It is said that action speaks louder than words. When Baburam Bhattarai gave the go ahead for the demolition of squatter settlements at the UN Park at Thapathali, his words were promptly acted upon and on May 8, the government bulldozed 258 houses of squatters as a part of its plan for a corridor along the Bagmati River. For the wretched families rendered homeless right on the eve of monsoon, the government action, which destroyed their way of life, spoke to them in deafening decibels. Back then, the prime minister had assured to relocate the squatters in three days. It’s three months now and the squatters are still homeless, but not for the want of government initiatives to relocate them.
First, it tried to relocate them at Chobhar, but had to back down after locals warned of strong agitation if squatters were settled there. Then, Balaju was chosen as a possible relocation site, which again had to be abandoned after similar protests from locals there. The same story was played out at Ramhiti near Mahankal and at Sundarighat, Lalitpur.
There have been failures on multiple fronts in this whole saga. The government is reportedly building permanent homes at Ichangunarayan for those rendered homeless after the May 8 demolition. But if it had to evict them, why didn’t it think about getting alternative homes ready before deploying bulldozers over a settlement of destitute families? This hints of a serious flaw in planning and disregard for the plight of these poorest of the poor people. Given how unpopular similar resettlement plans have been in the past, the government should have anticipated the reaction of people against what they saw as a government attempt to make their neighborhood more ‘dangerous’ through ad hoc plantation of landless squatters in their midst; the locals were often backed by various political parties with various political agendas. Although a part of their concern is understandable, they could also have shown more sensitivity to fellow human beings, especially considering that the settlement would have only been a temporary stop before the transfer of squatters to the Ichangunarayan site.
It is indeed a tragedy that children of squatters who were attending Mechi Mahakali School located inside the settlement at Thapathali have had to quit their studies as their school also fell victim to the demolition drive. Even the few who were admitted to another school at Nagbahal with the help of a nongovernmental organization have had to forgo schooling as they had to walk for an hour either way, to and fro, from school. The grave injustice done to evicted squatters for the lack of government foresight and callous attitude of people of the likely resettlement sites cannot be undone, but some measures can yet be taken to make amends. Besides expediting the construction work at Ichangunarayan, the government now has the unenviable task of finding an accommodating alternative site for relocation of squatters. It’s a hard but given the will, not an impossible task.
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