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Magazine
ISSUES
Will Dharavi lose its soul?
MEENA MENON
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While the government plans to turn Asia’s biggest slum into a glitzy modern complex, its residents live in uncertainty.
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Photo: Paul Noronha
Revamp in the offing: What will happen to the inhabitants?
“I watch soap operas on TV for the dress patterns, I don’t know the stories,” giggles Ganga Koli. It’s Sunday, the only break from her hectic tailoring business. On weekdays she starts at 9.00 a.m. and often stays in her shop till 11.00 p.m. Ganga was the only tailor in Koliwada till recently and she is one of the few “ladies” tailors in Dharavi.
The Kolis are the original inhabitants of Dharavi and very proud of it. Hers was one of the large families in Koliwada and her father reluctantly allowed her to study till the seventh standard. After that she insisted on learning more and he finally consented to her learning tailoring.
No one in her family is engaged in fishing now. It all ended way back in the 1960s when the creek was filled in and Dharavi was hemmed in by roads. Reclamation took over the prime fishing area. With their traditional livelihoods in jeopardy, the Kolis turned to selling homemade liquor. The liquor business was not sustainable and many Kolis, most of them poorly educated, turned to odd jobs. Some drive rickshaws, many women work as house maids and unemployment is rampant. Now things are picking up but a whole generation was affected by the loss of their traditional livelihood.
Hot property
Dharavi, often dubbed as Asia’s largest slum, is in reality a conglomerate of blood, sweat and enterprise. Every single lane in the 535-acre area has numerous shops, hotels; in each home there is some little business. However, from a “reality tour” destination, Dharavi is now hot property in terms of real estate. The proposed Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), for which global tenders were invited in June, aims at revamping it into a glitzy modern complex.
While the government is in the process of short-listing developers for the Rs. 9250 crore-plan to rehouse 57,000 families and provide prime residential space for sale, the over-500,000 residents of Dharavi live in uncertainty. “I have no pension, no social security. If my shop goes, what will I do?” asks Ganga. At 53, she has very little option.
There was a time when, apart from the island of Koliwada, the rest of the place was just the creek. Many years ago, people went by boat to the Khambadeo temple, sacred to the Kolis. The creek was full of choice crabs and prawns. Ravindra Keny, secretary of the Dharavi Koli Jamaat Trust, proudly points out, “This is the oldest Koli settlement. It’s not a slum. We still have a panchayat system and we solve cases. We don’t go to the police or the courts.”
The Kolis, in a sense, already know the import of “development”. “The drive-in theatre was a place to dry our fish,” he says. Using the Right to Information (RTI) act, he learnt in March that Dharavi Koliwada is part of the Dharavi notified area proposed for sectoral development. However, there is now a proposal to keep Koliwada out of the project. The Kolis look at DRP as another move to finish them off. “In a few years, we won’t be able to stay here anymore,” remarks Keny.
Not averse to development
Forty-nine-year old Naushad Khan has been in the recycling business since he was nine. Now president of the Dharavi Businessmen’s Welfare Association, he is worried about the future. “Most of the people in the recycling industry have at least 3000 sq feet area. How will we fit into the small shops of 225 sq feet? Dharavi is the recycling hub of the city; just about anything can be recycled and refurbished. Moving out of the city will mean we can’t stay in the market any more,” says Khan.
Every shop or business has its own history. C.M. Sundaram Nadar stopped studying after the seventh standard as his family did not have the money. Today he owns King Brand Tarpaulin Company. “The government is taking away our Independence. We’ll be locked in 225 sq feet flats. I have a shop on the main road; can the government give me one right here? Instead of development get us loans,” he says.
Yet, no one in Dharavi seems averse to “development”. As Raju Korade of the Dharavi Bachao Andolan, a coalition of over 20 groups opposing the project, says, “We don’t want to spend our lives carrying a bucket to the public toilet.” The Andolan has raised several objections to the project, the least of which is the lack of transparency and people’s participation. Bhau Korde, one of the oldest residents of Dharavi, says with DRP the poor cannot survive here. The Kolis’ land was taken over by the government without any compensation. After the Kolis, the first people to settle were from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
First arrivals
Over 100 years ago, a Muslim in the raw hide business came here, says Korde. To expand his business, he got more workers from Tirunelveli, and Dharavi became known for its leather industry till the tanneries were closed due to pollution. They built a Ganesh temple in the area known as the Dharavi cross road (now Sant Kakayya Marg) on land given by Muslims. Ashok Kumar Wadivel, president of the Bombay South Indian Adi Dravida Mahajan Sangh confirms this.
The Sangh was formed in 1939 and this year the Ganesh temple celebrated its 95th year. Wadivel’s father came here in the 1930s as a tannery worker and later became a partner. Wadivel takes me around his old tannery spread over 30,000 square feet. His was the third generation of leather tanners in Dharavi. Wadivel has stopped tanning and now does finished leather goods, mostly leather belts. He too says development is necessary. But people have to be treated fairly, he adds. He employs five people who dye the leather sheets and turn them into belts. The rest of the tannery is converted into rooms occupied by various people who dye cloth or make potato chips, snacks, plastic files and stationery. People live where they work. “What will happen to them when the project comes,” wonders Wadivel.
Conflicting numbers
Dharavi has a floating population of 1,00,000 that comes and goes every day, says A. Jockin, president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF). In addition many live as tenants. Their rights are not clear. Also the figure of 57,000 houses is way off the mark, he says. According to a survey by NSDF a few years ago, there were 85,000 hutments in Dharavi, apart from 5640 industrial units, excluding home-based industries.
The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), a state government undertaking that is implementing the project, has now decided to give on contract a GIS-based biometric baseline socio-economic survey to fine tune the numbers of affected families. However, no official from the SRA had the time to meet this correspondent and clarify issues.
Near Wadivel’s tannery, Baby Kokane sits outside her house rolling out papads. She and her husband cannot speak or hear. She manages the family with the income from selling papads, which she dries out in the open over large bamboo baskets. It is one of the most popular forms of employment in Dharavi for women.
Her neighbour Tukaram Dhadhe used to have a leather tannery business. “Now I get very little work. I drive an auto rickshaw or cut garments and other jobs for a living. If I sit idle I don’t eat,” he says. Tukaram knows very little about DRP. “They just came and marked our houses. I thought it was a polio drive or something,” he grins.
The lives of people like Wadivel, Ganga, Tukaram, Baby, Nadar and others make up the spirit of Dharavi. Without them Dharavi may have glitz but no soul.
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