The footpaths of Kolkata’s busy Park Street and Free School Street have been home to Sita, who came from Punjab, for the past 50 years. On a Saturday afternoon, she was heating a little milk for a child on a stove by the roadside when West Bengal’s minister for municipal affairs and urban development, Agnimitra Paul, arrived at the spot as part of a drive to clear footpaths of encroachment.
Seeing the lit stove on the footpath, the minister reportedly lost her temper. Angrily, she asked Sita why a child’s milk needed to be heated on the footpath, and who had given them the right to make a home there. Since that harsh rebuke, Sita has been too afraid to even light a stove to warm milk for the child on that footpath again. The minister’s scolding has now stirred up Kolkata’s politics, while raising a pressing question in the minds of ordinary people: is this kind of beautification drive humane at all?
The incident has drawn sharp criticism across social media and political circles alike. Opposition parties, including the Trinamool Congress, have strongly condemned the episode. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh has already visited the elderly woman and inquired about her family’s welfare. He sharply criticized the administration’s eviction drive, saying that clearing footpaths of encroachment cannot come at the cost of being inhumane — and that a proper framework, or blueprint, is needed instead to rehabilitate these uprooted people.
Despite the criticism, the government has stood firmly by its position. Minister Agnimitra Paul has stated plainly that the government has a “zero tolerance” policy on clearing footpaths. Whether it’s heating a child’s milk or frying pakoras, she said, occupying pedestrian walking space will not be tolerated under any circumstances. She also pointed out that lighting a stove on the footpath poses a serious fire risk both to the family involved and to pedestrians. Hitting back at her opposition critics, she said that none of those now making it a political issue had come forward with so much as a bowl of milk for the child.
This tension between development and humanity is nothing new for the city of Kolkata. As the city pushes toward becoming more progressive, marginalized people like Sita are repeatedly caught in the grinding wheels of strict urban development policy. It is true that footpaths belong to pedestrians by right — but it is equally true that the daily struggle for survival of this low-income population, woven into the city’s map for decades, is just as real.
Power changes hands, the color of the government changes, but the condition of these people never changes. Sita’s helpless cry — “where do we go if we’re made to leave?” — keeps getting lost in the maze of politics. Is genuine urban development possible through scolding or forced eviction alone, without arranging alternative housing? After this incident, the city’s supposedly humane face now stands on trial.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report