Monday Musings: When urban slums influence politics - Hindustan Times
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Monday Musings: When urban slums influence politics

May 29, 2023 12:00 AM IST

For years, Pune’s rise has also led to the proliferation of informal and unauthorised settlements across the city and the dwellers living in them

Ajit Pawar, the leader of the opposition and a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), is renowned for saying things that occasionally make news. If last time it was about seeking a ban on MPs and MLAs with more than two children from contesting elections, Pawar this time made a comment on slum dwellers that may have startled many. During a function to launch a book on Ambil Odha (stream flowing through hills at Katraj), Pawar questioned whether restricting slum dwellers’ ability to vote might stop the growth of illegal shanties.

A view of Janata Vasahat slums in Parvati area. (HT FILE PHOTO)
A view of Janata Vasahat slums in Parvati area. (HT FILE PHOTO)

“The hills in the city should be retained in their original form. However, the political class backs illegal shanties coming up on these hills and elsewhere that make the city look ugly. If the voting rights of those who make illegal encroachment is taken away, everything else will be in place,” Pawar said on Saturday, adding in the same breath, “Of course, this doesn’t fit under any law and the poor living through these shanties should also have their own place in the city.”

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For years, Pune’s rise has also led to the proliferation of informal and unauthorised settlements across the city and the dwellers living in them. They are unintentional policy consequences driven by restrictive rent control and land development policies.

According to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), there are 564 slums in the city in which around two lakh people live. Of these 564 slums, 353 are government notified and the remaining 211 are non-notified with 434 having come up on private land in various areas of the city while 60 are on PMC-owned land and 70 are on government land.

Most of these slums are unauthorised and illegal structures with some of them coming up on hills in the city. One of the largest slums, Janata Vasahat, at Parvati hills has turned the area into an eyesore. The inhabitants across these slums do not have legal titles to the land that they occupy.

If on the one hand, these shanties provide low-cost housing and vital economic opportunities for city residents, on the other hand, they play a central role in electoral politics by serving as “vote banks” for politicians of all parties, something that Pawar was referring to.

While the poor do not have the money to buy land or any other important public services, they have a vote that the politician wants, as explained by then Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan in his speech delivered in August 2014 at Lalit Joshi Memorial Lecture in Mumbai explained this well.

So if the slums have the backing of politicians, in turn, the politicians’ gratitude of their voters, and more importantly, their vote. “…The system tolerates corruption because the street-smart politician is better at making the wheels of the bureaucracy creak, however slowly, in favour of his constituents. And such a system is self-sustaining. An idealist who is unwilling to “work” the system can promise to reform it, but the voters know there is little one person can do. Moreover, who will provide patronage while the idealist is fighting the system? So why not stay with the fixer you know even if it means the reformist loses his deposit?” Rajan stated in his speech, which is available on various online platforms.

As argued previously in this column, on one hand, the common citizens crib about the misgovernance and corruption that deface our cities, many of us at the same time want corrupt politicians to win elections, for reasons explained by Rajan. As a result, the approach of government intervention in slums has often been tolerant over the past many years.

In Maharashtra, the state government set up Slum Redevelopment Authority in 2005 with the intention to rehabilitate slum dwellers in the same place by constructing vertical structures. It is an important initiative as the slums, besides serving as a vote bank in electoral politics also prove to be a crucial link for the middle class and those living in big housing societies.

The unorganised workforce living in these slums helps those living in big societies and independent bungalows with quick and fordable services that come at cheaper costs. A large proportion of the urban poor workforce, which consists of domestic help, vendors and hawkers, construction workers, rag-pickers and rickshaw pullers dwell in informal settlements, slums and resettlement colonies. They offer services to people in housing societies at prices much below market rates. This is nothing but a classic case of cross-subsidisation.

So whether it’s Pune or any other city in India, the slums will persist for many decades to come as they are credible and serve various functions including low-cost housing provisions, economic opportunity generation, and vote collection.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Yogesh Joshi is Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times. He covers politics, security, development and human rights from Western Maharashtra.

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