Time and again in history, there have been instances where all of humanity is made to go through life altering, all-pervasive catastrophes. The year 2020’s resolute propensity towards disaster and woes seems to be the latest of them. And with a pandemic, earthquake, locust attack and cyclones, India is definitely having the short end of the stick, if not the worst.
The lockdown, additionally had the populace grappling themselves in the midst of broken social systems, with the swelling migrant crisis, economy slipping into recession and the increased strain on the daily functioning of the people. The want of going back to ‘normal,’ to a pre-lockdown life came in as naturally as a duck takes to water. But perhaps it is imperative to pose a question here; should we really be going back to how things were or look for a way forward?
Some of the phenomenons exposed by the virus itself answers the question. Mumbai is one of the worst hit cities, the city solely having roughly 20% of the country’s cases. According to the BMC dashboard, a cluster of these cases are primarily found in the wards of G-North, L, K-East, F-North and E. These wards houses some of the most densely populated areas of Dharavi, Dadar, Mahim, Byculla etc, which have burgeoned into hotspots for the virus. Social distancing norms are next to impossible to follow, and considering they mostly house slums and chawls, sanitation facilities are highly questionable.
One would be remiss to not draw a parallel over similar turn of events that occurred in the city a century ago. The then Bombay city was plagued by the bubonic plague in 1897, with the exceedingly crowded chawls and slums being breeding grounds for the disease. The British government resorted to decongest the city, subsequently establishing the Bombay City Improvement Trust. The trust sought to create new roads and open up crowded settlements, improving the sanitation of the city’s largely immigrant population. However, even after a decade of instituting BCIT, a review of its actions revealed that the housing for the poor still remained unfulfilled. Former commissioner, Arthur Crawford, had even published a pamphlet, laying out several useful redevelopment plans, all of which merely gathered dust in the archives. The city’s rich had repeatedly stood in the way. A century later, we have merely graduated to being a colour version of the black and white era.
A major hotspot in the city is Dharavi. With an area of a mere 2.4 square kilometers, it hosts about a million residents, having a population density of more than 300, 000 people per square kilometer. And it is not even the sole slum cluster in the city. According to the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, the city has more than 2500 slum clusters sprawled across the metropolis. Mirroring the events of the past, any attempt to break the glutted area has wound up in vain, either the efforts drowning in the cobweb of bureaucracy or entailing a developer-friendly character.
For example, the floor space index (FSI), is a major tool in determining the density of the given space of land with regards to its dwellers. It indicates the maximum area that can be constructed on a given plot of land. If the FSI value is 1.5 in the area, it means that on a 1000 sq ft land, about 1500 sq. ft of area can be constructed. However, the Maharashtra government, recently in 2019, upped the limit for the index, allowing builders to construct double the structures compared to before. This only ensures the density of the population to move upwards, and not exactly work towards de-congestion. These figures and facts make it more than evident that, in a post-COVID era, authorities would have to seriously consider sustainable housing. It can no longer afford to let a class based, cluster policy for housing continue in the city.
A primary concern regarding the pandemic is that of sanitation, the complete lack of which has made us stare right into the faces of further rampage. Of the 70% of waste that gets collected in urban India, only about 20% gets treated, rest filling up the landfills, leaving it to become breeding grounds for all that might be detrimental to the environment.
Additionally, access to WASH services (water, sanitation and hygiene) is disproportionately expensive, ironically for the urban poor. Given that much of the slum areas do not have enough access to municipal water services, they are forced to entail private tanker services, burning a large hole in their pockets. Even as municipal officials are capable of providing the services, it is further stalled by the ‘water mafia,’ as it has been dubbed. Thus, a rudimentary act of having to wash one’s hands amidst coronavirus is a costly one.
Open defecation, lack of access to water and toilets, untreated industry waste, all those issues that have been constantly deliberated over, their management have now become somewhat of a necessity. Recently, under the Disaster Management Act, the Union Home Ministry revised its law against public spitting, making it more stringent in a bid to contain infections. Much of these rules have existed even before. Only now, the pandemic has forced us to consider them with more reverence, like we previously should have.
These are just the tip of the iceberg. With the ongoing crisis, failure of social systems, healthcare facilities, governments and the receding economy are all looming over us, waiting akin to a ticking time bomb. In such a situation, a desire to go back to the pre-COVID era is not only absurd, but unhealthy too. For example, post the SARS outbreak across Asia in 2003, Taiwan had set up the National Health Command Centre (NHCC) to better prepare for potential hazards. This came in handy, since the centre moved to implement a 124-point instruction set when Covid-19 was just beginning to spread in Wuhan, helping the island nation to control the spread. Taiwan now has less than 500 active cases. Essentially, wanting to maintain the status quo seems easy, but it is rather wise to consider this crisis as a clean slate situation, to adapt and evolve to a better state of affairs in the future.
Shristi Achar
