Mumbai slums covered up with sheets amid G20 event: ‘They don’t want to show our homes to foreigners’

India is reportedly attempting to cover up slum areas in the financial capital of Mumbai so the city’s glaring economic inequalities can be hidden amid a three-day international meeting taking place there this week.

The country is chairing the Group of 20 (G20) leading economies this year and its Development Working Group began a three-day meeting on 13 December that will conclude on 16 December, with many international delegates attending the event.

The grouping has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group’s agenda and priorities each year and Mumbai, a vast coastal metropolis known for its stark economic inequalities and limited living and public spaces, was chosen as the venue for its meeting this time.

Several media reports and social media users have pointed out the lengths to which the city’s municipal authorities have gone to hide slums from plain sight.

The sides of roads in many areas that have housed slums for decades have tall billboards advertising the event along with drapes and giant sheets strung up on bamboo poles, reported NDTV.

Residents told local media outlets that authorities had come and covered up their residences.

Mohammed Rabban, a vegetable vendor, said authorities came three days ago and installed barricades and kept potted plants.

“Maybe they don’t want to show our slums to big people coming from abroad,” he was quoted as saying to the Hindustan Times.

Another resident told NDTV that curtains were put up covering the slum areas overnight.

“Some people were cleaning the neighbourhood. At night, they put up these curtains. We found out about them only in the morning. They said some special guests are coming,” a resident was quoted as saying to the network.

“We have done it where it is needed,” Ranjit Dhakne, a deputy municipal commissioner, told Hindustan Times on being asked about the cover up.

Social media posts also showed barricades covering slum areas across the city.

The irony behind the covering up of the slums lies in the focus of the G20 meeting, which is to support developing countries in dealing with immediate concerns relating to food, fuel and fertiliser security as well as developing collective actions for accelerating progress on Sustainable Development Goals.

This is, however, not the first time Indian authorities have attempted to hide slums and areas struck by poverty before major international events or visits by foreign dignitaries.

In perhaps one of the biggest examples of the lengths Indian officials have gone to for hiding slums, an entire wall was erected in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad city before one-time US president Donald Trump visited prime minister Narendra Modi’s state in 2020.

In April this year, large white sheets were used to cover up slum housing along the route taken by former British prime minister Boris Johnson during his visit to Ahmedabad.