Shahid Malik is combating for a home that no longer exists. For the previous two years, Malik, an accountant by exchange, has been seeking justice alongside a local prison reputable for the demolition of his home and better than two dozen others in Kharak Riwara Satbari, a neighborhood in southwest Delhi, experiences Al Jazeera.
In October 2022, the Delhi Vogue Authority (DDA), accountable for urban planning, housing, and land management, demolished the homes with out prior spy or surveys. The demolition adopted a court ruling transferring land adjust to a non-public builder.
Malik has filed two cases—one on behalf of the Resident Welfare Affiliation and but every other for his bear home. On the other hand, the hearings be pleased confronted repeated delays. “The hearings are constantly postponed, and we now be pleased no longer had the probability to enlighten our grievances. How lengthy must we wait?” he laments.
Malik’s loss extends far beyond the destruction of his home. His son, Ziyan, became born with cardiovascular complications comely two months outdated to their home became razed. “His condition worsened after we were compelled out into the frigid,” Malik recounts, gesturing towards the rubble that after became his home.
The same evening their home became demolished, Malik rushed his crying toddler to a health care provider. Over the following six days, Ziyan became moved between hospitals outdated to being placed on a ventilator within the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the All India Institute of Scientific Sciences (AIIMS), Fresh Delhi. One frigid October morning, the couple watched helplessly as Ziyan’s physique turned blue. He passed away, struggling to breathe.
For the family, Ziyan’s loss of life became an instantaneous final result of losing their home. “Scientific doctors told us the dust publicity made it great extra significant for him to breathe,” Malik says. “My partner and I light tremble with wretchedness when we mediate of Ziyan. We were given no spy—authorities stole every our home and our son.”
Malik’s story is no longer outlandish. Nowadays, hundreds of Indian Muslims be pleased considered their homes demolished with out spy or correct justification. These homes, where generations lived and dreamed, tend to be destroyed under the guise of urban pattern, beautification drives, or clearing “unlawful encroachments.” In many cases, on the opposite hand, these demolitions are framed as punitive measures against activists or government critics in states governed by Top Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP). Leaders admire Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan be pleased earned nicknames admire “Bulldozer Baba” and “Bulldozer Mama,” respectively, for his or her aggressive demolition campaigns—campaigns which be pleased disproportionately targeted Muslims.
“The claims of ‘unauthorised constructions’ are inconsistent and regularly purpose one explicit neighborhood,” says Najmus Saqib, a prison reputable with the Affiliation for Security of Civil Rights, a civil rights advocacy neighborhood. “In this native weather, it turns into extra and extra sophisticated to convince the neighborhood to believe judicial establishments. A pervasive sense of hopelessness has taken withhold.”
In June 2022, authorities in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh—formerly identified as Allahabad—demolished the home of activist and neighborhood chief Javed Mohammed. He became charged under the Nationwide Security Act and labeled the “mastermind” of violence that erupted within the metropolis following derogatory remarks made by then-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma about Prophet Muhammad.
The irony of the scheme back, per Saqib, is placing. “The Prayagraj Vogue Authority, which oversaw the demolition, has itself failed to fabricate a sanctioned plot of its bear office building,” he says. The improvement physique did no longer acknowledge to requests for comment from *Al Jazeera* about allegations of misconduct.
The affect of these demolitions lingers lengthy after the bulldozers leave. Households are compelled to rebuild their lives from scratch, repeatedly in makeshift tents, new neighborhoods, or far away cities. Their struggles are compounded by restricted gain admission to to healthcare, vitamin, safety, sanitation, and irregular water and electrical energy in these new locations.
In June 2024, Salma Bano’s home became amongst 1,600 homes bulldozed in Akbar Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, to compose capacity for the Kukrail riverfront pattern project in Lucknow. Over 1,000 Muslim households were evicted, and saplings were planted over the particles of their homes to compose a woodland.
“Our entire neighborhood became surrounded by bulldozers, and inside of hours, the total lot became turned to dust. We did no longer be pleased something to appreciate for the following two or three days,” Bano remembers. Now living in a government-allocated home in Vasant Kunj, 15 km (9 miles) from her frail home, she says her family is light struggling. “Each day, we now be pleased to mediate about how great we appreciate due to the we fabricate no longer be pleased enough earnings. I if truth be told be pleased five younger folks—how can I feed them when my home and my world are shattered?”
Bano’s concerns prolong to her younger folks’s training. Their frail college became great closer, but now the family cannot manage to pay for the college charges or transportation charges. To add to their challenges, the family must repay the government for the home in instalments. “Day after day necessities are great extra expensive right here than they were in Akbar Nagar. Inflation is eating us alive. I if truth be told feel admire our future is entirely ruined.”
Her husband, Mohammad Ishaq, provides that the demolition has fractured their family. Previously, his fogeys and brothers lived with them. “There isn’t any longer any home for them in this minute new flat. I additionally lost my job and needed to grab a mortgage to aquire an auto rickshaw so I’m able to originate a living. I fabricate no longer know the contrivance lengthy I’m able to defend this up,” he says. “Can we ever gain our frail lifestyles abet?”
In a recent judgment, the Supreme Courtroom of India dominated that government authorities cannot slay property belonging to other folks accused of a crime with out following due correct direction of. The ruling mandates that property householders must be given near spy and a likelihood to contest the remark.
This resolution is “a huge relief,” says Kumar Sambhav, founder of Land Struggle Explore, a learn initiative examining land conflicts in India. On the other hand, he components out that the judgment most effective addresses punitive demolitions. “Homes constructed on public land are exempt from this remark, leaving an ambiguous hole that can per chance continue to enable the concentrated on of minority communities. Without the suitable to housing, the landless and homeless repeatedly dwell on traditional lands, and their homes are constantly at possibility of being labeled as encroachments.”
The psychological toll of these demolitions is extensive, psychological properly being consultants warn. “There is an irreparable sense of displacement,” says Zulekha Shakoor Rajani, a Bangalore-basically based psychologist. “Interior most trauma is compounded by collective trauma, severely impacting the psychological properly being of many Muslims across the nation. People if truth be told feel abandoned, unsupported, and hazardous even of their very bear homes, ensuing in a distorted sense of actuality.”
This lack of enhance repeatedly fosters a deep sense of isolation and despair.
Javed Mohammed, the neighborhood chief, became in detention heart when authorities demolished his home in Prayagraj on June 12, 2022. His most valuable subject became guaranteeing the safety of his partner and daughters, Afreen Fatima and Sumaiya Fatima.
“But many other folks cease to us were hesitant to succor,” Mohammed remembers. “They were scared. I mediate they feared their very bear homes would possibly per chance additionally be arbitrarily bulldozed within the occasion that they supported us. I realize their fear due to the what came about to us became unlawful and arbitrary. For the time being, we felt fully by myself.”
After months of fight, the family managed to gain a rented home in Prayagraj. On the other hand, the proprietor confronted frequent harassment from native police for providing them refuge. Even now, bigger than two years later, Mohammed’s social relationships remain strained.
“I became once properly-linked in my metropolis, interacting repeatedly with many other folks and organizations. But after this ordeal, folks are vexed to partner with me,” he explains. “People I ancient to spy each day now steer clear of me or refuse to talk to me on the phone. My social lifestyles has under no circumstances recovered, and that sense of loneliness lingers.”
The smartly-liked expend of bulldozer demolitions against Muslims in India acts as psychological battle, analysts utter.
“For healing to start up, the violence must quit,” notes psychologist Zulekha Shakoor Rajani. “We are witnessing a upward thrust in advanced put up-traumatic stress dysfunction cases, where routine flashbacks, ruminating thoughts, and nightmares prevent folks from shifting previous their losses.”
In August 2023, authorities in Nuh, Haryana, bulldozed over 1,000 Muslim homes, shanties, and minute firms. They accused the neighborhood of participating in violence all by contrivance of a animated and armed Hindu supremacist procession that marched by contrivance of Muslim neighborhoods.
Saddam Ali (name modified for anonymity) lost every his home and his scientific retailer within the demolitions. “We had no idea this would possibly happen. Now, whereas I try to rebuild my home, I’m watching my son sink into despair,” Ali says. “He has turn out to be dependent on antidepressants.”
“The wretchedness of losing the total lot he had worked so significant to fabricate—reduced to rubble in mere minutes—became too great for him to endure.”
