India: lots has changed in six years

“No sir, sleeping in the streets is now forbidden. ” A lot of things have changed in Delhi and this is certainly one of them, writes Channel 4 News Asia Correspondent John Sparks.

I made my first trip to India’s capital six years ago. Through the murky light of on early morning run from the airport, I saw rag-covered pavement dwellers stretching and defecating, cooking on small fires, steadying themselves for another day. These were my first memories of India and they are not easily forgotten.

Today however these street inhabitants have been swept away. In fact, sweeping was just about the only thing I did see. The taxi-man dodged and weaved round an army of cleaners, each one equipped with a high-vis vest, dusting off the roads in lanes one, two and three. The health and safety people back home would have a fit but it has had the desired result. At first light, these open-air corridors are sparkling and people-free.

Much has been made of this year’s Commonwealth Games “just-in-time delivery system”. And stories of collapsing bridges and nasty diseases conform to our idea of what India is and will always be. No doubt Western journalists are out measuring rhinoceros beetles in the vicinity of the swimming pool right now.

But it’s a long, long way from the whole picture. The Indians I have spoken to today think it is perfectly natural that they should hold the Games – that India should lead – not just participate. The change is mental. Get past the “poo in the basin” stuff and you realise that a new world order is in the offing.

Weirdly, the taxi-driver took me to exactly the same hotel I had stayed in six years ago. The dirt strewn encampment outside the gates has gone. And the name has changed too. It was called the Hotel InterContinental. It is now called ‘The Lalit New Delhi’. Turns out that the Delhi-based Suri family use to have British firm Hotel InterContinental Group plc run their hotel for them. Now, they do it themselves.

I have no idea what has happened to the pavement dwellers and I have mixed feelings about this spit-polished and somewhat sterilized capital city, but what I do know is that this place is moving on. Ad-hoc street campers need not apply. The pace is quick and unsentimental and many of us Westerners are light-years behind in our attitudes.