Poor in Urban India by Lancy Lobo, Intro and Chapter 2: Slums and Slum Dwellers of Surat City

Poor in Urban India by Lancy Lobo, Intro and Chapter 2: Slums and Slum Dwellers of Surat City

I thought this was a very interesting set of reading because it was very specific to the area. It did not aim to make any sweeping generalizations about the nature of slums as a whole, it just described the slums in this particular city of Surat. One thing that would be potentially helpful is the statistics that Lobo utilizes. I think that they were not very helpful to me because I do not feel like I have an adequate enough basis of knowledge on the subject to be able to interpret the statistics in a way that is meaningful to me.

One thing that it said is that many of the slums are separated into scheduled class groups. Now, I am not sure what “scheduled” class groups means. I assume that it is just the ordinary caste system that we think of, but I am not sure. In relation to these demographics, it is interesting to me that many of the slum dwellers are immigrants and not native members of the society. This seems to make sense to me because these people would have to integrate not only socially, but economically and would be starting from scratch in a place where they may not have as many contacts and support systems as people who have lived in the city their whole lives. Finally, I also found it interesting that the book made such a distinction between different geographic parts of the city and how the conditions in each region of the city was distinctly different. I wonder why it would be that within the same city so much difference would form between different slums. Are the institutions that govern the particular slums the difference or is the difference directly regarding the people who are living in these slums?

The text then went on to describe some statistics about ameninities that the slum dwellers had. These were very interesting to me but I will only list a couple of them: only 22% have adequate toilet facilities, 68% of households have not utilized health services at any time. This is amazing to me and is something that will break my heart, but that will be a good thing for me to see while in India because it will cause me perspective of impoverished reality to be expanded beyond what I can readily see in the States.

Finally, when talking about jobs, the author points out that people who move into the slums generally have to go through a process of “moving up” in jobs, so prospects at the beginning are not very good. This then affects their labor which affects what they can purchase. This related to what Claire, Dr. Fowler, and I talked about last time regarding cell phones and what symbolic value material things have. I will be interested to see if my readings talk any more about things like that.