Mumbai: It started a decade ago. A golf-loving architect who made swanky homes in New York’s suburbs sauntered into the office of the then-ruling Shiv Sena party and demanded a “big rehabilitation project that no one wanted to touch.” The Sena gave him Dharavi.
Mukesh Mehta, the consultant who walked away with the Rs9,350 crore assignment to plan the redevelopment of the second largest slum in the world, admits he did not understand poverty when he started out. After renting office space in Dharavi for six months, he discovered a life’s mission: to make the world slum-free. Yet, while Mehta pores over maps and versions of his dream project, the residents in Dharavi insist they want no part of it.
Inside Dharavi, self-described “con man-turned-community worker” S.G. James can’t bother with logistics and says he “just wants to fight for a better deal for Dharavi residents—a bigger house.”
His gated, two-storey home looms over the shanties below, obviously the richest house on the street. On his terrace, the sky parts into strips of blue formed by high-voltage power lines between towers. Dragging deeply on his Gold Flake cigarette, he gets pensive: “We may be squatters, but we made Dharavi what it is. We must have a share of the money that the builders are making.”
Papads put out for drying in Dharavi’s back alleys, which have become a hub of small businesses (Photo by: Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint)
The politicians, too, smell opportunity in this teeming slum. On the fringes of Dharavi, the back and forth, the uncertainty, the countless versions of Dharavi’s future have been a political bonanza for Dhansukh Parmar, busy plotting his own makeover into the voice of all potters in Kumbharwada, the potters’ village of Dharavi. Proud to be the only Gujarati Shiv Sena branch leader in Mumbai, he plans to run in the next election with a simple message: Vote for me and I will protect your homes.
Beyond being a vital vote bank, Dharavi has emerged as an important issue. Last month, Shiv Sena leaders descended on Dharavi to change course and position on the project. Annoyed that the Congress government was milking favour through promises of a new Dharavi, the right-wing Sena switched role from conceiver of redevelopment to resister.
Now, all the pushing, the posturing, the politicking may kill the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.
It seems the various interest groups—the squatters, developers, owners, urbanologists and politicians—have a stake in the many versions of the future of Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum. Each has a different version of development, a different perspective on how to convert this valuable land into a vibrant business district in the heart of Mumbai, a starting point for sweeping changes in a city where creaky infrastructure always seems close to collapse.