It is quite simple to create slum dwellers. Governments and policy makers have known the recipe for quite a few centuries now.

Take a community of people who live quite on the brink of sustenance. You will find large sections around the world with quite a choice of race, ethnicity, languages, traditions, and occupations. Current varieties include a variety of tribal communities, small farmers, landless peasants, and artisans of a wide variety, all from various parts of the world.

But hurry, the choice is decreasing quite rapidly. A large number of tribes are already gone as are quite a few artisans.

Then take away, or even curtail two or more resources that this community uses for its sustenance. Sometimes curtailing one works; but most of these communities are robust enough to adapt to that.

In the seventeenth century, England passed the Enclosure Laws. Large sections of rural England were landless peasants who worked at the local manor. Some were also small farmers. They sustained themselves by complementing their livelihoods with the use of the village commons – often local pastures or woods where they were able to send their goats to graze.

Initially, the local lords of the manors opposed the enclosure laws since such a law would cause them to loose their labor. However, when the economics of production of wool became significant, the manor house desired the commons for rearing of sheep. The enclosure laws were passed.

The exodus that began from the countryside into the cities was unparalleled in history of those times. Families could not sustain themselves any longer and had to move to what numerous English writers and even law makers described as inhuman conditions. Slums were created in cities across England.

It is remarkable (and certainly not coincidental) that this was also the time when the industrial revolution took off. Setting up of large mills required capital. No investor was willing to invest unless they knew that they had constant access to labor, markets and raw materials. The process of colonization (again, at the same time) ensured the last two. The enclosure laws and the mass exodus of rural communities into cities ensured the former.

There was always more supply of labor than demand; this ensured that labor was always available at very low wages.

The same process has played itself over and over again across the world.

In the early 20th century in India, numerous sections ran away from rural India to escape oppression, often to better their lives.

However, migration especially in the last decade has been of a very different kind.

The poor in India mainly consists of landless peasants and small farmers with holdings of less than one acre. They constitute over half of India’s population. They have been hurt by the recent policies of the Government of India.

The fast decreasing access to potable water is one. In the last decade, with intensive draining of water from across India by numerous MNCs – especially Pepsi and Coke – as well as for such uses as watering golf courses and making wines, water levels in many parts of India have fallen drastically. In Kerala, in the area around Coke’s bottling plants, agriculture has become impossible. In a state that receives about 3800mm annual rainfall on the average. In eastern UP, near Varanasi, within a few miles from the mighty Ganges, water table has fallen by 25 to 50 feet around Coca Cola’s bottling plants. Farmers have been unable to find water to farm in various parts of India.

India has also changed its regulations vis-à-vis seeds. While earlier, at least 80% of seeds in any packet available in the market were supposed to be healthy, opening of markets and entry of MNCs went hand in hand with deregulation. Today, while prices have gone up more than tenfold, packets of seeds with as low as 60% germination capability are being sold. This has also hurt the agrarian community.

In addition, laws vis-à-vis credit to the rural sector has also hurt the agrarian society. In the late 80s and early 90s, all Indian banks were supposed to ensure that about 18% of their investments were in the social sector and not for profit. An additional clause defined a certain portion to be invested directly in agriculture. These laws were changed to encourage the entry of MNCs. As a result, there is little credit available to the small farmer or the landless peasants.

Journalist P. Sainath points out that even the traditional money lender communities are becoming bankrupt. A new breed of money lenders have arisen in rural India. They are the rural retailers of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers.

The purchasing power of rural India has collapsed. This manifests itself in numerous ways. For one, the domestic per capita food grain usage has fallen to below the levels of the Bengal Famine as estimated by Prof. Amartya Sen. Indian grains are being exported at prices that are lower than the domestic price. In the late nineties, grains were rotting in warehouses while thousands of poor were starving.

It is ironic that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were all exporting grains while half of the world’s hungry live here. The collapse of the purchasing power has simply meant that these people cannot afford to buy the grain.

Laws have been changed in a way that the rural hinterland cannot sustain its people. Agricultural activities cannot sustain the agrarian community. When over 60% of India’s population is dependent on this sector, such a conclusion can only imply that a disaster is waiting to happen.

The rural population is starving to death, committing suicides or migrating en masse. Farmer suicides have gone up – thousands of farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and even Punjab.

Or they are running from death. Hundreds and thousands are moving to cities in a migratory pattern quite different from the past. Migrant communities move in hundreds of thousands to one city, where they work for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, and then move to another. A few years ago, the exodus of migrant laborers from Orissa caused the labor market in Hyderabad to collapse.

They are moving to cities that are not able to provide employment to more people. In fact, with the closure of a large number of small mills and shops – in industrial belts in the Thane-Belapur area, in Noida, as well as more traditional sectors such as lock makers in UP, potters, small weavers and looms – there is a large unemployed population that already exists in the cities.

Behold, you have your slum.

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