Cosmetic beautification during international summits often masks rather than addresses urban poverty. Discuss with reference to recent instances in Delhi.

Global summits turn host cities into stages, and the urban poor into a problem of appearance rather than entitlement. Ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi (12–13 September 2026) [3], the Coolie Camp settlement in Vasant Vihar was screened behind ten-foot sheets [1] — the sharpest recent illustration of this tendency.

Recent instances in Delhi

• Coolie Camp, Vasant Vihar, a Jhuggi-Jhopri Cluster of roughly 281 households (DUSIB records), was covered with white and purple sheets along Nelson Mandela Marg and Munirka Marg, with entry and exit narrowed to two points [1].
• The same settlement was screened with green curtains during the G-20 Summit of September 2023 [1], showing a routinised rather than one-off response.
• Residents, many of them sanitation workers who sustain the city's upkeep, reported both daily hardship and the indignity of being hidden [1].

Why screening masks rather than addresses poverty

• Curtains alter visibility, not vulnerability — tenure insecurity, water, sanitation and drainage deficits survive the summit intact.
• The statutory route to relief is DUSIB's demand survey of JJC dwellers for rehabilitation under PMAY-Urban verticals [2]; slow completion of such surveys, not poor optics, is the real bottleneck.
• It sits uneasily with Article 21's guarantee of life with dignity, and with India's own summit messaging of "human-centric and inclusive development" advanced during its G-20 Presidency [4].

A qualified counter-view

• Summits do mobilise genuine civic investment — road resurfacing, lighting, waste management and transport upgrades.
• But these gains cluster along VIP corridors, leaving settlements behind the screens untouched.

Cosmetic concealment buys a fortnight of appearances at the cost of citizens' dignity. Anchoring summit preparation in time-bound DUSIB surveys, in-situ rehabilitation and service delivery would convert a temporary spectacle into durable urban inclusion — making India's stated commitment to human-centric development visible precisely where it is currently curtained off.