Where Mumbai meets the Republic of Hunger

The week before the monsoon saw demolition drives in Ambujwadi in Malad, Sion Koliwada and Mahatma Phule Nagar 2 near Mankhurd station, a small group of shanties of 20 homes that live hidden from the city under a flyover and adjacent to the Mankhurd rail line heading to Vashi.

The demolition in Ambujwadi was thwarted when thousands of people gathered and chased the bulldozer away, but the state promised it would come the next day, and an activist who spent the whole day in the rallies, who moved around getting water for all the others, died of a heart attack the same night.

All three settlements have different histories, identities and states of desperation - Sion Koliwada is filled with the original inhabitants of Mumbai, who refer to the state as encroachers of their land, while Ambujwadi is referred to as an encroachment by the state. Mahatma Phule Nagar, a slum of Muslims and Dalits, migrants and the poorest, most vulnerable of the city, are referred to as encroachers by the railways. And yet, none of the second generation ‘encroachers’ will move. They rebuild, and they talk about the last time their homes were demolished. Qareem at Mahatma Phule Nagar had taken out a laminated photograph of his family and the remnants of his home the last time his house was demolished a year and a half back.

Tuliya Saket, who lives at the end of Mahatma Phule Nagar with her son and husband, had built her home three years ago. She is originally from Satna district in Madhya Pradesh and lost her lands to a flood. Her son Suresh would point out that the ‘Maha Sankha’ built by the state was responsible for the flooding of their fertile lands.

The state, in its blind adherence to town planning, to its latent anti-migration biases, has failed to see that they can break down the homes of people repeatedly, but the people will not move. In its almost futile adherence to its mandate and law, the demolitions keep happening, the people keep rebuilding, and at the same time, a tabloid newspaper would report that the chief minister hasn’t had time to inaugurate the latest Golf Course at Khargar.

In a Human Development Report done by the United Nations Development Programme for the BMC, it was stated that just 6% of all land in Mumbai is occupied by slums. Delhi has 18.9%, Kolkatta 11.72% and Chennai 25.6%. Adding to this, the BMC recently revealed the Below Poverty Line Survey they had conducted in 2005-2006 which stated that there are around 4,93,855 families below the poverty line, with the maximum number being - 79,107 families - in Andheri East. Fort has 797 families, Parel 259, and Bandra 8,271. Mankhurd, ghettoised with over 70% of it as slums, has around 65,051 families below the poverty line.

Thousands have also been denied the right to water, a right that India conferred as a Human Right in the UN General Assembly. Yet to those slums that have come into existence after 1995, the residents have to pay exorbitant prices to the private water mafia. At the same time, according to an RTI response by the BMC’s Hydraulic Department, between January 2009 and February 2010, 2,95,576 kilolitres of water were used by 17 bottling plants in Mumbai - for instance, Dukes & Sons (Pepsi), used 78,721 kilolitres of water, while Jayantlal Mohanlal (Bisleri) used around 42,403 kilolitres of water.

The people of Mahatma Phule Nagar 2 were rebuilding their homes a few hours after the demolition, aware of the coming monsoons. And yet they are all aware, touts will demand money for protection, they will have to pay for water, work when they get work, earn little money they can by selling dates or falling into the absolutely fragile world of informal labour, and that the state will come again, break their homes down again, and that they will not move.

A common answer to encroachment has always been: ‘Why was the state sleeping when these people first started to settle here? When they built even one house, they should’ve been kicked out.’ But it’s not so simple - it is their right to come to the city, and ‘where will we go?’ isn’t just a defence, it’s the truth. The questions arise about citizenship — and migrants and those deemed encroachers have repeatedly wondered if they’re citizens of the country, when they’re treated like outcasts and illegals in the city.

The republic of Mumbai and the republic of hunger meet when bulldozers crash through tarpaulin and inter-party canvas posters that make the walls of the poorest of the city. It meets when middle class aspirations bulldoze their way into those of the working class and the poor. It meets when the same people who have faced demolitions since 80,000 homes were demolished in 2005, had symbolically taken over the untouched Adarsh building last year. ‘Demolish that,’ they had said. ‘Leave our homes alone.’

The writer is a journalist