It took a news report for the Gurugram administration to finally wake up to the plight of homeless people sleeping on pavements under flyovers and along roadsides in one of the harshest winters North India has experienced in a long time.
Gurugram’s Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav’s clarification, where he says that “no identification cards are required to seek night shelter”, shows how bureaucrats remain detached from ground realities. Winter slows down life in general; imagine what it does to the Indian bureaucracy infamous for working at a snail’s pace.
And the Gurugram administration is a repeat offender – a tag that could have easily been reserved for Dilli ki sardi a decade ago. Winters are not harsh every year, but the administration is. The authorities did this last year as well.
A similar report, published in January 2023, had forced the Gurugram administration to take quick steps to save its reputation. The poor suffering in the cold don’t move officers in the administration; they melt only when their reputation is at stake.
During the 26 January Republic Day parade this year, a TV presenter appreciated the patriotic fervour of those who had shown up at Kartavya Path for the celebrations. But the spirit of the Indian Republic dampens when barely 30 km from the parade, the poor, battling a cold wave without blankets and proper clothes, are asked for an Aadhaar card to access night shelters.
Why demand ID in the first place?
Gurugram is known as the millennial city of India for housing swanky buildings and corporate giants like Google and DLF. It is disheartening to see how this boastful city fails to care for the underprivileged whose toil built it and continues to sustain it. And how the city’s bureaucracy, whose job is to ensure the welfare of the public, ignores their discomfort to sleep cosily.
It is important to ask whether the demand for identity proof was avoidable.
What kind of security threat would a homeless Indian national be? And if they are security threats to India, they can also be a threat to the passersby whose path they block on the pavements they sleep.
The administration was not accommodating them at a five-star hotel for which stringent security checks were necessary. They were offering them mobile, temporary portacabin-like night shelters mostly made out of abandoned roadway buses to protect them from the harsh winters.
In the name of maintaining records, as Deputy Commissioner Yadav told the media, the administration has no right to strip the poor of their dignity.
Shelter is a basic human right. To deprive someone of this necessity is an assault on their dignity. In fact, the Constitution guarantees shelter to all citizens, recognising it as a fundamental right under Article 21.
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Show genuine empathy
The problem is not just limited to Gurugram. Harsh winter kills people every year, but not enough is done to prevent it. Politicians and administrators often boast of building night shelters, distributing free food and blankets for the homeless. But it never really reaches those in need and gets stuck—in the bureaucratic mesh, rather mess.
It’s high time the Indian bureaucracy moved beyond red tape and archaic procedures, toward processes that ensure faster decision-making. And above all, they need to become more and more empathetic.
Imagine having finally found a space to sleep, only to be denied because you don’t have an Aadhaar card. Home or not, doesn’t matter. Where is your Aadhaar? Asks the State.
Next winter, don’t give them a cold shoulder.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)