January 29, 2023
THIS WEEK IN HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS
Residents of Dharavi, India’s biggest slum, voice concerns over expensive renovation project
Sources: Al Jazeera, Citizen Matters, India Times
India’s largest slum, Dharavi, is facing an expensive renovation project after Adani Realty won a bid in November of last year to redevelop the area.
The government initially drew up proposals to redevelop Dharavi as early as 2004, but the proposal was delayed for many reasons. Nearly twenty years later, the proposal is moving forward.
Dharavi is located in an area considered to be financially viable for real estate, as it is near major train stations, an international airport, and Bandra Kurla Complex, a wealthy district.
An earlier bid in 2014 to redevelop Dharavi into a ‘community-based infrastructure trust’ where ‘land is an asset shared by all residents’ was passed over for ‘not being conducive to profit’, as reported by Citizen Matters.
Meanwhile, the winning bidder, the Adani Group, is owned by Asia’s wealthiest billionaire.
While the redevelopment project has promised that current residents of the area will be given free housing, there are many requirements in order to be considered eligible. This includes families being required to prove they were residents before January 1, 2000.
The issue of resident businesses in the area has yet to be fully addressed as well. Dharavi is home to 850,000 residents and 20,000 businesses.
The businesses are often microbusinesses owned by families, with the top industries being leather, pottery, garment making, and recycling. Living spaces are often many peoples’ work spaces, and the renovation could result in the ‘loss of people’s livelihoods’, Citizen Matters remarked.
“No one from the government has spoken to us,” Jayesh Jain, a business owner running a plastic recycling business in Dharavi, told Al Jazeera, “I am paying wages to 30 people, including 15 women workers. So, if my business suffers, I’m not the only one affected by it.”
Dharavi’s reputation has also extended beyond India, as Al Jazeera noted that the slum was represented in the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire. Al Jazeera also reported that residents of Dharavi expressed the embarrassment they felt from the film’s depiction of the neighbourhood, such as its lack of modern plumbing, even to this day.
The film’s representation is indicative of how Dharavi’s residents have been treated by both the media and the government since its inception, with little consideration for perspectives centred around residents’ experiences and concerns.
“Dharavi has not been allowed to complete its transformation from slum to neighbourhood,” Samidha Patil, a partner at urbz, a research collective for participatory urban planning, told Al Jazeera. “We see it as a homegrown neighbourhood, which has an immense potential for improvement. The potential lies within the neighbourhood. Residents of Dharavi need to be supported in their initiatives rather than dismissed.”