Housing bias turns Indian cities into ghettos

MUMBAI – On the inauguration of US president Donald Trump, an Indian real estate company ran an advertisement with the slogan ‘Homes that don’t discriminate’, calling for an end to prejudice in India’s housing market based on gender, religion or caste.

While the advert was unusual, the sentiment was familiar to millions of Indians who have tried to rent or buy city homes only to be denied because they were single, ate meat, were of a certain caste or from a certain region.

Informal rules and discrimination by Indian landlords to keep out religious minorities and single people are eroding the multicultural nature of India’s cities and dividing communities into ghettos, analysts say.

“It’s 2017 – and we’re still encountering discrimination,” said Rishi Dogra of NestAway Technologies that ran the advert.

“People should be able to move freely and find a living space anywhere in the country,” said Dogra, marketing head for the company founded by four young male graduates after they had trouble finding a home in Bengaluru.

Such discrimination has forced many people to the suburbs, making Indian city centres less diverse and cosmopolitan, with high rents already making them unaffordable to poorer workers. Mumbai, India’s financial hub and a magnet for migrants from across the country, has traditionally had enclaves for Catholics, Parsis, Bohri Muslims and others. They set up housing societies, or co-operatives, to help other community members.

As the city grew and drew more migrants, powerful housing societies have often denied homes on the basis of religion, caste, food preferences and even professions.

The divide grew after bloody Hindu-Muslim riots in 1992-93 and still persists, said Zakia Soman, a co-founder at Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a non-profit organisation for Muslim women.

A Facebook group called ‘Indians Against Discrimination’ was set up in 2015 after a young Muslim woman was asked to leave her flat a week after she moved in, because of her religion.