Embers of burnt hutments fuming, so do the victims

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, NOV. 25. The fire-ravaged Anna Sathyanagar slum presented a poignant sight on Saturday.

Puddles of water amid burnt huts had turned black with the soot and ash from the embers.

And it is not only the embers of the burnt houses that are fuming. A seething rage is palpable among the affected families.

Forlorn elders trying to salvage bits of cloth, wood and metal from charred hutments, children picking at food morsels near makeshift ovens, and dazed women expressing their anguish at visitors, the undercurrent of anger is too visible to be ignored.

The blaze, they say, was no accident. ``The fire started in an unoccupied hut. It adds to our suspicion that it was pure arson, involving vested interests that want to evict the dwellers from the slum as was done at ASN `A' colony,'' says a woman activist of the area.

For over two decades, the sprawling slum lying on the eastern side of Kamarajar Salai, abutting the harbour compound wall, used to comprise three hutment colonies.

In April last, the settlement called `A' colony was simply erased by a swift administrative action and the dwellers dumped at the Okkiyam Thoraipakkam rehabilitation site of the Slum Clearance Board, south east of Chennai.

Activists of Chennai Slum Dwellers Rights Movement, a loose network of NGOs working in the city slums, see Friday's fire as yet another battle in the ``official war against the poor''.

The dwellers, most of them Oddars (construction workers community), who settled at the site over two decades ago, represent the loosing side in the war.

These workers have built Chennai's landmarks, including the Secretariat, MRTS network, MGR Samadhi and other government buildings. Now it looks like private and political interests do not want to give them any living space in the city. The workers are treated as unwanted intruders in the city'', say Mr. L. M. Menezes, a coordinator of the Rights Movement, and Ms. Geetha, a campaigner for the construction workers' cause.

``The same trend was seen in `A' colony too. There was a fire, people were terrorised by police, the more militant adults arrested and jailed. The rest of the hut-dwellers were taken away and dumped at Okkiyam Thoraipakkam,'' a woman resident claims. ``God knows the trouble. We had been running around jails trying to meet our menfolk, taking care of children left on the roadside, cooking food and sending bigger boys and girls to school examinations,'' a woman says, trembling with anger.

Mr. Menezes notes that the life and livelihood of the urban poor is linked to the security of tenure of their homes. If that is taken away, their moorings are gone. Case in point: the people who were resettled at Okkiyam Thoraipakkam saw no viable means to come everyday to the city for work. So many live on the pavement and return to their new homes only weekends.

Ms. Geetha says the threat of eviction is seen in almost all city slums, especially those along the waterways. Agencies such as the Slum Clearance Board seem to be instruments to achieve the endeavour of sanitising the city of its slums and make it more marketable to private investors.

``If the government is serious about its policy for the poor, we want it to provide us fire-proof materials to reconstruct the house and to implement the G.O. for providing pattas to the poor living on government lands for over 10 years.''

The coordinating organisation proposed to send fax messages to the National Human Rights Commission, terming the threat to their shelter as a denial of right to life and livelihood.

Without a roof over their heads and any amenities for a normal life, the fire-hit Annaisathya Nagar will continue to wallow in misery even as the government repackages the city for global consumption.

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