"Adequate shelter and services are a basic human right which places an obligation on governments to ensure their attainment by all people".

- UN Declaration on Human Settlement, 1976

"The right to security of place recognises the importance of tenure rights (for
tenants, owners and those too poor to rent or buy a home) and the critical right to be protected against any arbitrary or forced eviction from one's home".

- Mary Robinson, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, March 1999

It is clear that the right to secure an adequate shelter is little more than words for vast numbers of India's poor. They have no proper homes, so they are forced to live on the streets or in the jhuggis of our major cities, at the mercy of any official or unofficial power that decides to move them on. With no proper home, they have little hope or opportunity to exercise other rights to which they are entitled.

Mumbai, July 13:

Thousands of State Government employees began on Monday a city-wide census on slum dwellers….the demolition drive against slums has created a serious law and order situation.

The issue of shelter for the poor has now become critical in urban areas and has made all take stock of the situation, says housing rights activist P.K. Das.

'Health effects of forced evictions in the slums of Mumbai' The Times of India, 14.7.00

Chennai, Oct. 17:

Fourteen houses of Chinnakuppam, a fishing hamlet on the Ennore shoreline, were washed away by the sea on Monday night……

The intense drama has left the Federation of 55 Fishermen Village Associations in an infuriated mood, as they had been repeatedly urging the authorities to initiate damage control measures… The 900 metre stretch…has been on the receiving end for some time as dredging operations by the ETPS on the southern end and boulders placed along a 300-metre length on the northern side has made Chinnakuppam an extremely 'water intrusion prone' area.
The Hindu, 18.10.00

Hyderabad, June 14:

The Andra Pradesh Congress (I) Committee, the State units of the CPI and the CPI (M) have pledged their support to the struggle launched by the people displaced by the Nandanavanam project on the Musi river bank here and demanded that the eviction process be stopped immediately.

'Nandanvanam Project: demand to stop eviction process' The Hindu, 15.6.00
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2000/06/15/stories/0415403i.htm

Rajinder Sachar (New Indian Express, 2.7.00) called forced evictions of slum dwellers unprincipled, unjust and illegal, pointing out that India is a signatory to the Istanbul Declaration of 1996 (see below) which reaffirmed the UN's 1976 Declaration on Human Settlement.

And he recalls the clear statement of General Comment No 7 (1997) of the UN Committee appointed under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1956:

Evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights…..the State Party must take all appropriate measures to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available.

A study on the health effects of forced evictions in the slums of Mumbai looked at the inhabitants of Ambedkar Nagar, a colony of 5,000 people living on 8,000 acres of reclaimed land, now a valuable piece of real estate, on the southern tip of the city. Initially brought in by labour contractors from the villages of India to build the modern city of Mumbai, they stayed to earn their living in the fish docks, as labourers and servants, settling on an area of tidal land.

They have been evicted 45 times in 10 years. Researchers found children suffering from stunted growth, indicating protracted deprivation; malnourishment; signs of kwashiorkor and rickets; eye disease; diarrhoea, respiratory infections and skin disease. (N.D.Emmel in The Lancet Interactive, 25.9.99 'Health effects of forced evictions in the slums of Mumbai' )

Yet Article 21 of the Indian Constitution recognises the "right to life," and the Supreme Court of India has interpreted that to mean:

…including the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely the bare necessities of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter.

When the Supreme Court allowed the Gujarat government to raise the height of the Narmada Dam from the present 85 to 90 metres, the state's Chief Minister called it a "Diwali gift to Gujarat" and announced a holiday for government employees so that they could join in the celebrations. Activists were not celebrating, however. "The Supreme Court has violated the spirit of the Constitution," one said. They called the decision "anti-people."

The story about the Kattupalli fishermen [ref. Section on Right to Livelihood] demonstrates clearly the connection between shelter, livelihood, environment, poverty and crime. The reports reinforce the notion that even though slums are built on land that does not belong to the inhabitants, evictions affect their right to housing under the UN Declaration. And the term 'adequate shelter' used in the Declaration includes the idea of the inhabitants' right to enjoy an environment conducive to healthy living.

A comprehensive look at the problem of adequate housing would show how the need to tackle poverty, lack of access to education, healthcare services, employment and improving the environment is crucial to the achievement of the Habitat Agenda's goals [discussed later]. It has to be recognised, however, that solutions are not easy to find for a developing country such as India, groaning under the burden of poverty and overpopulation, and needing to balance a whole range of legitimate demands which often conflict with one another.

The website of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development lists a series of NGOs engaged in development and housing [www.infohabitat.org/csdngo].

The Istanbul Conference on Human Settlements (June 1996) reaffirmed the commitment of states to 'better standards of living in larger freedom for all mankind.' The Habitat Agenda, which the conference produced, incorporates the outcomes of various international conferences on the problems of human settlements, and lays down a programme of action for the equitable attainment of peace, justice and democracy built on economic development, social progress and environmental protection as interdependent and mutually enforcing components of sustainable development.

Rohit Saran, writing in India Today (31.1.00), says: "More Indian homes have televisions than toilets. A fifth of metropolitan houses have parallel and independent sources of water and power…" He considers under-performing infrastructure to be the biggest crisis of the Indian economy, but since it is a silent crisis, "it outrages no-one that 12% of Indians suffer from diseases and disabilities caused by inaccessibility to clean water."

100 million families have no water at home
150 million households have no electricity
2.8 million people are waiting for telephone connections
40 million villages are without road connectivity
Sea ports are clogged
Urban roads are crammed.

Shelter is fundamental to human rights. Lack of adequate shelter affects, directly or indirectly, all of these other rights:

• Right to an adequate standard of living
  
• Right of access to safe drinking water and sanitation
  
• Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
  
• Right to a safe and healthy environment
  
• Right of the child to an environment appropriate for physical and mental development
  
• Right of access to resources, including for cooking, heating and lighting
  
• Right to freedom from discrimination in access to housing and related services based on sex, race or any other status
  
• Right to choose where and how to live and to freedom of movement
  
• Right to privacy
  
• Right to security, including security of tenure
  
• Right to protection from forced eviction and from the destruction/demolition of one's home in all situations, including military occupation, armed conflict, establishment and construction of alien settlements, population transfer and development projects
  
• Right to equal protection of the law and judicial remedies for the redress of the violation of the human right to adequate housing.

The Agenda 21 Report, adopted by more than 178 governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment in Brazil in 1992, says of India that implementing the Habitat Agenda II National Plan for Action [NPA] requires an enabling environment in which participants outside the government system can become more active in the delivery of housing solutions and provision of services, so that outreach is extended to all segments of the market, especially vulnerable groups.

Urban India has four mega cities [population over 5 million], 19 metro cities [pop.1 million plus], 3000 large towns [0.1 million plus] and 3396 small and medium towns [less than 0.1 million]. By the turn of the century India will have 40 metro cities.

Housing has been a citizen-driven activity with the private sector contributing 70 - 80% of total investment in housing during the first 20 years of planning and even higher subsequently. Public housing activity has been largely directed towards the poorer sections of society.

More details at http://www.un.org/esa/agenda21/natlinfo/countr/india/social.htm

The National Institute of Urban Affairs is an autonomous body established in 1976 with the support of the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment. It is engaged in urban development and management research, training and the dissemination of information. HUDCO - the Housing and Urban Development Corporation - is a government of India enterprise. It has a target of an additional 20 lakh homes every year with emphasis on the poor and deprived. Based on the existing shortage of dwelling units, it calls for the construction of 7 lakh units in rural ares and 13 lakh units in urban areas.

Housing provision in rural areas comes under the Integrated Rural Development Programme [IRDP], Rural Labour and Employment Generation Programme [RLEGP], Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Indira Awaas Yojana, which deal not only with housing conditions but also with economic growth and employment opportunities.