Covid-19 responses of displaced slum dwellers in Delhi : who to trust and to rely on in times of sanitary and economic crisis ?

In India, hunger was the first COVID-19 related risk for most urban slum dwellers and workers without social protection as the strict lockdown blocked their access to livelihoods. This chapter considers one such particularly vulnerable population: about 18,000 displaced slum dwellers in Delhi, mostly resettled in a transit camp. We examine the multidimensional impact of the sanitary and economic crisis during the 68-day lockdown and the following six months, the communities' responses and how these inform trust relationships among the various actors affected by the crisis and its mitigation. Unemployment, employment casualization and destitution, increased indebtedness. The initial a priori confidence in the government containment measures turned into a lack of practical trust, as people suffered severe hardship despite relief schemes. Institutions on the front-stage locally gained more trust, especially NGOs and to a lesser extent the Delhi administration. At the settlement level, solidarity drives to surmount the crisis were remarkable, demonstrating the residents' agency and competence to efficiently organize relief works by mobilizing vertical solidarity networks with the support of NGOs, individual benefactors and/or politicians. At the interpersonal level, family and relatives comprised the first solidarity circle. Beyond, solidarity preferentially followed community-based channels. Inter-community mistrust surfaced related to contamination fears and during relief distribution in the communities. Dividing lines harking back to the demolished settlement's history were only partially overcome during aid campaigns that triggered both solidarities and rivalries, the flows of funds and goods generating suspicion of opportunism and distrust in intention.