Securing the city

'We have lived here for a hundred years – from the time of my umamma [mother's mother].' This is what a middle-aged woman told these writers on 12 May, a few days after inhabitants of Mews Street, in Colombo 2, were evicted from their residences. A week earlier, municipal authorities had informed the 20-odd families that they were to be temporarily relocated to Thotalanga, a crowded settlement of homeless people living in the most meagre of conditions, before being given permanent housing. 'They said we would get flats in six months,' said one of the recent evicted. 'Until then we could live in the cardboard houses in Thotalanga. We refused. Then this happened.' The forced removal of these families caught the attention of the media for a brief moment. But in fact, their story is a long and ongoing one, intertwined with the story of Sri Lanka on the make in its post-war era.

The eviction of the residents of Mews Street is part of a larger campaign to 'clean up' the area for development and security purposes. A similar campaign took place in July 2008, when the residents of nearby Glennie Street, familiarly known as Kompannya Veediya, were likewise evicted from their homes, on the grounds that their proximity to the nearby Air Force and Army headquarters represented a threat to national security. Kompannya Veediya is what upper- and middle-class Colombo residents would identify as a slum or shanty. Yet apart from the presence of military establishments, it is also falling prey to other forms of gentrification – for instance, a former warehouse turned into an exclusive restaurant and art gallery.