A sea of broken bricks surrounds the railway line that loops around Wazirpur Industrial Area, a zone in Northwest Delhi filled with slum colonies. Residents dug through the rubble with their bare hands to search for precious pieces of their identity. They pulled out their special Congress-era ID cards, Aadhaar, electricity bills, survey slips, ration cards, and voter IDs—papers that offered a semblance of legitimacy to their homes.
Since the BJP came to power in Delhi in February 2025, slum demolition drives have ramped up, with over 300 “illegal dwellings” razed last month in Jailorwala Bagh and Wazirpur alone. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the railways, and municipal bodies cite court orders directing the removal of “illegal encroachments” from public land.
But in Wazirpur, where migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh began arriving in the 1980s, these settlements grew with political blessings. Their patron saints were leaders like Congressmen Deep Chand Bandhu and HKL Bhagat, who helped secure water connections and electricity lines. Over the decades, families built brick homes and collected documents meant to protect their right to live there. Now, those papers offer little protection. It’s another example of how slums are built, given recognition, and removed depending on who’s in power, according to local activists.
Older residents recall how one party would facilitate water connections, while another would promise rehabilitation, only for those gains to be rolled back when governments changed. In Mumbai too, the fate of slums often hinges on the unspoken nexus between politicians, residents, and officials.
“The story of a slum is always a story of labour,” said Mukta Naik, an architect and urban planner at the National Institute of Urban Affairs. She added that when industrial areas were planned, housing for workers was never taken into consideration. Informal settlements surrounding factories filled that gap.
In the 1980s and 1990s, labourers arrived in droves from rural heartland states. Local agents in their villages would connect them to bigger contractors sourcing a workforce in the city’s industrial areas, according to Naik. Quiet agreements would then be made with local authorities to allow labourers to occupy space near the factories.
by Udit Hinduja
07/07/2025