About Indian Slums

In our area of India, when you see a large slum it may actually be comprised of very separate areas or political divisions. For example, Gabila Lapet was Naxalite (now it is Congress party) and Shanti Nagar is not political. Next to Gabela Lapet on the other side is a large Communist slum. Their old style Russian type communist leaders have generally been less friendly to our efforts to help. If a slum's party is holding a rally in the city, often large flatbed trucks come and pick up the men to go in and demonstrate the party's strengh. They get paid a bit more than a day's wages, so nearly everyone goes.

A slum leader can be good protector and leader all the way to someone like an organized crime boss, complete with enforcer thugs. The police generally do not come into the slums, leaving issues to be resolved by the people and their leader. Sometimes one leader may not like another, and forbid his people to go into his slum. We originally had some issues of that sort, having to build separate schools because children could not cross from one slum to another. The current leaders do not have this problem.