Clearing Korail

The summer heat is scorching but it does not impede the regular bustle of Korail, one of the largest slums of Dhaka, a city where an estimated quarter of the 16 million inhabitants live in slums. Rickshaw pullers come and go, fruit-sellers hawk their wares, bare-bodied boys walk around. Even the demolition of 1500 shacks has only slowed down but not halted the brisk activity required for making a living. In fact, the population of the slum scarcely diminished after the 4 April demolition carried out by the government. Most residents have not left because they have nowhere else to go. They depend on the slum and the surrounding area for their livelihoods; most of them work in the textile industries located nearby, or as household help in the neighbouring middle- and upper-class residential areas.

Though a court order has stayed further demolition and consequent evictions for the moment, the battle is far from over for Korail's residents. Like most slum-dwellers in Southasia, the residents of Korail are resigned to a precarious existence, living on the margins of the law, a short step away from falling through the cracks in governmental and social support structures because of their status as 'illegal occupants' of urban land.

Abdul Kader belongs to that group. He squats on a few sheets of newspapers spread over the ground that has now become the floor of his new home, just a few yards from the spot he used to call home for the better part of three decades. Tree branches overhead serve as a roof. Abdul Kader is in his sixties and is unwilling to move. His earnings as a fruit seller have helped him survive all these years, even enabling him to marry off his five daughters, leaving him alone in Korail with his wife. Kader does not dare rebuild his home. The slum is rife with rumours that the government will soon carry out another demolition to clear the entire area. Kader is one of around 100,000 people who live in the area and derive their livelihoods from it.

The recent eviction came at the behest of a court order that followed a newspaper report highlighting the slum's encroachment and impact on the Korail Lake. The 170 acres of land in Korail belong to the state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), the Public Works Department (PWD), and the Ministry of Information and Communication. The January 2012 news report led the Dhaka High Court to order the authorities to demarcate the lake's boundaries and remove encroachments. Following this, a designated court magistrate accompanied by BTCL officials initiated the demolition, using bulldozers to tear down the shacks.

Surprisingly, officials seem to have no clue about an earlier court order issued in 2008 that asked the government to ensure the rehabilitation of the Korail slum dwellers before any eviction drive. The High Court passed that order in response to a writ petition by Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), an organisation for people's rights that provides legal aid to slum dwellers, challenging an eviction order issued by the PWD. The latest, contradictory court order has bewildered many in the area. "How can a court that has ordered our protection issue an order to drive us out?" asks Fatema Akhter, leader of a local slum development organisation.

The slum dwellers live in a Kafkaesque limbo: with no clear legal status and the absence of defined government policy on slum dwellers, no authority has taken responsibility for ensuring their welfare or even implementing past judicial directives. "I have no knowledge about any previous directive," says Dhaka magistrate Selim Hossain, who oversaw the slum demolition. To make matters worse, even the court, when it ordered the demolition, did not seek any response from the slum's residents. "Since we are an affected party in the court order, shouldn't the court have sought our representation?" asks Akhter.

Such callousness extends beyond the court order. Officials have not taken into account the fact that many of the slum dwellers have school-going children, most of whom are due to appear for their annual exams. Eight-year-old Arif Hossain's parents are panicking. Hossain studies in the second grade at the Bastibashi Interbhita, a privately operated school inside Korail funded by the NGO Intervida that teaches students up to the eighth grade. "Where will I move in the middle of his exams?" asks Arif's father Badsha Miah, a rickshaw-puller whose house was demolished in the 4 April drive. "Leaving an area cannot be a matter of an overnight order," says a fuming Abdul Mannan, Secretary General of the Korail Central Committee. "The children in the area have their schools, the parents have their work. How can one leave overnight?" he asks.

There are about 5000 slum children like Arif studying in neighbouring schools, according to Mannan. The eviction drive took place when class 12 examinations were underway. "The havoc their action would bring on the families did not even occur to [the officials]," says Shilpi Akhter, who has two sons. The demolition drive left families no time to even save their possessions. Akhter's sewing machine, the mainstay of the family's livelihood, was destroyed. Her home now consists of a few sheets of tin for walls, with some clothes thrown over the top to protect the family from the scorching sun.