ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the phenomenology of the Bombay riots of 1992-93 and its relationship to everyday life. It captures the dense social fabric of life in Dharavi, its heterogeneity and complexity by using 'juxtaposition' as a methodological device. The narratives of violence and rehabilitation show how community formation, with all its attendant problems, becomes possible in the refashioning of neighborhood spaces. Much of the writing on relief work following the violence of 1992-93 in Bombay emphasizes the remoralizing effect of relief on social life. The local community is seen as an integral unit able to withstand the effect of violence. The spirit of coexistence, necessary for everyday life, is assumed to be based on a tolerance of difference, of religion and caste, and on local-level structures of integration. Rehabilitation narratives, like those of violence, re-create the topography of Dharavi.
