The Gujarat government on Thursday (May 22) completed the second phase of its demolition drive in Ahmedabad without much publicity. Nearly 8,000 families, mainly migrant labourers, who had been residing around Lake Chandola in the city, were evicted.
It's not just the lack of fanfare that is different about phase two of the eviction drive, which the the Amdavad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had originally termed 'Operation Safai'.
The city administration is now trying to change the narrative of the campaign, claiming it's only about removing illegal encroachments. The demolitions were never about identifying illegal Bangladeshis, is the accepted line now.
An AMC statement said: “Over 8,000 small and large structures were razed, clearing encroachments from around 2.5 lakh square meters of land at Chandola Lake...Once debris are cleared, the lake will be gradually refilled. To prevent further encroachment, precast compound walls will be constructed around the cleared areas...The entire operation is part of AMC’s initiative to restore Chandola Lake to its original state and ensure its long-term protection.”
Hunt for illegal immigrants
The demolition drive commenced on April 29 with state Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi saying ‘Operation Safai’ would help the government nab illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the state. The around 6,500 people evicted from their homes in Ahmedabad, Surat, Kutch, Vapi and Vadodara were predominantly Muslims.
Sanghavi, who was present at the demolition site in Chandola Lake area in Ahmedabad on April 29 and 30, said: “This is a huge success for the Gujarat police. I congratulate them on the success of Operation Safai against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants residing in the state.”
The change in narrative now — from rounding up illegals to cleaning the lake — appears to be a direct result of the fact that of the 6,500 people evicted in the first phase, just 450 turned out to be illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The rest had genuine documentation.
Fake documents
The police did crack down on a fake documents operation. A police official from Crime Branch, Ahmedabad told The Federal, “The Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested Fateh Mohammed Pathan and his father Mehmud Pathan alias Lalla Bihari, who ran an operation to issue fake documents and rent out dozens of illegal dwellings to Bangladeshi nationals in Chandola area.
"Several documents like lists of Bangladeshi nationals who have been brought in illegally and detailed instructions on where to house them were found from his sprawling farmhouse in the area. Further investigations are on.”
However, this racket is dwarfed by the number of legal residents who have lost their homes in the demolition drive. Around 8,000 people have lost their homes due to a misdirected drive. After suggesting that the rehab process may take up to a year, the administration now says it can only provide about 1,000 homes.
Anti-encroachment drive
Hence, as the second phase of the demolition drive began on May 21, there was no mention of 'Operation Safai’ in AMC’s official release.
Unlike the first phase, which was carried out under the supervision of several senior officials with drones recording the demolition, the May 21 eviction drive began quietly at around 4 am, with 2,000 police personnel deployed at the site and under the command of an ACP-rank officer from the Ahmedabad police.
Also, after the demolition was completed, neither senior police officials nor Sanghavi issued any statement.
The majority of the displaced people turned out to be Muslim migrant workers from various parts of the state, who had been living in Gujarat for decades
Commenting on the entire operation, advocate Shamshad Pathan told The Federal, “Within a week, the Gujarat government went from calling it Operation Safai to simply referring to it as an anti-encroachment drive."
Shifting narratives
“When we questioned why the government carried out the massive demolition drive without any prior notice to the residents, it responded in the court that it was not any ordinary drive but an act of national security to find illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who were a threat to the country,” he said.
According to Pathan, 23 petitions filed by different evictees were turned down by the court on the basis of this statement by the government. “A week later, the government found only 450 illegal immigrants and left more than ten thousand families homeless in the process,” he said.
“The majority of the displaced people turned out to be Muslim migrant workers from various parts of the state, who have been living in Gujarat for decades, while a section of evictees are Hindus belonging to DNT tribes like Devipujak, Madari etc. While they have become homeless and are on the road, the AMC has now changed its narrative and claiming that the drive was always intended to beautify and restore the Chandola Lake,” added Pathan.
Demand for rehabilitation
Multiple minority rights organisations have written to the Municipal Commissioner demanding that the evictees be termed as ‘project displaced’ and be rehabilitated as per the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. This Act provides compensation and rehabilitation for those affected by development projects.
Mujahid Nafees, Convener of Gujarat-based Minority Coordination Committee, a minority rights organisation told The Federal, “Reportedly, the project to beautify and restore the lake has been handed over to a private company. If it was a project all along then why shouldn’t the residents be rehabilitated and compensated?”
Nafees pointed out that most of these families have been living here for over 40 to 50 years. According to him, many migrant families from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh settled here during the 1960s at the time of the textile industry boom in Ahmedabad.
"Since then, these people have had electricity connections and even paid water tax to the AMC. They have voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards and ration cards. We had to get witnesses from their hometown to confirm they were Indian citizens. The relatives of at least 120 families have arrived and given their statements to the Gujarat police,” added Nafees.
Indians, not infiltrators
After the attack on tourists in Pahalgam in April, Gujarat’s Home Minister labelled the Chandola area residents as ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ and their homes were razed, said Nafees.
“Around 800 men from this area were arrested as Bangladeshis and paraded across the city. While women were arrested a day later and kept in shelters. After three days, around 700 people were released because they were found to be Indian citizens. To hide the failure of Operation Safai that began with such hype across the state, the administration is now not talking about it at all,” said Nafees, adding that it has been two weeks now and the Gujarat police has not issued any statement about finding Bangladeshi illegal immigrants amongst the evictees.
Low-cost homes
Significantly, a week after the first phase of the demolition drive, the AMC’s Standing Committee announced that it will build Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing under a joint venture of Gujarat’s Affordable Housing Policy and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY).
The project that will be completed by December 2025 aims to house those who have documents such as proof of living in the Chandola Lake slum since or before 2010. And, they will have to fork out Rs 3 lakh for each house.
On May 20, the AMC distributed 3,600 forms for this purpose, but none of the Chandola slum residents have filled it up and submitted the form.
Process is punishment
“My son went to get the form but we have not submitted it. We are required to pay Rs 7,500 deposit for submitting the form that will not guarantee us a house. What if we don’t qualify for it even after a year of waiting? Besides, we do not have that kind of money,” said 62-year-old Ramilaben, one of the slum evictees.
“The government brought us on the street overnight and now we are expected to pay money to be eligible for a lottery to get a house a year later. Where are we supposed to live until then? We have no home or source of living. They demolished our scrap shop a day after they destroyed our house,” lamented Ramilaben, whose whole family has been living under a tree in the open.
The only item they managed to salvage from their home, which has been razed to the ground, was a khatla ( a wooden cot).
