Jockin Arputham

Arputham was born to Tamil parents who lived in Kolar Gold Fields (in present-day Kolar district of Karnataka) on 15 August 1947, the same day of [[Indian independence movement|India's independence from the United Kingdom

]].{{cite web |last1=UN-Habitat's Executive Director |title=Demise of Jockin Arputham (15 August 1947 – October 13 2018) |url=https://unhabitat.org/demise-of-jockin-arputham-15-august-1947-october-13-2018/ |website=UN Habitat |access-date=9 May 2019}} When he was 16, he moved to Bangalore looking for work.{{cite news |last1=Parekh |first1=Anuradha |title=10 Things You Need To Know About The Other Indian Who Was Nominated For The Nobel Peace Prize, 2014 |url=https://www.thebetterindia.com/15385/things-to-know-jockin-arputham-nobel-peace-prize/ |access-date=9 May 2019 |work=The Better India |date=14 October 2014}}

When he was eighteen, he moved to Mumbai where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. Since he had nowhere to live, he slept on the street in Janata Colony, a slum of 70,000 people. He worked at the construction of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Seeing that he did not need credentials to do so, he began a company to manage workers and organised a school in the slum. The city did not organize a rubbish collection, so he encouraged 3,000 children to bring a bag of garbage to a picnic at the council offices and won a regular rubbish collection service.{{cite news |last1=Perur |first1=Srinath |title=Jockin Arputham: from slum dweller to Nobel Peace Prize nominee | date=12 June 2014 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/12/jockin-arputham-mumbai-slum-dweller-nobel-peace-prize-nominee |access-date=16 July 2019 |newspaper=The Guardian}}

Between 1971 and 1972, Arputham went to Kolkata to work with refugees escaping war in Bangladesh.{{cite journal |last1=Arputham |first1=Jockin |title=Developing new approaches for people-centred development |journal=Environment and Urbanization |date=2008 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=319–337 |doi=10.1177/0956247808096115 |bibcode=2008EnUrb..20..319A |doi-access=free }}

Back in Mumbai, when Janata colony was threatened with eviction in the 1970s, he helped organize protests and court cases. He was arrested over 40 times.{{cite news |last1=Satterthwaite |first1=David |title=From slum-dwelling carpenter to US$1.25 million prize winner |url=https://www.iied.org/slum-dwelling-carpenter-us125-million-prize-winner |access-date=9 May 2019 |work=International Institute for Environment and Development |date=8 April 2014}} He also sat outside the Parliament in Delhi for 18 days until the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would see him. She promised they would not be evicted, but in 1976, 12,000 police stormed the slum and evicted all 70,000 people in one night. Everyone was forcibly transferred to the still extant Cheetah Camp slum.

When India declared a state of emergency, Arputham was forced to flee the country in 1977 to avoid imprisonment. With the help of the World Council of Churches he went to the Philippines visiting local slumdwellers groups. Every three months he had to leave the country to renew his visa so he went to Japan, Malaysia and South Korea.

Arputham was the president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) which he founded in the late 1970s. He was also co-founder of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) which networks slum and shack dweller organizations and federations from over thirty countries across the world. The National Slum Dwellers Federation works closely with Mahila Milan, a collective of savings groups formed by homeless women and women living in slums across India, and with the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), a Mumbai-based NGO. This alliance has supported thousands of the urban poor access better housing and sanitation.

Slum Dwellers International claimed the alliance helped 1 million people in 15,000 slum dwellers-managed saving groups. Further they had secured land rights for 128,000 families, building over 20,000 toilets and 100,000 houses. The National Slum Dwellers Federation stated it had helped 60,000 families improve their housing situation in Mumbai.{{cite news |last1=Matters India Reporter |title=Champion of slum-dwellers' rights dies |url=http://mattersindia.com/2018/10/champion-of-slum-dwellers-rights-dies/ |access-date=9 May 2019 |work=Matters India |date=15 October 2018}}

Arputham has also worked with the police to set up "police panchayats" in many of the informal settlements in Mumbai. Here, for the first time, police are assigned to work in these settlements and are supported by a committee of ten residents from the community (made up of three men and seven women).{{cite journal |last1=Roy |first1=A.N. |last2=Jockin |first2=A. |last3=Javed |first3=Ahmad |title=Community police stations in Mumbai's slums |journal=Environment & Urbanization |date=2004 |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=135–138 |doi=10.1177/095624780401600205 |bibcode=2004EnUrb..16..135R |doi-access=free }} The concept was pioneered by Anami Narayan Roy, the Police Commissioner of Pune.

A week after his death, Arputham was commemorated by a large poster calling him the "slum king" in Dharavi, where he lived.{{cite news |last1=Echanove |first1=Matias |last2=Srivastava |first2=Rahul |title=Long live the 'Slum King' |url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/long-live-the-slum-king/article25335958.ece |access-date=9 May 2019 |work=The Hindu}}

• 2000: The Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding.
• 2009: Honorary Ph.D. from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar.
• 2011: The Government of India bestowed on him its fourth highest civilian honor, the Padma Shri award.{{cite web|url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |title=Padma Awards |publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India |date=2015 |access-date=21 July 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015193758/http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |archive-date=15 October 2015 }}
• 2014: Skoll award for social entrepreneurship.
• 2014: Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Stefan Attefall, Swedish minister for public administration and housing.

• Arputham, Jockin. 2008. "Developing new approaches for people-centred development". Environment and Urbanization, 20 (2) 319–337 [https://doi:10.1177/0956247808096115 doi:10.1177/0956247808096115]{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• Arputham, Jockin; Bartlett, Sheridan; Patel, Sheela. 2015. "'We beat the path by walking': How the women of Mahila Milan in India learned to plan, design, finance and build housing". Environment & Urbanization, 28(1) [https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247815617440 doi:10.1177/0956247815617440]
• Arputham, Jockin; Patel, Sheela. 2008. "Plans for Dharavi: negotiating a reconciliation between a state-driven market redevelopment and residents’ aspirations". Environment and Urbanization 20(1) 243–254.

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationArputhamJoc.htm Citation for Jockin Arputham on Ramon Magsaysay Award website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205045513/http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationArputhamJoc.htm |date=5 February 2012 }}

{{Padma Shri Award Recipients in Social Work}}

{{RMA winners of India}}

{{Ramon Magsaysay Award Winners}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arputham, Jockin}}

Category:1947 births

Category:2018 deaths

Category:Indian urban planners

Category:Shack dwellers

Category:People from Kolar district

Category:Ramon Magsaysay Award winners

Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri in social work

Category:Artists from Karnataka

Category:20th-century Indian architects

Category:Social workers from Karnataka

Category:20th-century Indian educational theorists

Category:Indian housing rights activists

Category:Squatter leaders