Why eviction sword on 50,000 residents of Haldwani slum sparked outcry

Dholak Basti. This slum adjacent to Haldwani railway station in Uttarakhand got its name because of the profession of its residents. Most people living here come from the Muslim Dholakia community. Making dholak is their traditional source of living. As soon as you enter the settlement, all preconceived notions about ‘home’ are destroyed. In a room of 10 by 10 lie are utensils on one side and a wood-burning stove on the other, plastic sheets in the name of roof and worn-out curtains as door.

One of the slum’s residents is Sherdil, 60. His forefathers belonged to a village in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh. But Sherdil was born in Haldwani. He has wandered village to village on foot in Pithoragarh, Almora, Gangolihat and Bageshwar with his dholak hanging on his shoulder. “We have lived here all our lives. I was born here. My children were born here. Their children were born here. If these people take away our homes, where will we go? We request the government that if you are evicting us, then give us a place to resettle,” he says.

Sherdil is one of the estimated 50,000 residents who faced an uncertain future from a recent decision of the Uttarakhand High Court. The court ordered the removal of more than 4,000 houses to ‘eliminate encroachment’ around Haldwani railway station. The administration gave notice to the residents to vacate by January 7.

However, the Supreme Court, on January 5, stopped the planned eviction, bringing major relief to the aggrieved residents. The court ruled that 50,000 people could not be “uprooted overnight” and a workable solution needed to be explored.

To understand the scale of the crisis that has been looming over this locality, spread 2.5 km alongside the railway track approaching Haldwani station, one has to understand the story of settlement of this strip. On April 24, 1884, the first train reached Haldwani from Lucknow. In the years that followed, Haldwani, once a winter shelter for cattle herders in the mountains, transformed into the biggest trade centre between the Kumaon hills and the plains. It emerged as a big market for jaggery, potatoes, wood, chalk, etc.

Many people from Rohilkhand, adjacent to Haldwani, came here in search of employment. The British government settled them here by giving them land on lease for 90 years. This area near the station was named Banbhoolpura at that time.

Afroza’s family has been living here for the past 95 years. In 1927, the British had given land to her maternal grandfather Taslim Ahmed on lease of 90 years. Afroza is the third generation living on this piece of land. She is one of those to have received the eviction notice. “We got land from the revenue department. But now the railways is saying this land belongs to them. My house is 550 meters away from the railway track,” she says.

The petition on which the high court had given its decision to vacate the area has nothing to do with encroachment directly. In 1998, the government had approved the construction of a bridge on Gola river flowing in Haldwani and close to the railway station. The bridge was completed in 2004. Four years later, the bridge collapsed during torrential rains.

In 2012, social activist Ravi Shankar Joshi filed a PIL in the high court demanding action against officials for the bridge collapse. Since the bridge was built on railway land, the railway department was made a party in the case on the directions of the court. The court formed a committee to investigate the matter. In its report, the committee attributed the bridge collapse to poor design, mediocre construction and illegal mining. In its affidavit filed in the court, the railways said people illegally settled on 29 acres of its land were responsible for illegal mining in the Gola river.

Taking the affidavit into cognisance, the high court in 2016 issued orders to the state government to clear out the encroachment on 29 acres of railway land. Uzair Ahmed, who has been closely following this legal battle, says, “The PIL filed by Ravi Shankar Joshi was regarding the bridge on Gola river. We do not see any deficiency or ulterior motive in this PIL. The bridge was constructed by the public works department, which was responsible for whatever defects there were. But the authorities turned the matter towards illegal mining to save themselves, and thousands of residents of Banbhoolpura were affected.”

In 2017, the people of Banbhoolpura went to the Supreme Court against the high court order. The top court gave three months’ notice to the encroachers and ordered them to vacate the place. But the matter remained pending for about one and a half years. In 2022, the high court, while disposing of the case of the Gola bridge, directed that a fresh PIL be filed on the matter of encroachment.

“We filed a fresh PIL against the encroachment accordingly. The court has ordered all land of the railway department in Haldwani to be vacated. According to information sourced through RTI, there has been encroachment on over 78 acres of railway land in Haldwani. Now, the administration is making preparations to get it vacated,” said Joshi.

People from very low income groups live in Dholak Basti. There has been talk of their rehabilitation for years. In 2015, the Uttarakhand Slum Development Committee had visited the area and hinted at rehabilitation of some 1,385 families. But the administration was not able to find a place for their resettlement.

Predictably, the Banbhoolpura case caught political fire. Uttarakhand is BJP-ruled and the proposed eviction drive was seen by many as targeting minorities. Haldwani MLA Sumit Hridayesh, of the Congress, puts the BJP government in the dock in the whole matter. “About 70 per cent of nazul land (government land used for non-agricultural purpose) in Haldwani is inhabited. The same is the case with Banbhoolpura. People here have pattas, freeholds, leased lands given by the revenue department. How can all of them become encroachers all of a sudden? This situation has arisen because the government did not oppose the unreasonable claims made by the railways in court,” says Hridayesh.

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