The truth about slums

BY NOEL G DE SOUZA

At last, there is some good news from a United Nations agency for both India and China. According to the UN-Habitat’s latest report The State of the World Cities 2010/11, China and India have reduced the number of their slum dwellers in the last decade to a greater extent than any other developing countries. China’s achievement has been termed as “spectacular”, having reduced its slum population by 25%.

India has done much better by reducing its slum population by 32%. India is estimated to have 40 million slum dwellers spread over its large and small cities. That means that 4% of its population live in slums. This needs to be taken in the context that India has over 5000 urban centres of widely-differing size with over 300 million people and that urban centres are fast growing. That equates to less than 10% of the urban population being slum dwellers.

According to UNHabitat, India lifted 59.7 million people out from slum conditions and that this was achieved by two important measures: by building skills amongst the urban poor and by providing micro-credit for small business ventures. Provision of basic services and development has also improved living conditions. Lastly, poor families have been given security of tenure in unauthorized settlements and have been provided with access to low cost housing and subsidised housing finance. The poor have also been encouraged to participate in decision-making processes.

by Mira Nair are popular in the West and are promoted as depictions of the “true India”. Such films win awards even though they might be fictions and fantasies, as is the case with Slumdog Millionaire

Rather than clarify the extent of slums in India, Indians everywhere seemed more focussed on the box-office success of Slumdog Millionaire and of the numerous awards that it gained, particularly for AR Rahman’s entertaining musical score. The awards were well-deserved, but the story of the movie allows for it to be easily misconstrued; some schools in NSW were showing the film to students who were studying about India in social studies. And Indians have been mostly silent!

Amitabh Bachchan was the exception; he considered Slumdog Millionaire to portray India as a “third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation (that) causes pain and disgust”; he added “let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations.” He questioned the “Indianness” of the movie which has the screenplay and direction by Britishers.

Rather than clarify the extent of slums in India, Indians everywhere seemed more focussed on the box-office success of Slumdog Millionaire….

Slums are found in all fast-growing urban centres of developing countries. They go by different names in different places such as favelas in Brazil and shanty towns in South Africa. The West is no stranger to slums. That such conditions were present in nineteenth century Britain and the USA is well documented. Even today, poverty and disturbance-ridden neighbourhoods such as Harlem in New York is nothing to be proud about.

However, following the release of the Film Slumdog Millionaire, based on a fictional story named Q&A by Vikas Swarup, an impression was created that slums only exist in India; it also generated the myth that all the poor in India’s big cities live in slums. This morphed into a further exaggeration that all Indians were “slumdogs” as one radio commentator in the USA is alleged to have been broadcasting.

The trouble is that films like Slumdog Millionaire and the 1988 film Salaam Bombay

However, the Hindi film Salaam Bombay! by Mira Nair about street kids of Mumbai did get both Indian and Western awards. Seemingly, critical portrayals about India get awards even if they happen to be fictitious.

There are two French films which, like Slumdog Millionaire, are stories about poor marginalised persons, living in substandard conditions in Paris, winning enormous prizes on French TV. Those films were written off as fantasies. What makes Slumdog Millionaire realistic or more representative of India? Very often when large buildings are being built, the workers who work on them erect temporary hutments near them to house themselves and their families until the project is completed. Such instances have given many a Western photographer a photo-opportunity to say that slums lie alongside modern buildings in India.

Returning to the UN-Habitat story, when slums have been cleared and better housing built, experience has shown that often the better-off come to occupy these new dwellings. Rather, when slums are cleared, the original slum dwellers should get priority to occupy the new housing.

UN-Habitat proposes policies of “inclusiveness” by socially providing “residents, regardless of … socioeconomic status, adequate housing, decent basic services, and equal access to social amenities”; by economically providing residents “equal opportunities for business and access to employment”; and by politically encouraging “social and political participation so that city officials will make better informed decisions and in a democratic manner.”