India
India, land of contrasts: ancient traditions alongside the
most modern technology. Home to over a billion people,
and where we find some of the world's biggest slums. We
seek to follow Christ in this context and make appropriate
responses to the needs around us. We live in poor
neighbourhoods and seek to build relationships with our
neighbours there. We share to some extent in their daily
lives and cope with some of the same problems; power outages,
water shortages, cooking, washing and buying vegetables for
dinner. Servants teams live with the poor in two major
Indian cities.
Learn about the Servants' work in India:
Click here for City A.
Click here for City B.
Case Study: Slum Bulldozed - Servants
make a difference
Dave Andrews, author of 'Not Religion but Love' and
'Christi-anarchy' has recently joined the board of elders of
Servants to Asia's Urban Poor. Previously based in
India, he shares a recent story of inspiration...
A few years ago John and Kelly decided it was time for them to
respond to the needs of the poor more personally and more
practically. They decided to go with Servants to India.
On their arrival in India they began to look around town for a
slum where they could live.
In 1999 John, Kelly and their young son Tom moved into the
Bullah slum, built on government land along the bank of a
drainage canal. They found a little hut and settled in
alongside 900 hundred other families. Over the next
couple of years John and Kelly immersed themselves in the life
of the slum, living alongside the slum-dwellers, learning
their language, culture and developing dozens of reciprocal
relationships.
On October 19th, 2001, someone pointed out to John a notice
that had been pasted onto the communal toilet block. It
stated that the council was going to clear the slum and
relocate the people 25 kilometres away... in 6 days time!
Understandably, the people were distraught!
John called several community meetings to discuss the
eviction. After hearing anyone who wanted to contribute,
the people decided they needed to get 1) a stay order until
winter was over, which would give them time to raise the
deposit to buy new land in the relocation area; 2) legal title
to the new land before the relocation took place, and 3) legal
entitlement to new land for all people in the slum who owned
huts.
John, who is a lawyer by training, identified a group of local
lawyers who could take the case to the Delhi High Court.
He liaised between the representatives of the slum and the
lawyers and, eventually, together, they got the backing of the
court for the slum-dwellers basic demands. During the
hearings, a judge asked for a list of the families in the
slum. The council refused to make their list available,
so John and his friends in the slum had to embark on the huge
logistical task of making another list of all the families in
the slum.
Kallu was one of John's friends in the slum who offered to
help. The two of them, with the help of their friends,
set about the task of collecting all the information.
Kallu's hut became the centre of operations, documenting
everyone's name, ration card, hut number, and entitlement.
After several weeks of hard work, Kallu and John eventually
got an up-to-date list together that helped ensure the
entitlement of a dozen or more families who were eligible but
would have otherwise missed out in the allotment.
One day, as John was dropping his son Tom off at school he saw
several hundred armed police in riot gear getting ready to
forcefully clear the slum. John borrowed a friend's
mobile phone and contacted everyone he knew in order to stop
the provocation, and the inevitable violence that would result
from the fighting that would follow the police action.
Fortunately, at the last minute, the police force was recalled
to barracks and the relocation was deferred.
Subsequently John and his friends were able to negotiate the
peaceful relocation of the people, getting land entitlements
for more than eighty per cent of the slum-dwellers, some 750
families. However, the people discovered there was no
water, no electricity, very little public transport, and their
new land was three to five feet lower than the road, so when
it rained, it flooded, and became a dirty great big swamp!
John and his friends had to go back to court with the lawyers
time and time again to make sure that the level of the land
was built up, drinking water was provided, and electricity was
put on. There are still not enough buses, and the
struggle goes on.
In the meantime John has contacted local agencies and
negotiated the provision of small loans to help the people
start some small businesses. John is now writing a
brochure on relocating slum-dwellers, in the hope of it being
used to inform people of their rights in future forced
relocations.
John's story is a good example of simple, practical,
heart-felt, hands-on, grass-roots care for some of the most
marginalised people on earth. It is hoped that many who
read this story who will decide to join John and Kelly and
their friends in the urban slums of Asia.
Learn about the Servants' work in India:
Click here for City A.
Click here for City B.
How can you help?
Contact Servants India (info@servantsasia.org) to find out how you can help. Alternatively, click here to see if any opportunities to serve have been posted for India.
