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Rediscovering
the slums of Dharavi
“Every
day my cousins and I would make several trips to distant Virar,
then located outside Bombay, where we would buy rice for 1 rupee
and 14 annas per pound. We would carry packets of it back as our
personal belongings, get off at Mahim station, and walk through
the khadi (swamp) to Kalyanwadi where Mamu lived. The rice would
then be sold for Rs 10 per pound.”
Shamsuddin,
who came to Bombay in 1948 as an 18-year-old, graduated from rice
smuggling to working in a coal company and then a printing press
at Rs 56 a month. Today the former hut-dweller is the proprietor
of a chikki factory and has a home in a high-rise with the trappings
(phone, TV etc) of middle class life.
“We
have been living here since 1958,’’ says David. ‘‘At
first, our house was made of chatai. Slowly we managed to improve
it by putting half-brick walls and tin sheets. The municipality
paved the lane in front and built a drain. One of the walls stands
out as it is the only one fully made out of bricks. This is because
David’s neighbour has managed to make his home pucca. But in
all these years David has been unable to accumulate enough money
to improve his house.”
These
are just two of the many stories to emerge from Rediscovering Dharavi
by Kalpana Sharma Mumbai-based journalist and a Deputy Editor at
The Hindu. The book that has been on the bestseller lists ever since
its release some months ago focuses attention on an area of Mumbai
that, despite being at its very centre, has been on the margins
of public attention.
The
chief reason has been traditional middle class perceptions of slums
in general and of Dharavi in particular as a hotbed of crime and
filth. For many readers then, it is a matter of discovering, rather
that rediscovering an area that covers 175 hectares and is home
to a million people and industries ranging from leather, food preparation,
recycling, pottery, garments and so on with an estimated turnover
of as much as Rs 2000 a year.
Sharma
traces the history of Asia’s largest slum from its origins
as ‘one of the six great koliwadas of Bombay’ to the present-day
sprawling conglomerate of communities - from Maharashtra, Tamil
Nadu, UP, Gujarat, Kerala etc. With a communal harmony rendered
fragile by the riots of 1992-3 and a challenge to traditional methods
of for instance, policing. But apart from focusing on Dharavi, its
people and its life, Sharma uses it as an example to discuss wider
urban issues. For one, the book describes the plight of the poor
with regard to housing and the futility of attempting to rehabilitate
slum dwellers - seen by many as the city’s primary concern
- without taking into account their needs. To quote some simple
but telling instances from the book is for instance, the significance
given to a loft by people who tend to live and run cottage enterprises
from their home (some of the structures planned for rehabilitation
had impractical, low ceilings), the preference for low storeyed
structures in view of frequent water shortages and so on.
She
also describes Dharavi’s role in the recent evolutionary process
of the city. In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi’s much touted visit to Mumbai
resulted in a grant of Rs. 100 crores. The eventual figure due to
Dharavi was whittled down by competing interests but, Sharma argues,
the development ran parallel to the growing importance of Dharavi
thanks to its proximity to the upcoming Bandra-Kurla complex. In
a significant observation, she claims that it also changed the conventional
mindset of the city with a north-south axis to an east-west one.
In time to come, Sharma anticipates a transformation that could
turn the current disorganised medley of housing into a “typical
concrete conclave of high rises.” In the circumstances this
is a significant and readable slice of urban history.
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