proper use. The services of P.W.D. may be taken to evolve a model or design of cheap but yet sufficiently comfortable houses in the slum areas. Free services may be provided about the know-how of the technique of construction of cheap houses. (c)

Sufficient drinking water taps, public latrines and bath rooms may be

established at different points. (d)

Municipality may take immediate steps to confer legal ownership title

to the residents of squatters’ colony and making them feel that they are the owner of the area and they can take keen interest in maintaining the area better.

19

M.S. Dhadave, Sociology of slum,p.128

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(e)

Resettlement may be undertaken as far as possible near to their work

place. (f)

It must be impressed upon the slum dwellers that for healthy living one

need not build costly building. It is only proper surrounding which will be helpful to maintain good health.

It is also the responsibility of the

municipality tom see that the surrounding areas of the slums are looked after.

5.2 Educational Improvement Compulsory education scheme must be implemented. (a)

The schools must be made attractive to the children; several steps can

be taken in this regard-free supply of book, better uniforms, mid-day meals etc. It is better is some one from among the slum dwellers is appointed as teacher. (b)

Medium of instruction may be in the language commonly spoken in

the areas. (c)

Parents’ teacher association may be established in each area to discuss

the problems confronted by both teacher and parents. (d)

Cases of dropouts must be specially investigated and appropriate

measures be taken. (e)

Arrangement of extra-curricular activities in schools on the same

model as it is in city schools.

5.3 Economic Improvement (a)

Provision for jobs for those who are in need of jobs according to their

ability and skill and attitude. (b)

Those who are engaged in traditional occupation, such as pot-making,

weaving, carpentry, broom-making, etc., may be instructed how to improve their occupations on scientific basis avoiding wastage of time, labour, economy in the use of raw materials. (c)

Provision of easily available loans to carry on independent occupation-

banks may adopt slums in giving economic assistance in the form of loans either in cash or in kind i.e. in the form of tools and raw materials.

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(d)

Small scale industries or cottage industries like poultry farms, dairies,

bakery, soap production etc. may be initiated in these slum areas. (e)

As for the possible casual labour and insecurity and irregularity in

income is to eliminated by suitable and permanent jobs. This will help to remove the psychological effects of unemployment. Evil habits like drinking liquor, gambling etc. may be eliminated to considerable extent by provision of employment assuring certainty of income and standard of living. This will generate a desire to improve further.

This will also work in favour of

adoption of small family to increase ones standard of living. (f)

Provision of essential commodities through fair price shops to be

located in the areas itself. This should not be limited to supply of sugar only as it is done now. Almost all items of daily requirements including clothes must be made available at cheap prices. A trial to run the shop on principle of co-operative society may be given. (g)

Cottage and handicraft industry products of slum areas must be

arranged to be sold through government agencies ensuring a fair price.

Government agencies may be asked to buy them.

5.4 Cultural Improvement Deliberate efforts should be made to encourage the process of Sanskritisation in the life of the slum dwellers. It should not be discouraged and hurdled. It helps the process of integration of cultural practices and norms of the upper castes and identification with the upper castes. Improvements in education and in the standard of living pave the way for the cultural and normative integration in the community. There is already much similarity in religious habits, values, celebration of festivals and feast, marriage and other ceremonies.

This can be maintained and intensified through economic

improvement of slum dwellers by enabling them to practice and adhere to them-eg, marriage ceremony, festivals, worship at temple and at home. Mass media can be used to bring about the acceptance of ideals, between etc. and it may also be used to establish effective link between slum dwellers and nonslum dwellers. The religious tenants or saying of religious leaders or political

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leaders be made known to make them realize that all are equal, whatever the occupation they follow and whatever may be their status.

Conclusion Slum life is an urban social, problem. It is created by the modern way of life and since it is created by us, it is our duty to help out the unfortunate one’s who the victims of such miserable circumstances are. This can not be done by the government alone. Government agencies, along with the cooperation of voluntary agencies, individuals, social, workers, student and all other interested in national reconstruction should work together to remove this problem. . Unless the world changes course, 1.5 billion urban residents in 2020 will be slum dwellers. One in every three people in the world will live in slums within 30 years unless governments control unprecedented urban growth. One-sixth of the world's population - already live in squalid, unhealthy areas, mostly without water, sanitation, public services or legal security.

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Bibliography



Godwin, Shiri, Our Slums: Mirror a systemic Malady .Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 1999



Pillai, S.D. and Desai, A.R. A Profile of An Indian slum. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1972



Singh, S.D. and Pothen, K.P. Slum children of India. Delhi: Deep and Deep, 1982.



Bijulal, M.V. City Slum and The Marginalized. Delhi: Indian social Institute, 2004.



Mahewaran, G. Margaret Antony, Social segregation And slums.

Delhi: Indian social Institute, 2001.



Wiebe, D. Paul. Social life in an Indian Slum. Delhi : Vikas, 1975



Dhadave, M.S. Sociology of slum. Delhi: Archives books, 1989



Patil, D.S. Social Problems. Bangalore: Subhas stores, 19981.



http://www.censusindia.gov.in/ data_products/ dats_highlights/ data_highilights_links/metadata_highlights.pdf

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