Shah Rukh Khan: Be it Mumbai or Delhi, Chennai or Kolkata, all our big cities have one great thing in common, they happily welcome people from smaller places arriving in search of work. What is also true is that this warm welcome leads to consequences. Problems like housing in these cities are born. Today we have with us a human settlement expert and researcher: Dr. Gautam Bhan, who is re-imagining a solution to this increasing problem. He will share with us the new picture of urban India that he can see. TED Talks India New Thoughts welcomes Dr. Gautam Bhan. Dr. Gautam Bhan, everyone.
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Gautam Bhan: In this country, until a few years ago, if you asked someone: "Where are you from?" the answer would be Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata. You'd immediately ask again: "Where do you belong?" Until recently in India, nobody was from a city; people only migrated to the city. This is changing. Urbanization is changing India, but are our cities prepared?
Let's assume you were born somewhere else. Your parents worked as laborers all day. Then you too would have come to a city for progress. Or maybe, like it happens today, you were born in the city itself. One day you go out looking for an accommodation in the city, to buy or maybe just to rent. Will you be able find an affordable home?
The government says we are falling short of at least 20 million homes. 20 million homes, that's 100 million people. And this is not the shortage of <i>3 BHKs</i> (bedroom hall kitchen). 95 percent of the shortage is for people earning 10 to 15,000 rupees per month. Will you be able to find an affordable home in this budget? If this happened with you, what would you do?
Home is not a car or some sort of jewellery. Home is food and clothes. Nobody can live without it. If you couldn't find a home in a city to either buy or rent, you too would be driven to do what most people end up doing. Make a home wherever possible. You too would make a <i>settlement.</i> The government may keep calling it a <i>slum,</i> but like the people living there, I too will call it a settlement.
One hundred million are not homeless. They have homes. Homes they built on their own. But most of these homes are in settlements. This is the truth of an affordable home in India. The homes in settlements are cheap, but not sturdy. The homes outside are sturdy, but not cheap.
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We will have to lay the foundation of a new thought from here itself. A settlement is not a problem; it is a solution. We just have to make it secure and sturdy. To fulfill the shortage of 20 million homes you cannot make 20 million 25 square foot flats, and neither should you be making them.
For example take the Karnataka government. They have a very good record in this. By 2020, Karnataka needs 2.6 million homes. In the last ten years they have managed to make 350,000 homes. Even if a government tries with complete sincerity, it cannot fulfill this need in the next couple of lifetimes. If we do not make new homes, then what is the next solution? How to make a settlement secure?
Firstly, eviction needs to be stopped. Bulldozing needs to be stopped. Never has that resulted in progress in the past, nor will it in the future.
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We have to start believing that the laborers who build and run the city have a right over the land of that city.
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I know you are thinking that settlements are made on illegally captured land, but capturing of land never happens in the dead of the night. Whether the land belongs to the government or not, a settlement is never formed secretly. It is inhabited over time. The government also agrees that the settlements in our cities have been there for over 10, 20, 30, even 40 years. What kind of illegally captured land is this, which was ignored for 30 years and suddenly a day before eviction is declared illegal? A settlement can easily accommodate 15 to 60 percent of a city's population by using just one, two or maximum ten percent of the land. Can such a huge number of people not have a right over this small bit of land?
A city's progress is often measured by the cost of its land. How do you ascribe a cost to the life of a person living on a piece of land? A settlement is not asking you for shiny homes; all it's asking for is basic necessities: electricity, roads, water, toilets and drainage. We call this <i>upgradation.</i> Here's an example of upgradation. In Ahmedabad, they started a program where for ten years, 44 settlements were promised there wouldn't be any eviction. Only a promise. Nothing written, no documents. And basic necessities were provided to them. In ten years that slum changed into a locality, a place, a world of its own. The government didn't have to build even a single new home.
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Thailand launched this program at national scale, benefiting 100,000 people in 137 cities. And every person was given the right to live over that land. But pay attention here. Not the right to sell, but the right to live there, use it, settle on it. The whole world knows now that to move forward, we cannot remove settlements. We can only advance when we think of ways to make settlements secure and sturdy. But just one thing. If we know it, then why doesn't it happen?
To apply this new thinking to settlements, we, that is you and me, need to look deep within and get rid of the disgust, disrespect and apprehensions that we have. Actually I should not be standing here in front of you today. A person from the settlement who lives there should be standing here. But if someone like that came here, you wouldn't have listened to him. You are listening to me, because you think I am not from a settlement. This is the very thought that needs to be changed.
Thank you.
(Applause) SRK: Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Gautam Bhan. Thanks a lot.
Please tell me, you just gave an example of Thailand and the big thing there is the homes are for people to settle in, not to sell. They cannot be used for sale. Is there a similar thought process or program in our country too, inspired by your talks and those of people around you?
GB: I wouldn't say by me, but by the people movement who are fighting for rights in the city. That is making a difference. For instance, in Odisha the Chief Minister, Mr. Patnaik, announced the same scheme: that all the people in settlements will have rights over that land.
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And I think this scheme shouldn't be called populism; it should be called an economic development strategy. Because economic development does not happen from the top, but from the bottom.
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SRK: I too promise I will only say settlements, and not slums, ever again. 100 percent.
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Dr. Bhan you came here and said such wonderful things. There is a song. I will not sing it, as I am a terrible singer.
GB: I too am a terrible singer.
SRK: But we can't keep shut also, because we are saying wonderful things. (laughter) So we will just say it. Slowly the heart will find settlement. GB: Slowly the heart will find settlement. SRK: Only then will life be filled with love and fun times.
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Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Gautam Bhan. Thank you.
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Thank you very much.
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