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"Evictions now a national crisis"

Siddharth Narrain

Miloon Kothariis the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He spoke toThe Hinduon resettlement and rehabilitation under development projects and forced evictions in urban centres. Excerpts:

Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Miloon Kothari: "If internal displacement continues on this scale [it] will definitely lead to more social conflict in the future."

The question of resettlement and rehabilitation in the Narmada Valley has been in the spotlight. What is your position on the issue?

The issue of rehabilitation and resettlement has been a contentious one since the beginning of the Sardar Sarovar Project. The inadequacy of resettlement and rehabilitation has been a common feature of the whole process of the dam till now. Unlike any other development project in the country, a very elaborate system of mechanisms and institutions has been set up since the beginning of the project where we have the Narmada Control Authority at the Central level and grievance-redressal mechanisms at the State level. Despite this, the rehabilitation has been inadequate. There is a tremendous backlog of displaced families who have not been rehabilitated. From the human rights perspective and constitutional commitments you cannot have any kind of development that leads to a situation where people are left to fend for themselves and are not adequately rehabilitated before the development takes place. I think it is that human rights principle that the Supreme Court had in mind in its 2000 and 2005 judgments when they said resettlement has to be completed six months before displacement. But this principle has not been followed.

Successive governments have been unable to rise above political considerations and think of the human rights of those who have been displaced. I would go to the extent of saying that even the courts are party to that now. The Supreme Court has overwhelming evidence that rehabilitation has not worked. In spite of that, and despite their own previous judgments, they continue to delay the judgment. The most logical decision according to the Constitution, international human rights law, and Supreme Court judgments would have been to stop construction of the dam until rehabilitation has been brought up to speed. But that is not being done.

What are the estimates of the number of people displaced in evictions in cities across India?

I don't have countrywide figures but in Mumbai between December 2004 and February 2005, 350,000 persons lost their homes. In Delhi around 400,000 have lost their homes in the last four years, and this figure is rising all the time.

If you had a similar number of people who were displaced from their homes without any alternative because of ethnic or armed conflict or a refugee situation you would have had a very different response. You have [a] tragic situation now where a slum dweller displaced in Delhi or a tribal family displaced in the Narmada Valley, without being provided resettlement, have literally nowhere to go. There is no institution they can complain to, even for minimum requirements like food. If internal displacement continues on this scale [it] will definitely lead to more social conflict in the future.

Does the UPA Government's National Urban Renewal Mission adequately address issues of rehabilitation and resettlement?

I am very sceptical of policy documents like the National Urban Renewal Mission whose entire focus is on infrastructure. If there is going to be displacement, and if there is a need to move [a] large number of people or certain kind of projects to feed the energy needs of the country, there should be a National Rehabilitation Policy and a National Housing Policy in place. There should be legislation in place that specifies under what conditions people can be displaced — a rehabilitation policy that said that all alternatives would be explored before carrying out a development project, or a policy that says that displacements will be minimised. The judiciary, and institutions like the NHRC have to be willing to monitor and intervene in such situations.

Courts are increasingly being seen as enforcers of evictions. Professor Upendra Baxi has termed it "a tradeoff between judicial and executive largesse." But the traditional means of seeking redress in these situations has been to go to use legal instruments. How do you reconcile these trends?

If the courts in India were carrying out their deliberations and giving their judgments in accordance with constitutional obligations and India's international human rights commitments, we would not see the kind of judgments that we are seeing. I don't see any conflict. The problem arises when you have a body of law, whether it is derived from the constitutional or international instruments, and you fail to uphold that law, which is premised on protecting the inherent dignity of human beings, particularly people who are vulnerable. If you fail to do that, instead of being a protector you are becoming an accomplice in the violations that are taking place.

In the last five years of jurisprudence in India, particularly in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, courts have created an artificial and very disturbing conflict between human rights. For example, there are a series of judgments where the right to a safe environment is being seen as more important than the right to housing or livelihood. These judgments are not only placing poor communities in a very difficult position but are going one step further and criminalising the poor. They are actually saying that if you are living in a slum and you don't have security of tenure and you don't have rights, you are illegal — and if you are illegal you don't deserve anything. So you have a judgment like Almitra Patel that actually says that giving civic services and security of tenure to slum dwellers will be like rewarding a pickpocket. To have that kind of hostile language in judgments is completely unacceptable.

Narmada Bachao Andolan activists recently protested against the "silence of the National Human Rights Commission" on the violation of the rights of those displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project and on the wider issue of resettlement and rehabilitation. Is this criticism justified?

The NHRC has not been as active and forthright on the issue of evictions and rehabilitation as some would expect given its mandate. It is certainly within their mandate to monitor the situation and carry out field investigations, and to hold public hearings on sites. But they are not doing that. I think they are failing in their duty because the situation of evictions and displacement in the country now is a national crisis. We are seeing simultaneous evictions in cities and rural areas, and you are talking of hundreds and thousands of people.

There is overwhelming evidence of human rights violations. A striking feature in the evictions in the last few years has been the brutality of the police. People are not given notice, they are beaten up, homes are demolished when people are still inside, homes are demolished at meal times, before school exams, on festival days — all completely in violation of international principles. The NHRC has an independent mandate. They can carry out independent investigations even without a complaint, and they are failing to do that.

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