After hearing so much about the Common Wealth Game's displacement, the obvious next question was, "Where did they go?" As I said before, only a quarter were resettled. No one seems to know where the rest went. After speaking with a few Indian students, we decided that visiting the CWG's resettlement colonies was not a good idea. Touring white people around a recently established camp that was created because of a colonial event seemed like an insult to injury. Instead, a local film maker who has made documentaries on resettlement colonies offered to take us an older colony where she knew people. An invitation is important in these circumstances. Here is the story of one colony:

When India gained independence in 1947, cities like Delhi boomed with construction. Workers from all over the Indian countryside came for the prospects of a job. The jobs were there, but they did not include a place to stay, so most workers set up houses nearby the project they were working on and that is how little slums emerged all over the city. The government knew they were there; they had ration cards and could get subsidized food from government stores. Then the government decided to move them because they wanted to build something where the slum was or decided that the slum was just an eye sore. In this particular case, 20,000 people were moved between 2000 and 2002 to one colony. They were told to pay 7,000 rps for a 10 year lease and were left on their own to build houses. The colony is located next to a swamp and the water table is only a foot below the surface making construction difficult. Some houses are flooded and abandoned on the outskirts on the colony.
Children don't go to school. Families work together in the neighboring landfill sorting trash. Others make brooms or do season agricultural work husking lentils. The landfill has polluted the water causing skin and stomach problems that in some cases has led to death. Many people here lost their ration cards when the Indian government eliminated 1.7 million cards, a move to keep up with its poverty reduction goals. The house next door to our host's lacked a roof, but the family was still unable to get ration cards. The application process is tiresome and expensive. You must pay money to prove that you have none, while people in other parts of the city have the pink cards and "drive Mercedes." Even for those who get their ration cards, the fight isn't over. There is supposed to be one government store for every 800 families. Here, there is only one in an area of 20,000 people. It is over 3/4 of a kilometer away meaning that they must pay more to transport the food than the food actually costs.

After 10 years they are starting to get organized. They have filed a Public Interest Litigation to help everyone get ration cards and several womans groups are active. Earlier this month over a hundred woman blocks a nearby highway to protest the Common Wealth Games despite being beaten by the police.

Its hard to know what to take out of situations like this other than feeling very fortunate and wondering how our lifestyles might be contributing to these situations.