February 12, 2025
New Delhi gets a facelift for the G20 summit.  The city’s poor say they were just wiped out

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NEW DELHI (AP) — The congested streets of New Delhi have come to life again. Street lights twinkling after dark on the sidewalk. The buildings and walls of the city are painted with bright frescoes and frescoes. Planted flowers are everywhere.

Many of the city’s poor say they were simply wiped out, just as stray dogs and monkeys have been removed from some areas, as India’s capital is adopted as its capital ahead of this week’s summit of the Group of 20 nations. Got a new format.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government hopes a sweeping effort to spruce up New Delhi – a “beautification project” worth $120 million – will showcase the world’s most populous country’s cultural prowess and strengthen its position on the global stage will help to do.

But for many street vendors and those living in New Delhi’s slums, the change means displacement and loss of livelihood, raising questions about government policies to tackle poverty. In a city of more than 20 million people, the 2011 census put the number of homeless at 47,000, but activists say this was an underestimate and the real number is at least 150,000.

Hundreds of houses and roadside shops have been demolished since January, displacing thousands of people. Dozens of slums were razed to the ground, with many residents receiving eviction notices shortly before demolition began.

Officials say the demolition was carried out against “illegal encroachers”, but right-wing activists and evicted people question the policy and allege it has left thousands homeless.

Similar vandalism has also been reported in other Indian cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata, which have hosted various G20 events ahead of this weekend’s summit.

Activists say it was not just a case of out of sight, out of mind.

Abdul Shakeel of the activist group Basti Suraksha Manch or Save Colony Forum says that “the lives of the urban poor are being destroyed in the name of beautification.”

“The money used for the G20 is taxpayers’ money. Everyone pays tax. The same money is being used to evict and displace them,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

The two-day global summit will take place at the newly built Bharat Mandapam building – a massive exhibition center near the historic India Gate monument in the heart of New Delhi – and is expected to be attended by many world leaders. The G20 comprises the world’s 19 wealthiest countries and the European Union. It is currently chaired by India, which rotates annually among the members.

In July, a report by the rights activist group Concerned Citizens Collective found that preparations for the G20 summit had resulted in the displacement of nearly 300,000 people, particularly from areas that foreign leaders and diplomats would visit during the various meetings.

At least 25 slums and several night shelters for the homeless were razed and converted into parks, the report said. The report noted that the government failed to provide alternative shelter or places for the newly homeless.

Last month, Indian police intervened to stop a meeting of prominent activists, academics and politicians who criticized Modi and his government’s role in hosting the G20 summit and questioned whose interests would benefit from the summit.

Rekha Devi, a New Delhi resident who attended the August 20 meeting, said, “I can see the homeless on the streets…and now the homeless are not even allowed to stay on the streets.”

Devi, whose home in a drive-in was demolished, said authorities refused to consider documents she showed as evidence that her family had been living in the same house for nearly 100 years.

“Everyone is behaving as if they are blind. In the name of the G20 programme, farmers, laborers and the poor are suffering,” Devi said.

Home to 1.4 billion people, India’s fight to end poverty remains uphill, even though a recent government report says that nearly 135 million – about 10% of the country’s population – could break out of so-called multidimensional poverty between 2016 and 2021. It has gone. Consider not only monetary poverty but also how lack of education, infrastructure and services affects a person’s quality of life.

Indian authorities have been criticized in the past for clearing out homeless camps and slums before major events.

In 2020, the government hastily erected a half-kilometre (1,640-foot) brick wall in the state of Gujarat ahead of a visit by then-President Donald Trump, which critics say was built to block a view of the slum area I went. more than 2,000 people. A similar vandalism was also carried out during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Some street vendors say they are helpless, torn between sacrificing their livelihood for India’s pride and wanting to earn a living.

Shankar Lal, who sells gram curry with fried flatbread, said he was asked to leave three months ago by the authorities. These days, the only time he gets to open his stall on a busy New Delhi street near the G20 summit venue is on Sundays, when the police pay less attention to street vendors.

It is not enough to earn a living.

Lal said, “These are government rules, and we will do what we are told.” “The government does not know whether we are dying of hunger or not.”

Rishi Lekhi and Piyush Nagpal, The Associated Press

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