Delhi’s homeless – remembered only in winter
The homeless constitute the poorest section of our urban population and they live pretty close to where the media is based. Some of the highest concentrations of homeless people are within a 10 kms radius of the media hub in Delhi and yet most media coverage of homelessness is confined to the winter months. During the rest of the year – silence.
Last winter, there were quite a few reports in the media expressing serious concern about the inadequacy of existing shelters in Delhi. In a report in The Hindu dated January 4, 2016 ‘Cold hard numbers that don’t add up’ , Kritika Sharma presented a comparison of government and NGO data to bring out the inadequacy of existing shelters This was a part of a full page analysis of various problems faced by homeless people in Delhi.
A few days later (January 13, 2016), the paper expressed serious concern about the deaths of homeless people in the capital.
Civil Society monthly magazine (December 2015) raised similar concerns with interviews and photographs. A report in Rashtriya Sahara quoted NGO sources to present the latest information on the deaths of homeless persons, while also publishing a box item on the condition of night shelters.
The Times of India took up the issue in a report (January 2 2016) titled ‘Despite Central aid, states falter on night shelters for homeless’. This report brought out effectively that the operational shelters were far fewer than the sanctioned shelters. Deshbandhu (January 5 2016) also presented a national level perspective on the problems of homeless people. The Dainik Jagran carried an edit page article on December 29 which noted that the union government as well as the state governments had not been able to implement properly the directives of the Supreme Court for helping the homeless.
But after winter is over, the reporting ends, until the next winter. Sanjay Kumar is a social activist working with homeless people in Delhi and he is frustrated at the seasonal attention to a very serious problem.
Navneet Singh is another social activist who has worked recently with homeless people suffering from mental health problems. “These problems can be so serious. If the media gives more time, then the homeless issue opens up other related issues too which remain neglected,” said Singh.
Paramjit Kaur is widely recognized for her work with homeless people: “While shelters are obviously a very important issue which gets media attention, there are medical issues including mental health and the very process of social disintegration that leads to homelessness in the first place which do not get the attention they deserve,’ she said.
Clearly the coverage of homeless people should be more consistent over the year and should cover a wider range of related matters instead of just shelters. For example, as homeless people are more prone to being victims of human rights violations, these cases could be powerful stories. Some years ago, there were stories of many homeless persons being picked up by the police arbitrarily and being locked up in beggars’ homes even though they had never begged. This in turn led to a debate on unjust beggary laws and the need to change them.
The rainy season is another time when the problems of homeless people deserve more attention but somehow fail to get the media attention that the problems of homeless people receive during the winter. In fact, even during heat waves, the homeless are vulnerable but for some strange reason, the media have chosen to focus only on winters.
Apart from their other problems, homeless women and children face the high risk of sexual exploitation. The lack of sanitation facilities can be the biggest difficulty, but does anyone ever talk about it?
Clearly, there is much scope for improving the coverage of the various difficulties that affect the homeless. It’s time for the media to go a little beyond the reflexive impulse of reporting on the insufficiency of winter shelters. We all know there are stories that are ‘’perennials’ but this one is too serious to be treated in the same fashion.
Bharat Dogra has written four booklets on the problems of homeless people in English and Hindi.