Thousands of Dalits Forcibly Evicted from Their Homes

Bijo Francis

(Thousands of families from the Dalit and lower caste communities in India's West Bengal have been forcibly evicted from their homes by the authorities without any compensation or resettlement. Among these victims are the 7,000 Dalits uprooted from Bellilious Park in Howrah City on February 2 last year. Many of them since then have been living in street shelters or the Belgachhia rubbish dump, a few kilometres away from their original quarters. Human Rights SOLIDARITY visited some of the families recently. In the following special report, we examine the reasons and issues behind the forced eviction. We look at the homeless victims' livelihood in the next article. A medical project that helps the poor will be explored in the third story. article 2, a sister p u b l i c a t i o n o f Human Rights SOLIDARITY, will run a special edition in its August issue to discuss in more detail the legal aspects of the case and the complicity of all parts of government and local administration in this massive violation of fundamental rights.)

Being the "untouchables", the lowest of India's caste system, the ousted residents of Bellilious Park and their sufferings are being ignored by the West Bengal state government and the local Howrah administration. More than 17 months after they were evicted from their houses at 129 Bellilious Road by the authorities, the victims have yet to receive any form of redress for the damage done to them and their rights being violated despite the high redevelopment value of the land. Their living conditions, which were not favourable at Bellilious Park, are now even worse. Many of them live at a city dumpsite, suffering from poverty, malnutrition and other diseases from contaminated water and the filthy and unhygienic environment.

"We live amidst pigs and dogs," said Rajindar Balmiki, one of the victims. "Our women give birth to our next generation here. Mosquitoes literally drink our blood like vampires."

Their plight is rooted in the caste system, as this structure of hereditary classes of Hindu society allows those on top to treat the Dalits like dirt. "The dwellings of fierce untouchables and dog cookers should be outside the village, they must use discarded bowls, and dogs and donkeys should be their wealth," reads the Manusmrithy, which governs the religious practices of the Hindus and their caste system.

Caste hierarchy is one of the sources for the worst forms of inhuman treatment faced by millions of Indians. It makes available a group of so-called "untouchables" to work for menial and often no pay jobs by virtue of their birth. It is a form of exploitation and discrimination.

When the authorities evicted the 7,000 Dalits from Bellilious Park on February 2 last year, they cited the official reason of beautifying and developing the area into a park within Howrah City. The local dministration also claimed that the occupation of the land was illegal and the occupants had to be removed. No fair hearing was given to the residents before the eviction.

The settlement of the Dalits in the area, in fact, dated back before the independence of India. The municipality had sponsored their settlement in the past decades with the construction of three buildings to house those Dalits who worked as scavengers for the city. Human rights activists and the ousted residents said the eviction was linked to the vested interests of some upper caste families living nearby and the property developer. Bellilious Park, which was outside the city limit in the 19th century, is in the heart of Howrah, raising the market value of the site. Howrah is situated on the west bank of river Ganges, opposite Calcutta.

"We were staying at this place since the time of our forefathers. But now we have been thrown out without even being offered an explanation," said Rambali Rabidas, a scavenger working for the Howrah unicipal Corporation.

The upper caste Hindus were said to believe that the presence of the "untouchables" in the vicinity of their residence would pollute them and eventually deny their reserved place in heaven, a conviction associated to their fanatic religious belief.

Proofs of Legal Occupancy

In 1987, an environmental group Howrah Ganatantrik Nagarik Samiti filed a petition before the Calcutta High Court to demand Bellilious Park be cleaned up as the pollution problem there grew. The court asked the municipality 15 years later whether the people staying on the land were legal occupants. The Howrah administration told the court that the people there were all encroachers. The court then gave an interim order in September 2002, saying the illegal encroachers should not be allowed to stay. But that order did not mention an eviction, according to Kirity Roy of Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), a Calcutta-based human rights organisation.

The fundamental human rights of the residents were blatantly violated, as they were not given the right to be heard before the court. No written notice of removal was made. "But here no written notice, (there was) just a public announcement by the police with a loudspeaker on a rickshaw, stating that the people had to leave before February 2," Roy said. Under Indian civil law, a notice of eviction has to be served at least one month in advance, allowing residents to dispute the matter before a court. 

Complicating the situation, some union leaders came and told the residents in Bellilious Park that nobody would be evicted and they would handle the problem for them. Some residents, nevertheless, with the help of a lawyer, filed two petitions to the court on January 30 last year, asking for the right to be heard and the interim court order be revoked. But their petitions were denied. "In this case, not only the civil administration and police have defied the principles of the Constitution of India and the rule of law, but the upper judiciary also has been complicit in denying relief to these people," Roy said.

Contrary to the claims by the administration that those evicted had occupied the land illegally, the expelled dwellers were, in fact, predominantly employees of the Howrah Municipal Corporation and held identity cards and other evidences proving their legal occupancy at Bellilious Park. They had employees' cooperative cards, voter cards, ration cards and other documents such as of power connection, which all registered "129 Bellilious Road, Bellilious Park", as their addresses. These papers could prove that the occupants were holding the property since long. They could establish their contniuous, unobstructed and open possession of the land. Moreover, many of the residents had title deeds for their property. However, none of these proofs, which otherwise would have been adequate enough to establish title or possession over any property according to Indian laws, were taken into account by the authorities.

Forced to Leave at Gunpoint

On the day of eviction, the administration came to Bellilious Park with bulldozers and demolished the entire area and all the buildings within hours under police escort. None of the residents were allowed to take away their belongings. Those people, who protested, were backed off by the police at gunpoint. 

"They came with huge machines. Police accompanied them with guns and the officers from the administration ordered us to leave," said one of the victims Rajesh Balmiki. "We tried to resist. They pulled us out from our houses. The machines were used to pull down our houses. We tried to gather whatever we could. But the police with guns shouted at us and threatened us. Those who resisted were beaten. I could not gather anything.

We had a fridge and a TV, which we lost in the rubble. We could see the police taking away our belongings. I am sure they took them home. Our hard earned money. We l o s t everything," Rajesh recalled the eviction with horror and pain.

Government Offers No Help

While the houses of the poor were bulldozed in a matter of hours, shops built by the municipality and rented out on commercial leases were unscathed even though they were also on the premises of Bellilious Park. 

As of now the evicted ground remains a barren land with the remnants of the destroyed buildings. Nothing has been done in furtherance to eviction, contrary to the claim of the administration regarding the development.

The residents have yet to get any tangible reply either from the local government or from the Howrah administration for the damage they suffered and their rights violated despite protests. The mayor of Howrah, Gopal Mukherjee, said it was legal to evict the people and the municipality had no money to rehabilitate them.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has issued urgent appeals, calling for immediate attention to the eviction, the living conditions of those homeless people and other related problems of starvation and deaths. However, the Indian authorities maintain their ignorance and blunt stand towards the plight of the evicted poor.

The Bellilious Park victims even do not benefit from the Howrah Valmiki Amebedkar Awas Yojana, a government project with millions of funding for the rehabilitation of slums, pavement dwellers and safai karmachari -those who work as scavengers. "This project has never been used for the betterment of these people," Roy said.

Houses of Plastic Sheets, Waste

Left with no other option, many Bellilious Park residents scrambled through the rummage and picked up whatever that could be recovered and set off for a new destination-a trenching ground at Belgachhia. "When our houses were demolished, some union leaders told us to come and stay here," said the 38-year-old cleaner for the municipality Rajinder. "There were so many leaders, and all of them gave us instructions. We didn't know what to do, so we just came here," he said. 

Yet this place is a dumping site on the periphery of the city. It does not even have solid soil for setting up a temporary house since the ground is just a pile of accumulated waste from the city, predominantly plastic and other non-biodegradable waste, which emits fumes whenever there is a slight rain.

The evicted victims have now put up temporary houses made out of plastic sheets for the roof and fine steel filings mixed with carbide waste that they collected from nearby steel foundries for the ground. Since they do not have enough money to enjoy the luxury of a cot, their daily exposure to the corrosive mixture of the hard ground burns their skin, causing cuts and blisters.

Drinking water, electricity, sanitation and other basic living facilities are unheard of in the Belgachhia dump. Starvation and deaths due to other diseases acquired from being exposed to the inhuman living conditions take its toll upon the residents. Some residents were fortunate enough to occupy a few rooms in an abandoned building located in the trenching ground. The building, however, is in such a state that it could collapse in a heavy rain. The human waste from the dilapidated latrines in the building just drains down through a small hole in the building wall at various places and merges with the waste and people living underneath. Even to live in this building, which has already been condemned by the administration, the Bellilious Park residents said they were demanded bribe by a local elected representative in return for not being forced out. The occupants were ready to pay because they had no other choice, even though how long they could stay in the building is a wild guess since the condition of the
building is so poor and it may collapse. 

Rajinder and fellow resident Gopal Balmiki, who both make a living as cleaners, complained that they were forced to work and live in a filthy environment. "We clean toilets and drains when we work. After work we come here to this pile of waste," Rajinder said. "Well for the animals they come here for food, whereas we have to live here... The water at Bellilious Park could be boiled and then consumed. Here the water is like oil. We have to adjust since we have no options and this is our home."

Due to the inhuman living conditions of the evicted victims, which are similar to their working conditions as the majority of them are manual scavengers, acute health problems are common in their current settlement. Coupled with poverty and lack of proper and hygienic food, deaths from starvation have been reported. A three-year-old boy named Shiva died of malnutrition in December last year.

Groups Come to Help

After knowing about the living conditions of the settlers at the Belgachhia dump, staff from the Belur Sramajibi Hospital, a hospital launched by workers to provide free to inexpensive health care services for the poor, took the initiative to conduct a weekly medical camp at the settlement. A medical team would visit the settlement and provide free checkup for the residents. Medicines would be given to those people who are in immediate need of treatment. As for the rest of the sick, the doctors would provide medical care at the hospital.

Local human rights group MASUM, meanwhile, helps the expelled residents of Bellilious Park fight for rehabilitation and compensation, make appeals to various authorities and take their case to courts. 

The Bellilious Park eviction is not an isolated incident. In 2001, 1,400 families were cleared from Tolly's Nullah. Some 4,000 households from Beliaghata were driven out in 2002. These are a few glaring examples. Most of the families belong to the Dalit community. None of them had a fair hearing before the evictions or were given compensation and rehabilitation afterwards. Neither did the legal system in India was of any help to the victims. 

Discrimination against Dalits

The reason for this brutal reality in India is simple: Who cares for the Dalits? Wherever people of this outcaste group go they will face the same situation. They are poor. They are being discriminated. Caste system follows a Hindu from birth to grave. The system engraves its mark upon an individual simply even by his or her name. For example, Gopal Balmiki is easily identified as an "untouchable" from his name "Balmiki", which is being put in all of his records including the identity card. Once being tagged as a Dalit, a person will be treated differently by others. "If we walk into any restaurant we will not be provided any decent place to sit," Rajinder Balmiki said. "Even those petty bunk shops in the pavement will only give us tea in a separate glass. We have to wash our glass once we drink the tea. Whereas for other customers they could just give the empty glass back," he said.

Most of the Dalits can do no other job than scavenging. They have no choice but to take up the job of manual scavenging of night soil, which is outlawed in India. They have to carry the night soil on their heads as there are other means available for clearing human and animal excrement. The authorities turn a blind eye to the situation. As manual scavenging has been done by the people of the scheduled castes, especially the balmikies, for centuries, the presence of safai karmachari to keep the city clean has been taken for granted. Since the Dalits are not able to provide a better education for the next generations, their children usually end up in the same repulsive job.

"They need us to clean all their filth for which we need to report to duty at the early hours of the day and late at night and for which we need to stay within the city limits. But they do not want us to stay anywhere near their houses. What should we do?" asked one of the evicted residents of Bellilious Park who now stays at the Belgachhia dump.

The Indian delegation to the Race 

Summit in Durban in 2001 was very emphatic to deny that caste discrimination was an issue in India and that definitely it did not come under the terms of racial discrimination according to international standards. However, the facts indicate a different picture. Discrimination in the name of caste is not a remote issue in India. It could be found in any state. It is reported even in more developed areas such as Bangalore and the most literate state Kerala. 

Never-ending Exploitation

Despite its strong economic growth, rapid development of information technology and the claim of being the largest democracy in the world, India remains one of the worst human rights violators in Asia. The caste discrimination and exploitation plagues the progress of the country.

Given the caste taboo, a person tends to remain within the clutches of the dominant majority in exploiting the cheap labour and oppress the scheduled castes. Although politicians vow that they will work to eliminate the caste system, once they reach their seat of power they forget their pledge of concern of the Dalits among other promises. That did happen in the Bellilious Park incident. Representatives to the parliament and the Howrah Municipal Corporation failed to defend the rights of the ousted residents and fight for their rehabilitation.

The legislation in India, in fact, provides adequate security for people from being evicted without due process of law. Both the state and the central governments have special ministries chaired b y ministers from the scheduled castes or scheduled tribes to attend to the burning issues of their communities. The government of India accepts aid from outside funding sources for programmes supposed to be aimed for the development and welfare of the Dalit community. Exploitation and discrimination against the scheduled caste community is punishable under specific legislation in India. The constitution provides adequate remedies for safeguarding the interest of the poor and weaker sectors of society. India is also a state party to the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.

Yet in reality, the story of exploitation and inhuman treatment of the Dalit community continues. 

"The Constitution of India has the right to everything, but in practice, the people have the right to nothing, "Roy said. The ousted residents need support to lead a dignified life, he said. "I am talking about assurances of even just a minimum amount of food, housing and health care to live a dignified life. I am talking about us ending this society where till today people are carrying human shit on their heads for work while the government is talking about sending a man to the moon."