Illustration by Faris Kallayi

Recently, while on a routine call with family, Ammi asked me to talk Abbu into delaying the plastering of the newly built first floor of our home back in small-town Kerala. Hesitant, Abbu reasoned that the imminent monsoon rains would weaken the wall. 

He has been losing weight lately. Again, Ammi asked me to persuade him to consult a doctor. He grunted to see one once the electrical wiring job was finished. He always prioritised the home over his health.

By the time I started editing this piece, Ram Navami had passed. In my fiancé’s hometown Bihar Sharif, mosques, madrasas, and Muslim businesses have been burnt down. Several mosques were attacked during tarawih, forcing people to call off the prayers. The internet was shut down for a few days. A curfew was imposed, and a shoot-at-sight order was passed.

Men in the mohalla, including Papa, kept watch during the night and guarded our homes. The fear was palpable. 1600 kilometres away, in Hyderabad, I stayed up all night scrolling Twitter for any news from home. I hoped that things would be alright and kept convincing others the same.

The story of my two fathers is also the story of India’s 207 million Muslims. We strive for a lifetime to build a house and provide a roof for our families. Now, the state could demolish them, or mobs could commit arson.

Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), through its National Eviction and Displacement Observatory, has been collecting data on forced evictions and displacements in India. 

In 2021, as per their report ‘Forced Evictions in India 2021,’ state and central government authorities demolished over 36,486 houses and evicted 207,100 people. To put this in perspective, at least 100 houses were demolished daily. This amounts to at least 24 people losing their houses every hour and 567 people every day. 

In the seven months between January to July 2022, the authorities have demolished over 25,800 homes, affecting more than 124,450 people.

Ever since the demolitions of Muslim houses have become an everyday reality, one couplet by Bashir Badr has been repeatedly evoked. 

“Log toot jaate hai ek ghar banane main. Tum taras nahin khate bastiyan jalane main.” (People break their backs making a household. You do not give a hoot about burning down entire towns.)

Illustration by Faris Kallayi

In June 2022, on a Sunday morning, I watched the live news coverage of a home being demolished in a densely populated Muslim neighbourhood of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. The government punished Mohammed Javed, a community leader, by flattening his house. Tens of news channels covered it live. The whole country watched. Many people praised the swift delivery of what they called “bulldozer justice.” I felt achingly disturbed. 

Two months before that, in April, North Delhi Municipal Corporation demolished businesses and other structures in Jahangirpuri and continued the exercise despite a court order stopping it. The residents alleged that they are being targeted. In May, South Delhi Municipal Corporation officials reached Shaheen Bagh with bulldozers to carry out the demolition of encroachments. After pushback from the public, bulldozers retreated. 

In ​​Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone, authorities tore down several homes and shops. In 2016 and 2021, Assam police fired during evictions in Dholpur and Kaziranga, killing four people and injuring several others.

More recently, Delhi Development Authority demolished houses at Ladha Sarai village of Mehrauli. The eviction is happening as Mehrauli Archeological Park is getting a makeover ahead of the G-20 summit. In another case, the Archeological Survey of India started a massive demolition drive to flatten almost a thousand houses in Tughlakabad village surrounding the historic fort. 

These are only some among a spate of recent incidents where state governments in India are punishing people by taking away their homes and livelihoods. Some of these incidents happened in the aftermath of communal clashes. Some were lessons being taught. Some were warnings. In some, the residents got temporary relief through a court order, while in others, it was the final nail. 

However, many of these incidents had a common subset: poor and marginalised people, mostly Muslims. They bore the brunt. 

Primary research by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) reveals that the affected people belonged to marginalised groups in 44 out of 158 eviction cases (28 per cent) reported in 2021. 

The actual number of cases of forced eviction of historically marginalised communities could have been much higher. Many cases go unreported, and in the reported ones, the caste, religion, and identities of the affected people are not always available. 

Illustration by Faris Kallayi

The Tughlakabad eviction drive revealed communal faultlines. One resident lamented to The Quint’s Fatima Khan: “We are not Rohingya or Bengali Muslims. The government has issues with them. But why trouble us? If they want to remove Muslims, they should do that. We are Hindus.” 

This points to the alarming normalisation of demolishing Muslim homes and livelihoods, even among the general public. 

But this is not new. In 1976, during the Emergency, hundreds of houses were infamously demolished in Delhi’s Turkman Gate as per the orders of the Indira Gandhi government. The demolition and police firing incident (that killed 20 people) were used to suppress the resistance of local Muslims to forced sterilisation. Times of India reports show how it was “part of a larger ‘vision’ to rid Delhi of slums.”

Similarly, Morarji Desai had ordered demolitions at Tughlaqabad, razing 800 houses.

Many Indian cities have a squatter problem. But the solution for this is not always strictly legal. It should take into account socio-economic factors. Rehabilitation should be a priority.

Recognition of slums will be a big positive step. For context, as per Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), there are 675 big and small slums in Delhi. Unofficial figures will add 75 more to it. Gautam Bhan, in his 2013 article Planned Illegalities: Housing and the ‘Failure’ of Planning in Delhi: 1947-2010, states that the government has not recognised any new slums since 1994. 

At the same time, Mumbai has 2,400 slums as per the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA), Government of Maharashtra. The statistics of recognised slums were not immediately available for analysis. 

Studying the failures of housing and planning in Delhi, Gautam Bhan points out two major shortfalls: (1) The “systemic and widening gap between housing needed and that which were built.” (2) The different iterations of Master Plan Delhi (MPD) have failed to notify ‘urban development areas’ sufficient to meet the demands of substantial urban growth and increase in population. 

“Residents therefore were, at least in part, forced to build shelter in what became, by implication, a range of “unplanned colonies”. There was, in a curious sense, then not the violation of the plan through “illegal” acts, but instead, the impossibility of legal and planned inhabitation for the poor and the rich alike,” Bhan explains.

Beyond legal status, authorities should be working on the ground in these areas. Demolition shouldn’t be the only agenda for the government to enter these peripheries. The police departments are an exception as they are disproportionately active in these areas since everyone and everything here is tagged ‘suspicious.’

Illustration by Faris Kallayi

There is a dire need for different government agencies to work together and find solutions rather than each department taking terms to do their share of the damage. The ultimate driving policy should be to stretch a helping hand, not to push off the cliff. 

Demolition drives should be urgently replaced with massive regularisation drives. This should then be followed by the development of basic amenities. 

Furthermore, governments, especially in tier-one cities, should increase housing stocks and zone more residential areas in order to meet the rising demand. Also, the prime focus of the process should be the marginalised, resettled, and economically weaker sections. 

Referring to numerous instances, the HLRN report points out the phenomenon of undertaking demolitions as a punitive measure. These selective demolitions in the guise of removing encroachments have happened in Khargone, Haryana; Khambhat and Himmatnagar, Gujrat; Jahangirpuri, Delhi; Jirapur, Madhya Pradesh; Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh and many others. In most of the cases, Muslims are at the receiving end.

Nothing has changed between demolitions then and now. They have become a prominent political tool to oppress the marginalised and a spectacle that satisfies the right-wing networks.  

The usage of ‘bulldozer’ as a political tool undermines democratic principles and erodes ideas of affirmative action. It aggravates the discrimination and exclusion faced by the historically marginalised.

A dangerous new pattern of communal violence is taking shape. The tested recipe of provocations, violence, and punitive action (read demolition drive) is being widely rolled out. The aim is to instil fear. 

As long as politics keeps determining the policy, the future of the remaining roofs in India’s mohallas and ghettos is grim.