Opinion - News Analysis   

Mumbai's season of conflicts

Kalpana Sharma

The south-west monsoon has set in, but some of the long-term issues concerning the development of the country's commercial capital still await direction.

MONSOON WORRIES: The rains have hit Mumbai, raising concerns about the housing situation. — PHOTO: VIVEK BENDRE

EVEN AS the monsoon breaks over Mumbai, people in the city are not entirely sure the authorities have learned the appropriate lessons from the devastation caused on July 26, 2005, after unusually heavy rain. For the record, both Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Johny Joseph have proclaimed that they are prepared for any contingency.

While some of the immediate short-term measures, such as desilting the Mithi river that was held principally responsible for some of the heaviest flooding, have been done, the long-term issues concerning the city's development still await direction and decision.

Slum-dwellers' plight

Central to these is the future of half the population of the city living in slums. With the rains, the misery of their lives increases many times over. Most slums are located in low-level areas. Even moderate rain causes flooding, as the drainage at the best of times is inadequate. Once the incessant downpour characterised by the monsoon sets in, the lives of the poor in the city is indescribable.

Such perennial problems have been exacerbated by the absence of a cogent policy in dealing with slums. As a result, the entitlement of one set of oustees is leading to a loss of rights for another. The most vivid example of this was the demolition of huts in Mandala, located in the northeastern suburb of Mankhurd, on May 9. These are the very same people who faced demolition in December 2004. Their plight drew the attention of social activists, including Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan. As a result of this intervention, further demolitions were halted and a process of verifying the claims of these slum dwellers began.

Last year when the rains set in, the problem had not been sorted out. As a result, people reoccupied the land from which they had been evicted. After the rains, the impasse continued and people began to believe that nothing would happen. But on May 9, the bulldozers moved in once again. This time people were forced to move because the land on which they were squatting had been earmarked to resettle another group of evictees.

We are now witnessing in Mumbai a clash between competing interests comprising groups of people considered "illegal" by the State. The land occupied until recently by these slum-dwellers has now been allotted to commercial units that were demolished in the effort to clean up the Mithi River. The Bombay High Court had set May 31 as the deadline for the BMC to restore the Mithi to its original width. As a result, the BMC was left with no option but to remove all encroachments along the river, including fairly substantial commercial establishments.

The vexed issue of dealing with Mumbai's slums poses many such dilemmas. The Government proceeds piecemeal to deal with the problem. It seems to act only when there is pressure from the court or a funding agency. For example, a precondition set by the World Bank for funding the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) and the Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project (MUIP) is that all those in the way of these projects must be resettled.

This includes families and commercial establishments. As a result, in the last few years, an estimated 60,000-70,000 people have been resettled in seven storey buildings erected by the Maharashtra Area and Housing Development Authority (MHADA) or private builders. Although the World Bank has suspended its loan to the Maharashtra Government because of differences over criteria for resettling commercial establishments, the fact remains that a large number of people have been rehoused.

Similarly, the Bombay High Court's deadline is forcing the special authority set up last year to clean up the Mithi River to get cracking. As of now, it claims it has completed most of the work it was assigned to do. In the course of the clean-up effort, hundreds of illegal workshops, small factories, and other commercial establishments as well as individual homes were demolished and the people in them moved out and given alternative and permanent housing. Even in this effort there are differences and grievances. But because the court had set a deadline, the Government moved and tackled the problem.

But on the larger issue of slum redevelopment and resettlement, the Government continues to muddle along. The gap between supply and demand of low-cost houses is now so great, that in the foreseeable future there is no alternative for the poor but to live in slums. At the same time, land values are escalating so sharply, that the only housing that is coming up is the high-end variety.

The State Government is reportedly planning to use the Supreme Court's recent observations that encroachers have no rights, to clear all "illegal" slums. But the monsoon has intervened and no demolitions can take place until the end of the rains. This, however, is small consolation for people who live with the constant fear of being forced to move.

At the same time, the recent evictees from Mandala, who have been protesting and demanding security of tenure, pose a difficult problem for the State Government. They do not fall into the category of project-affected. If they had, then regardless of when they occupied the land, they would be entitled to a free house.

Some of them also do not fall within the legal "cut-off date" for alternative housing. Even those that do, claim they lost their papers in the demolition and the floods of July 2005. The media have highlighted their plight because of the high-profile attention accorded to them. But if the Government now makes a special case of these people, how will it deal with thousands of similar cases that will come up?

Slum resettlement can and must be done but for this there has to be consensus between government and those working for and with the urban poor. While demolitions are clearly not the way out, nor are protests that build up unrealistic expectations in the affected communities.

It is significant that one of the earliest groups to fight for the cause of the urban poor, the Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti led by Shabana Azmi and others, has moved beyond protests and hunger fasts to negotiating with the Government on how best to work out resettlement for slum dwellers. As a result, it has succeeded in finding land and resettling those evicted from the Borivali National Park and is in the process of doing the same with slum dwellers residing on land belonging to the Airports Authority of India. Other groups such as the Slum Rehabilitation Society (SRS) and the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) have been doing this for much longer.

The problem is enormous and all approaches and efforts are needed. But in the end, despite the absence of a housing policy, the slow, patient and determined negotiation by these organisations, seems to be yielding results that meet the needs of the slum dwellers and of the city.

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