Rahul M.

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_Cover2.jpg

medium_Cover2.jpg

small_Cover2.jpg

thumbnail_Cover2.jpg

Cover2.jpg

And what shall their tired eyes see?  A scattered slovenly dream!  A shattered heavenly scheme!(From Srirangam Sreenivasa Rao’s ‘The Defeated&#39;; translated by the poet from his 1935 Telugu poem &#39;Parajithulu&#39;)

The demolition squad came at 5 a.m. “They didn&#39;t even give us time to bring our belongings out of our houses,” says D. Gangulamma, a daily wage labourer in her 40s, who lives in Vijayanagar colony, on the outskirts of Anantapur town in Andhra Pradesh. “They pushed our lives on to the road.&quot; The residents estimate there were eight bulldozers and roughly 200 cops – including eight women constables who joined the posse at 9 a.m. – who then proceeded to demolish at least 150 dwellings of the colony’s 300-odd houses. Most of these were  houses that had come up in the last 3-4 years, the homes of among the poorest in the colony. Cracked plastic buckets, torn school books, damaged photos of gods, piles of muddied clothes and other items – all abandoned in fear and hurry – now lie scattered among the ruins of their homes.

vjngr-9.jpg

Around six of the families whose homes were razed had moved in only a week before the demolition on August 3. “We moved here last week,” says Parveen Bhanu, who does tailoring from home; her husband is a daily wage labourer. The two shifted to Vijayanagar colony from Bhavani colony in Anantapur. Several other families have come here from other low-income settlements in Anantapur because of the lower rents. “And they came and demolished our houses,” Parveen says. “They could have informed us before we laid the foundations.” Most of the residents of Vijayanagar colony are Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and  Muslims; most of them work as house cleaners, labourers,  fruit or flower sellers, or they do other small businesses. Many, like Mohammad Hussain, are migrants from other parts of Anantapur district. Hussain, a tailor, came here around 20 years ago from Dharmavaram after his business in the village, dependent on customers from two sectors in decline – agriculture and weaving – started falling. “We came here for our livelihood,” he says. He too lost his house, built just three years ago, on August 3.

People_from_the_colony.jpg

Vijayanagar colony itself is around three decades old. The demolished houses, all built in the last few years, were located on land where two lakes – Bukkarayasamudram and Chikkavadiyalu Cheruvu  – have dried up after years of decreasing rainfall.
 When the new Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government came to power in June 2014, the now-homeless residents of Vijayanagar colony say, the local TDP corporator R. Umamaheshwar assured them that they could build their houses here.  So they did, and they were even given electricity meters, and were paying their power bills.
 
 But the demolition notice put up by the revenue officials cited a writ petition of June 8, 2017, a Supreme Court special leave petitions of July 25, 2001, and two
memos; they say this is why they had to demolish the houses that were built on the land where the lakes were. &quot;It&#39;s a lake,&quot; says A. Malola, the revenue divisional officer of Anantapur, who supervised the demolition. He adds that in multiple judgements the Supreme Court has given directions to local authorities to reclaim encroached land. He also says that he was only acting upon orders from his seniors. &quot;Will you accept it if someone encroaches upon a lake?&quot; he asks. And, he insists, only 10-15 of the houses were occupied, and  “the rest were empty.&quot;

demolition_notice_and_notebook2.jpg

However, the people of the colony allege that the government officials didn’t inform them in advance before tearing their houses and lives apart. “They were sticking  notices onto houses [only that morning] and they kept demolishing those houses. The police kept pushing the people away. I ran away from there,” says B. Anil Kumar, around 12, who studies in Class 6 at the local municipal school.
 Others too speak of this sequence of events. They say that the government notices were backdated to July 25 and put up just minutes before their houses were brought down. “They were sticking these notices in front of our eyes, and were tearing our houses away. Some of us tried photographing this with our mobiles and they snatched our phones away,” says P. Jagadeesh, who was born in Vijayanagar colony but had shifted into his own house here just a few years ago.

Child.jpg

“Even pigs are allotted some time before they are put away [by officials during the state’s health drives],” says S. Parveen, 28, who earns a living as a labourer in  Anantapur town. For a daily age of Rs. 160, she has to make 150 cement bricks, each weighing 20 kilos. Parveen’s husband works as a mason in the city. Their family built the house a year ago, drawing on loans of around Rs. 3 lakhs from a savings group that she is a member of; they owe money to private moneylenders too. The family of four, with a monthly income of around Rs. 12,000, pays Rs. 7,000 as interest on the loans every month. To manage, they borrow again.

Woman_standing.jpg

After the demolition, a distraught Parveen went to the collector’s office and poured kerosene on herself to set herself on fire – but the police stopped her. “If they had informed us before, we could have at least sold the doors and windows….” she says. The family managed to salvage a few things that they have stacked in the ruins, including a metal safe, clothes and some vessels. But fans, lights, other utensils and various other items were damaged.

Gangulamma  also doused herself with kerosene. “I thought this might stop them… I hoped they would leave our houses if I set myself on fire,&quot; she says. But the cops halted her immolation attempt, and, she says, “They kept demolishing our houses.”
 Not only that, the residents allege they were physically roughed up and verbally abused by the officials and the police that morning – though Malola, the revenue divisional officer, insists his department&#39;s personnel did no such thing. “I was pushed and I fell into the water pit outside the house,” says B. Shobha, a homemaker, whose husband runs a fertiliser business. Shobha is pregnant, and when she fell, her neighbours say, her three-year-old daughter Geetika was in her arms.

vjngr-23.jpg

More than a week after the demolition, many here are still in a shock, the images of bulldozers destroying their homes still vivid. “I fainted twice. We have many tensions [now], we don’t have enough water or food,” says P. Bharati. “It’s been a week since my children went to school. How can we send them when we don’t have anything to eat?
 The people of the colony are now cooking, eating and sleeping next to their broken houses. On the day of the demolition, some locals got together and put up a pandal; soon after, because it rained at night, they also built a makeshift shelter – a roof of asbestos sheets supported by bamboos.  They are pooling in money to procure materials to cook collectively, and have cut down on their meals.

children.jpg

Vijaynagar colony has been a support base of the TDP and the devastation has left the residents feeling betrayed by their leaders. “It felt like a mother hen destroying its babies,” says M. Jayaputra, a labourer and TDP member, who helped build the makeshift shelter. Many of the residents here, who are TDP members, allege that inter-party rivalry – differences between the local corporator R. Umamaheshwar and others – unleashed the demolition squad on them. “There are about 18 colonies in the lake area. But only ours was demolished,” Umamaheshwar says.
 The dishoused people plan to stay on in the ruins, continuing with their daily chores and lives. “We will stay here and fight for however long it takes,” says S. Sivamma, a flower seller.
 
 View: The fallen homes of Anantapur
 
 <a id="3634" linktype="page">
 Photo album
 </a>

The fallen homes of Anantapur

অনন্তপুরে ভিটেহারা মজুরদের ছিন্নভিন্ন জীবন

اننت پور کے زمیں دوز مکانات

ಅನಂತಪುರದ ಕೆಡವಲ್ಪಟ್ಟ ಮನೆಗಳು

வீழ்த்தப்பட்ட அனந்தப்பூரின் வீடுகள்

ଅନନ୍ତପୁରର ଭାଙ୍ଗି ଯାଇଥିବା ଘରଗୁଡ଼ିକ

अनंतपुरातील उद्ध्वस्त घरे

Vijayanagar colony

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

The fallen homes of Anantapur

A sudden demolition on August 3 in Vijayanagar colony of Anantapur town in Andhra Pradesh has left entire families – many of them daily wage workers or migrants – homeless and living out in the open

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit