Ammar Rashid is a researcher and teacher at the Gender Studies Department at Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad. His research interests include political theory and collective action. Dawn spoke to Mr Rashid about the legal and political underpinnings of the CDA’s action against slums in Islamabad.

Q: Why is the CDA’s latest drive against katchi abaadis facing opposition?

A: The moral, legal and ethical foundations of the CDA’s eviction drive are brittle. Firstly, the CDA, is an undemocratic, non-representative organisation which should not have the authority to decide the fate of thousands. It is a reminder of the colonial era, with a motley crew of bureaucrats ruling over the capital, without any representatives of the people to hold them accountable.

Secondly, these evictions are in contravention with the constitutional right to housing and the protection guaranteed to the katchi abadis by the National Housing Policy 2001, which forbids forced evictions and mandates resettlement before any attempt to reclaim the land is made.

Furthermore, the policy lays down specific guidelines for how negotiations about resettlement are to be carried out between katchi abadi residents and landowning agencies. None of these guidelines were followed when the CDA bulldozed homes in the I-11 katchi abadi.

A number of the people who live in informal settlements are victims of displacement, caused by both natural and manmade disasters: local and global conflicts, unemployment, religious persecution, landlessness and poverty. They are also victims of an economic and political order in which neither the state nor the market provides affordable housing. As of 2015, the government’s own estimates placed the housing shortage at 9 million units (between 45-60 million people). When these destitute millions attempt to shelter themselves through their own means, institutions like the CDA should not use violence to make them homeless and push them into poverty and deprivation.

Q: Why were these particular settlements chosen for demolition, do authorities view these differently than others such as France Colony in F-7?

A: These settlements were chosen because they are not ‘recognised’ by the CDA, which means that the authority has not legally sanctioned them, like the France Colony. However, the distinction between recognised and unrecognised slums is arbitrary. Such decisions are made based on bureaucratic considerations, rather than people’s needs.

In the case of the I-11 katchi abadi, the CDA argues that the land was allotted to private owners and former CDA employees. But according to the CDA’s own records and statements, the allotment was made years after the katchi abadi was first established in 1983.

Q: Is there a perception or fear among certain classes that if these residents are provided alternative land for settlement, it may encourage others to settle down in similar locations?

A: This is a common middle class argument but it is unreasonable and deeply classist. It makes little sense to say that the working poor are hatching long term conspiracies, whereby they would squat in subhuman conditions along sewage lines for decades, in the hope that they might at some point be given ownership rights for their mud huts.

Slum regularisation and upgradation is a time tested policy which people around the world, through their struggles, helped in establishing as an international best practice. It is one of the best ways of eliminating inter-generational poverty and reducing inequality.

Q: What can the government do to provide more affordable housing for the working class?

A: There are a number of things which can be done which include budgetary allocations for housing, which at present stand at less than 0.1 per cent of the GDP and drafting a national low-income housing policy. Private housing developments must be regulated to ensure that low-income housing schemes are also developed and banks should be regulated to provide affordable low-interest housing loans.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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