Slums : The Past, Present and Future

The Past, Present and Future: Slums in the Indian context is a place that came as a part of colonial invention, that sprouted from the leftovers of the dirt and stench at the backdrop of its flamboyant towns and cities. The advent of industrial revolution brought about a paradigm shift in the world by eventually reducing the grip of agricultural activities in the socio-economic realm. The destruction of the rural industries and agriculture by virtue of the innumerable British policies, and persuaded by the false prospects of better employment and livelihood in the industrial establishments of colonial India, forced the rural poor, burdened by famine and deprived of livelihood , to migrate in large numbers to towns and cities .

This migration that remained consistent and increasing since its inception led to the formation of slums, that accommodate large number of population in the small discrete pockets spread at indiscrete parts of cities and towns where people subsist on minimum standards when basic needs of life and livelihood are taken as a yardstick for measurement. After the Independence and the partition that followed, the inflow into the slums rose substantially. Though the country has been through multiple dimensions of progress and development in the socio-economic realm, these changes are more likely to be evasive in slums.

According to the Government of India, the number of people living in slums in the country have doubled over the past two decades. Presently 78 million people in India live in slums, tantamount to 17% of the World’s slum dwellers - exceeding the entire population of Britain. The majority of slum dwellers were the rural poor who lacked any technical expertise that would have necessitated better prospects in an industrial environment. A lion share of this population who lacked formal education were exploited in the urban scenario which permanently made them a source of cheap labor. A considerable number of these people became lackeys to the middle and upper class.

The underwhelming rewards from their everyday toil reduced their lives to hunger and depravity. The lack of proper sanitation, clean drinking water, privacy health and hygiene made lives in slums a tougher task to cope with. Moreover, for putting more hands to work and there by anticipating more income , people in  slums resorted to more number of births and least participation at school, purportedly ignoring the fact that more members in the family meant more mouths to be fed and hence the strategy proved to have back fired in the long run.

Though marriages and conflicts within the slums chiefly remains to be a regular and exclusive internal affair, the external tremors of any religious, economic, and political tumults tend to be catastrophic affairs in the subsistence and survival of life in slums.

While the Government policies to rehabilitate and relocate the people in slums appears to be a ship lost to sea, many of the people from slums took education as a tool to elevate themselves from a life full of toil, misery, and despair. When the people in the slums are making it big, it is always perceived as a much celebrated 'Rags to riches fairy tale' by the society, however the battles they would have put forth against all the colossal odds will always remain elusive to the general public, so do the lives they have had in the slums.

-Lakshmi