“Kalpavi, Utsavi, Swapnavi Dharavi…”
(Transl: Imaginary, Celebratory, Dreamy Dharavi)— Kavas Kapadia
Take the entire population of Varanasi and accommodate them somehow in Karol Bagh in Delhi or Magarpatta in Pune or Lake Town in Kolkata with just enough water to get by, almost no organised sanitation and sewage, open spaces, schools or clinics. Watch them survive, even prosper. That is approximately the intensity of living in a world-famous ‘slum’ in the heart of Mumbai.
That is Dharavi for the uninitiated.
Spread over about 2.2 sq. km accommodating an estimated population of 1.1 million, Dharavi is situated in the geographic heart of Mumbai, and in some ways, is the heart of Mumbai. It is a magical place devoid of glamour and attraction even though it presents a very repulsive, congested, and overpowering avoidable physical environment, with a population density approaching 5000 ppHa. And the magic is that this population lives and works at this location. There are about 15,000 single-room production units and 7,000 industries.
The built-up mass is so dense that you can walk kilometres without setting foot on land if you were to walk on rooftops.
It is a production hub of all imaginable household items like combs, brush, buttons, hangers, chappal, umbrellas, leather products, dying, forging, clay pottery, jewellery, tailoring… the list goes on to cater to a huge middle and lower middle class needs of Mumbai. In addition, and reflective of its multicultural nature, many local food specialties are easily available—pickles, papads, farsaan, poha, idli, and khakras.
The catchment of the goods produced is global, especially of the leather products. If the estimated annual turnover of this area is indeed 1 billion US dollars, as reported, then it is really tragic to note that it does not reflect in the trickle-down effect, day to day living conditions of the average resident.
The growth of Dharavi, mainly by organic accretion, has co-existed with the death of the Mithi River, which was in a way the magnet attracting the earliest fishermen community to settle down around there.
The Mithi River, in its 18 kms run from the Powai lake origin down to the Mahim creek, with its wetlands, began to lose its river character since about mid 60s becoming a polluted, sluggish drain, almost kissing the ultra-modern developments of BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex) at the edge, and defining the northern boundary of Dharavi. This river shows its displeasure every time there is a flood situation in Mumbai by overflowing and reclaiming its original location, thereby causing flooding. Not even sparing the glitzy airport terminal T2 runways.
Besides Maharashtra, there are long term settled immigrants from Bihar, UP, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan… nearly pan-Indian, predominantly Hindus, but with a sizable population of Muslims, Christians, and others, living in complete harmony imparting a cosmopolitan character in terms of language, food, and flavour.
While the residents may experience a fulfilling social connection, the lack of basic amenities and facilities makes a mockery of basic decent living here. One has to be self-dependent on water by storing as much and in whatever way possible. The streets are narrow; in some cases, the sunlight never reaches. Lack of ventilation makes some pockets quite suffocating. The drainage is open and sluggish; the toilets are pathetically few and ill-equipped to deal with such large numbers. Grossly inadequate services and networks cry out for help.
There is a dryer and rather distasteful area of operation too that engages a vast population dependent on recycling waste like plastic, metal scrap, paper, cardboard, and other packing materials, to dry recyclable garbage. This is the ugly side of this location.
Attempts have been made time and again to reorganise Dharavi. Most have failed to take off. According to some estimates, INR 4000 Cr has already been invested. One living witness to a failed attempt by the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority (MHADA) — the promised 27 seven storied buildings that are yet to be completed, standing as isolated sore thumbs on the fringe of Dharavi, started in 1987. In the late 1990s, another developer, Mukesh Mehta (with work experience on Long Islands, New York), tried unsuccessfully to sell a rehabilitation proposal.
A lot of muck has flowed down the Mithi River since. With the development of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in the vicinity, the land prices have shot up, and that, amongst other reasons, has rekindled the urge to ‘redevelop’ Dharavi once again.
The current plan to redevelop Dharavi has been taken very seriously by the local government. Big boys have entered the fray.
The latest Dharavi Redevelopment Project is being carried out by Navbharat Mega Developers Pvt. Ltd. of Adani Realities jointly with the Maharashtra government. Gautam Adani has committed to investing Rs 5670 Cr. for this purpose. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Dharavi Redevelopment Projects Ltd. has been set up. An FSI increase from 2.5 to 4.00 has been promised and, according to one estimate, approx. 290-300 acres (out of the available 550-odd acres) would be needed to re-accommodate the population, leaving the rest for a profitable deployment for the execution of the project.
The government has very kindly agreed to hand over an additional 45 acres of the railway land for temporary rehabilitation of some residents. Others would be reportedly moved to Deonar, a little further, a landfill site considered unfit for human habitation, said to release an average of 6200 kg of methane every hour!
A most common experience of rehabilitation in the past, for all to see, is to look upon it as a mechanical process to remove, rebuild, and rehabilitate the population in unimaginative, regimented, vertical, multistorey pigeonholes of flats. One more statistical success on paper.
It is rather disturbing to read about the proposed new redevelopment which proudly announce that the rehabilitated residents would be allotted new accommodation ‘by a draw of lots’—a sure recipe of destroying the years of connections—social and commercial established between the residents and the outside world.
This is often the fate of the project in the insensitive hands who plan completely bypassing, not acknowledging the fact that this place has evolved over time, where the residents have learnt to optimise the use of space both indoors and outdoors, for living and as a productive unit with all their backward and forward functional linkages for their produce as well as forge themselves into a well bonded, almost an extended family type of community, that is both divergent and unified as a microcosm India.
A somewhat similar situation in Delhi was that of the resettlement of the Kathputli colony in west Delhi where a large community of puppeteers, magicians, dancers, folk artists, and street performers were promised, and are still awaiting, rehabilitation. The work on their rehabilitation has been a long journey, starting sometime in 2008-09. In rehabilitation terms, it’s much simpler than Dharavi.
Recently, some large architectural project in Mumbai (the high court complex) sponsored, funded, promoted, and evaluated by government officials have drawn criticism mainly on their inability to project the spirit of a nation on the move in search of its own architectural identity. That is a professional and academic setback in a greenfield project. The latest Dharavi redevelopment project claims to transform it into a typical modern-day city hub with training centres, service-based entrepreneurship models, R&D centres, and data centres, including an open network of digital commerce. All the boxes of a smart city are ticked.
But what makes the Dharavi redevelopment a challenge is that unlike a normal redevelopment of distressed residents, one is dealing with enterprising, talented people, and a highly established web of livelihood with a real danger of displacing a network of unique character of employment in existence merely due to its location and connectivity to the rest of the city. The success of such a redevelopment scheme must be measured by the minimalistic displacement of this ecosystem, and yet improving their quality of life.
No doubt the whole area needs urgent attention, and many residents would welcome the chance to be relocated, for several personal or professional reasons. Renovating Dharavi will be a challenge not only to the agency in charge and the government but also to the profession, as this will be a ‘closely watched brownfield development’ setting a yardstick for many such-less complicated- cases to follow.
Just like the amalgamation of large swaths of salt pan and the wetlands and mangroves around Mumbai that the greedy developers have usurped for high-end housing, and which have, in turn, contributed to the intensification of oft recurring flooding problems of Mumbai, Dharavi is open to the vulnerability, to be transformed to lose its present character and hence depriving Mumbai of a huge ‘economic sink’.
If the fundamental existing character of Dharavi is altered, it will most likely impact the economic base not only in terms of providing informal employment and accommodation to thousands of people but also in its production and supply of an incredible range of household items of day-to-day use flooding the local markets for the consumption by the middle and lower class Mumbai and beyond. No doubt, many of the occupants will shift to other ventures to find a living because the modern approach of redevelopment often reduces the complex human issues simply to a successful (profitable) real estate project.
Dharavi, in that sense, is a unique package deal to be viewed and taken as a comprehensive relocation entity. A real challenge in transforming the dream of ‘roti, kapda, aur makan‘ of thousands of residents.
Now that he has accepted the responsibility of delivering that dream, let us hope that Mr. Adani will, hopefully, find the sparkle in the rehabilitated Dharavi, about which he wrote in the 1970s, when he had come to Mumbai to explore the diamond trade—“I visited Dharavi dreaming about sparkling in the diamond trade in Mumbai.”
