Some of our cities could be thriving with economic growth and turning plush with metro trains, multiplexes, and shopping malls. However, there are areas backward in every urban center of our country. Nearly sixty-five percent of Indian cities have adjoining slums.
They harbor dilapidated houses to open stagnant drains. Children here still defecate on the roads. On some of the by-lanes, parts of the streets adjoining the houses could be seen occupied by residents, who use them like porches to accommodate what their homes cannot.
Lack of living space is an evident crisis here. These over-crammed localities try to accommodate as much as possible and as many as possible. According to a report, we have 13.7 million slum households in our country, where 65 million people dwell.
However, despite remaining in such dire conditions for decades, these underdeveloped neighborhoods still bustle with a lot of political activity. Party flag poles, hoardings of leaders, and even fan clubs of film stars rule the roads.
Political parties erect pandals in these traffic-prone locales to stage their meetings from time to time. They block up to three-fourths of the roads with chairs and blast high decibel sycophantic songs on their political leaders. That could still be called a normal occurrence here compared to election times when political fervor hits a notoriously high node.
Elections bring even political bigwigs to these neighborhoods. They make rabble-rousing speeches and talk as if they will change their lives overnight. But nothing changes here. Their living standards, sanitation, health—everything remains just the same for decades.
Political parties belonging to right, left, or center, screaming and trumpeting their ideological supremacy, do nothing for them because they themselves are here opportunistically seeking votes, misleading these poverty-stricken communities since independence.
Whether small or big, every party claims its stake here and enjoys clout amongst various sections of the population in these slums, some of whose loyalty is also bought with liquor, meat, and cash. Nevertheless, the microphone-wielding leaders don’t fail to instigate a false sense of political activism in them on pressing social issues.
They even take part in annual religious festivals in these areas to ensure that people here stay within the loop created by them. And they take them for a political ride with poll time promises, where freebies are made to look more attractive than lasting freedom from poverty. But finally, it’s cash that wins people and votes.
If political parties thronging these stagnant societies all these years cared to work for the welfare of people here, their living standards would have changed for good. But what happens typically is, with elections around the corner, they make noise and disappear later on.
What is displayed here is nothing but deception in the name of politics. The life of people in slums stands as a testimonial to this. The scenario will change only when they desist from temptations that lure them into political manipulation. And deny an audience to the political class, which wants to keep them forever in poverty and exploit them for votes.
The bitter truth is that many such localities in our growing cities are being exploited for political reasons. Sadly, wherever people are vulnerable, there are also people to hound them with politics that make an outright mockery of democracy.
Urban poverty in India is above 25 percent—nearly 81 million people in our cities live below the poverty line.