Shivani Chaudhry
Hundreds of families are still living in decaying tar sheet sheds, worn out with severe monsoons, strong summers and perennial humidity...
Déjà vu. Not a word or sentiment or experience one would associate with resettlement sites. Definitely not with rehabilitation. But as I walk into the Akkaraipettai temporary shelter for tsunami survivors in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, I feel I have seen it all before. Because I have. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed for the better, I should say. Because the shelter is sadly, even worse than when I first visited it in June 2005.
When I was here in January 2006, I reeled in disbelief that a temporary shelter could exist, could be permitted to exist, for an entire year. And now, two years later, to see over 400 families cramped together in decaying tar sheet sheds, worn out with severe monsoons, strong summers and perennial humidity, I have no words to describe my chagrin, my dismay, my anger. Two years later, they are still called "temporary shelters." How temporary can two years be? How long can two years feel? Ask anyone in the shelter.
But is anyone asking? Moreover, is anyone listening?
Two years. Twenty-four months. Hundreds of relief agencies. Scores of special government officers and "disaster specialists." Crores and crores of relief money. And yet thousands of despondent people. How much does it take? How long does it take? And how long will it take to adequately rehabilitate the affected in a manner that respects their dignity and upholds their human rights?
Why after two years are the majority of tsunami survivors still living in temporary shelters, without sufficient information on when and where they will be allotted permanent housing? What can explain the painfully slow pace of rehabilitation given the numerous agencies involved and the surplus funds available? And most importantly, why does decision-making continue without involving the affected?
Visiting tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, raises many questions, but also a sense of bewilderment and despair.
While the conditions in a few areas demonstrate improvements on the surface, these are still the exceptions rather than the norm. Almost 60% of affected people in Tamil Nadu continue to live in inadequate and rapidly deteriorating temporary shelters. The situation is not just confined to Akkaraipettai. It's the same scenario in Seruthur in Nagapattinam; Rajakamangalam Thurai, Kottilpadu and Keezhamanakudy in Kanyakumari; and Karaikal in Pondicherry. The same tar sheet shelters, looking more decrepit than ever. With gaping holes. Torn doors. Incomplete walls. Cramped conditions. Absent toilets. Uncleared garbage. Missing sanitation facilities. Stagnant water. Mosquitoes and chikungunya.
With responsibility of management and upkeep of the temporary shelter sites being evaded by both the government and the NGOs who built them, residents have had to largely fend for themselves. Most of them wear a fatigued look. Their patience is being tested. Everyday. But they have no options. No recourse for action either. And not much energy to fight. Their daily struggle to work and feed their families saps them, as does their tested endurance to deal with the heat, the flooding, the filth, the defunct toilets, water shortages, the noise, the lack of space to cook, to store household goods, to change, to sleep. "And if we resist or make any demands, we will not even get what they are giving us," says a mother of three, bringing out the plight of those who first withstood the horror of one of the world's worst natural disasters and then the incessant trials of flawed rehabilitation for two years.
In most of the temporary shelter sites in Tamil Nadu, people are clueless as to when they will be allotted permanent houses. In Seruthur in Nagapattinam district, for instance, only 200 of the 600 odd families had been assured permanent housing by January 2007. The rest of them were distraught with the uncertainty regarding their future.
In the few completed permanent housing sites, one doesn't witness a sense of contentment or comfort or of people having been adequately rehabilitated. It is only a sense of relief due to a relative improvement over the dismal living conditions in temporary shelters. When people are subjected to such prolonged despair, anything provided in the form of "rehabilitation" or "housing" tends to generally be accepted. Because if they question, they are afraid they may not get anything. Because if they reject what is given, they have nothing else. Even when it is their legally enforceable human right to demand rehabilitation, security, adequate housing, healthcare, food, education, livelihood, and information, they are still being denied.
The operative practices of most relief and rehabilitation organizations, including government and non-government agencies, however well-intentioned, are not human rights-based; neither are they focused on ensuring that people's special needs and concerns are met. The majority of permanent housing provided in Tamil Nadu has not been designed in consultation with the affected. So while women might now have an actual kitchen to cook in, it is too small and does not permit them to cook with firewood (as in Keezhamanakudy, Kanyakumari), which is why the majority of them are still forced to cook outdoors. While each permanent house might have an attached toilet, in many places it is not operational (as in Kottilpadu, Kanyakumari). While toilets might have been provided, bathing spaces have not (as in Kovalam and Veerabagupathy, Kanyakumari), which means that women have to either manage in the inadequate space or bathe outdoors which is extremely difficult, especially for adolescent girls and younger women. Where two rooms might have been built, there is still not enough space to accommodate large families, nor is there a separate space for prayer (as in Pillumedu, Chidambaram), which is an integral requirement in many homes. Where double storied housing has been built (as in Akkaraipettai, Nagapattinam), people have refused to move in because such a structure fails to accommodate their cultural lifestyles since it does not enable them to cook outdoors, dry fish, or store fishing gear. Where the houses might look aesthetic (as in Kovalam), residents are unhappy because the side entrance to the house is antithetical to their cultural norms, as they believe it bodes ill luck.
Denying people the human right to participate in decision-making that directly affects their lives, is an egregious and unpardonable lapse in rehabilitation. Just as the impacts of a natural disaster are felt more severely by women, children, persons with disabilities and other marginalised communities, the omission of these groups in planning and implementation processes, further heightens discrimination against them. This is evident in the lack of bathing areas for women or the partitionless temporary shelters with incomplete walls that preclude privacy and threaten women's human right to personal security. The absence of cooking spaces in temporary shelters forces women to cook in unventilated corridors, making them prone to acute respiratory disorders. Overcrowded living conditions also tend to have worse impacts on women and children, including on their mental health. Not one of the permanent houses provided so far had provisions for persons with disabilities or older persons or those living with illness. Several resettlement sites also lacked child-friendly spaces.
The insensitivity to the specific needs of marginalised groups, including women and children is glaring, and a direct outcome of the failure to include them in planning and decision-making processes related to rehabilitation.
The distance of many relocation sites from the coast, although providing an element of increased security, has jeopardized livelihoods of fishing communities. For those families who have been able to rebuild their houses along the coast, the government has refused to support such construction or to recognise communities' customary rights over coastal land. In some areas, as along Marina Beach in Chennai, coastal communities face a constant threat of eviction. Ostensibly justified under the guise of "safety," the aim is to acquire coastal land for commercial and tourism development.
While the trend has been one of bypassing people and ignoring their voices, there are a few organisations such as SNEHA in Nagapattinam, Praxis and Rural Uplift Centre in Nagercoil, CREED in Chidambaram, and Development Alternatives in Karaikal, which have utilised participatory mechanisms and developed housing plans in consultation with people. These models need to be studied, evolved and adopted in ongoing and future rehabilitation processes. Apart from resulting in a higher level of satisfaction amongst the people, such participatory processes ensure that special concerns of marginalised groups are incorporated while realising their human right to participation. Participation must however be informed, and for this, all affected people must be provided with timely and adequate information, including on various aspects of resettlement and rehabilitation that concern them.
In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the dream of adequate permanent housing is even more distant. People have rejected the government prototypes even though construction in some areas has begun. Driven to desperation, communities in Little Andaman organised a peaceful protest against the faulty government housing plans, only to find themselves targets of police brutality and firing.
The situation is critical. All tsunami survivors in the Islands still live in grossly inadequate tin "intermediate" tin shelters under dire circumstances of intense heat, high humidity, inadequate sanitation, acute water scarcity, malfunctioning toilets, overcrowding, and lack of space. In many shelters, the flooring has developed cracks and bamboo beams have corroded due to termite infestation. Women's privacy and security is a serious concern. Whether it is "intermediate" shelters in Campbell Bay, or Padauk Tikri and Panchu Tikri in Little Andaman, or Chauldhari in South Andaman, people continue to suffer a violation of their human right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Information regarding permanent housing is greatly lacking, as is the participation of communities in developing permanent housing plans.
People cannot be expected to continue living endlessly in these one room tin sheds or "toasters" as a woman in Great Nicobar called them. A comprehensive policy regarding permanent housing for tribal and non-tribal populations needs to be developed in close consultation with the affected.
With people evacuated from their homes and resettled on other islands, with coastal communities relocated upland, and with Nicobarese communities relocated into non-Nicobarese settlements, livelihoods and cultural practices in the Islands have also been severely affected. Some of them seemingly unalterably. The complexities in the Islands and the different cultural requirements of tribal and non-tribal communities demand a greater sensitivity and understanding, including the need for an ongoing consultative process to ensure that rehabilitation fulfills peoples' specific needs and human rights. Instead, what seems to prevail is a lack of coordination and information, and confusion. The politics between central and local governments is evident. The distance of the centre from the geo-political-social realities of the Islands often results in inappropriate relief measures and housing designs, and also leads to excessive delays in rehabilitation.
An integrated and holistic approach to rehabilitation based on the principles of indivisibility of human rights and non-discrimination, needs to be developed, articulated and enforced. All actors involved in rehabilitation across tsunami-affected areas must act exigently to ensure that in-depth consultations are held with affected people, including marginalised and vulnerable communities. Decision-making bodies of local communities such as parish councils and fisher panchayats in Tamil Nadu and tribal councils in the Nicobars, however, need not always be democratic or gender-sensitive or truly reflective of people's concerns. Which is why channels for participation of people, not just their representatives, must be made available and promoted.
Permanent housing, built according to human rights standards of "adequacy" and disaster-resistance must immediately be provided to all those still living in temporary shelters and the government should revise its policy of providing one standardized house for every house lost, as it leaves out multiple-family units. A comprehensive post-disaster rehabilitation policy needs to be developed which incorporates international human rights standards, especially given the deficiencies of the National Disaster Management Act, 2005. Moreover, binding timelines for completion of reconstruction need to be developed and enforced, else the rehabilitation process could continue endlessly with people languishing while waiting for housing and public goods and services. The government needs to exigently establish effective monitoring and grievance redressal mechanisms and to ensure that special needs of women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, historically discriminated groups and other vulnerable groups, are incorporated in all rehabilitation plans and processes.
The right to humanitarian relief and rehabilitation has to be recognised and upheld as a basic human right. It is absolutely imperative that existing lapses and violations in rehabilitation are recognized and exigently rectified to ensure that people's human rights to participation and information, security, food, water, health, education, livelihood, and an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing are realised.
It is hard to believe that two years have elapsed since the tsunami. Two years of misery, trauma and suffering. How much longer will the survivors have to wait before they are adequately rehabilitated with dignity? When will people matter?
(Shivani Chaudhry: Member of the Housing and Land Rights Network fact-finding team to the tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka (June 2005); Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Jan 2006); and Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (Oct 2006). schaudhry@hic-sarp.org. For reports: www.hic-sarp.org.)