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Role for slum dwellers in administration urged

Our Bureau

CHENNAI, Sept. 6

ONLY when the slum dwellers are made partners in the city administration process will there be scope for urban development and human rights, according to Mr. Jockin Arputham, from the National Slum Dwellers Federation, who recently won the Ramon Magasasa y Award.

Speaking at a function organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and The Hindu for the regional launch of the Human Development Report (HDR) for the year 2000, Mr. Arputham said that eviction and demolition of slums have to be included into the category of human rights violation.

He said that the slum dwellers of the country do not want anything free from the Government. In fact they have collected Rs. 20 crores savings. What they want is a matching grant and an opportunity to be a partner in the development process.

The movement for the rights of slum dwellers, which started in Mumbai now has network in 32 urban centres of the country, he said. Further, the network extends and 11 other countries in Asia and South Africa.

``There has been a very systematic exclusion of the urban poor from the national consciousness in the last 10 years'', he said. It is forgotten that the cities were built by these people are being run by them.

The Tamil Nadu Minister for Law, Mr. A. Aruna, said that the only way to protect human rights in the country would be by making the Directive Principles of State Policy enforceable in a Court of Law. Without this, all good intentions will remain hollow.

Dr. C.T. Kurien, Professor Emeritus at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, said that to actualise the combined vision of human rights and human development there was the need for creating a new social order.

History, he said, has shown that while the capitalist system created inequalities and lowered the human development of some sections of the society, the socialist regime gave scant attention to human rights of its citizens.

Mr. N. Ravi, Editor of The Hindu, said that by publishing the HDR every year, the UNDP had become the conscience keeper of global human development.

Dr. R. Sudarshan, Senior Economist at UNDP, said that this year's HDR laid stress on bringing human rights and human development together. Both these are two sides of the same coin.