Although, according to the Housing and Land Rights Network, many eviction cases have not been documented. In any case, the 2023 figures are the highest recorded in the last seven years. Local authorities and courts have deviated from previous practices with decisions that violate human rights. In many cases the government did not offer any type of resettlement or compensation.
New Delhi () – Between 2022 and 2023 more than 740 thousand people were evicted from their homes throughout India. This is what he says a report published by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), and points out that in the same period the houses demolished by the authorities were more than 153 thousand. But the figures, the organization explains, could be much higher, because these cases include only those that have been documented by the HLRN itself. Between 2017 and 2023 more than 1,680,000 people were evicted, and there are currently nearly 17 million people who continue to be threatened by the possibility of being displaced.
In the vast majority of forced evictions in recent years, the authorities have not followed national and international standards, in practice committing a series of human rights violations. “In many cases the demolition processes were carried out with a level of severity and brutality higher than in previous years,” says the report, which in reference to forced evictions has used the internationally recognized definition, that is, “the removal permanently or temporarily against the will of individuals, families or communities from their homes or the lands they occupy, without access to or being allowed access to adequate forms of legal or other protection.”
According to HLRN, in the past Indian courts interpreted the law constructively when responding to violations of the right to housing. In fact, local jurisprudence imposes “on state authorities the duty to conduct an investigation and provide assistance before carrying out any act of forced eviction.” But especially in 2023, evictions have deviated from this practice.
In two years, almost 300,000 people were evicted with a court order, but with large differences between one year and the next: in 2022, around 33,360 people received an eviction order, while in 2023 they increased to 260,000. More generally, in 2022, 46,371 homes were demolished and 230,000 people were evicted. Figures that were more than double the following year: 107,499 homes demolished and 51,500 people evicted. The 2023 figures are the highest recorded in the last seven years, highlights HLRN.
In the majority of cases (59%), the pretexts used were “slums or land reclamation”, “eviction by invasion” or “city beautification”. More than 290,000 people were evicted for these reasons in 2023, although in most cases the affected people and communities were not informed of the reason for the eviction.
The report also identified other reasons that led to the evictions: after the dismantling of slums, infrastructure construction (road widening, bridge construction and others) contributed 35%, while another 4.7% was determined for environmental reasons, such as forest protection and wildlife conservation. The other demolition cases were decided to improve emergency management, accommodate tourism projects or remove homes that were deemed “unsafe.”
However, in some regions the evictions apparently “were carried out as a 'punitive measure,'” the report notes. The largest number of evictions occurred in the capital territory of Delhi, with 280,000 people evicted in 2023 alone.
And the resettlement of displaced people remains a problem according to the HLRN: of a total of 324 cases recorded in the two years examined, information on the resettlement of people was only available for 122 cases. Among them, the State offered some form of alternative housing only in 25 cases, partial resettlement in seven cases, and monetary compensation in another seven cases. “This means that in 72% of the cases for which information is available, the State did not resettle or reintegrate the affected people,” the report states.
“INDIAN MANDALA” IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO INDIA.
DO YOU WANT TO RECEIVE IT EVERY FRIDAY IN YOUR EMAIL? SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER AT THIS LINK
