ABSTRACT
In 1993, Mrs Amita from Bihar state bought a small plot of land in an emerging slum located in a marshy coastal area of North-West Mumbai. She paid Rs 10,000 to a Shiv Sena party worker, an agent linked to an infl uential party member. The land sale took place despite the fact that the area was, in fact, a no-development zone (NDZ) as a protected and vulnerable mangrove area. She agreed to pay Rs 80 monthly as rent or protection money. Amita was lucky when she was directed to another ‘agent’ who offered to informally get her a ration card for Rs 4,000. She now had access to cheaper foodstuffs in subsidised food shops, but more important it meant proof of being a Mumbai resident, which enabled her to obtain a voter identity card. After more people settled in, the water problem became urgent. At the behest of an opposition party agent, plumbers were paid to make an illegal connection to the water mains, which upset nearby middle-class colony people who worried about water quality. In 2003 the entire slum was demolished: 5,000 houses, 36 toilets, 2 temples, clinics and other amenities were turned to rubble by the Mumbai Corporation (BMC), but people returned. After the demolition, Amita found that the more powerful residents such as shopkeepers and cattle-shed owners captured larger pieces of land, moving away from the creek towards the drier, higher grounds and the main road. The poor were left with marshy plots and huts closer to the creek, making them more vulnerable to impacts of high tides – and to even more mosquitoes. Again, in 2004, 250 houses were demolished by the BMC, part of a massive citywide eviction drive that affected about 90,000 households. One thousand four hundred ‘illegal’ huts were demolished in 2013. But people – perhaps 40,000 – are still there today. Building fi rms are in touch with politicians in the hope that this formal no-development/NDZ area could become a possible future location for real estate development, through informal processes that had worked in other city areas. 1
I begin this book on Mumbai’s urban poor by introducing the main ‘stakeholders’ in the slums, municipal government and politics who will take the centre stage in its chapters. We see migrants trying to settle in a city; a slum evolves with its own internal divisions; politicians and party workers act as mediators to help provide services – ostensibly hoping for votes. Middle-class residents feel uneasy about the slum, and builders see prospects to make money out of real estate. The case raises many questions as to the reasons why politicians play such an active role and why this slum, on a clearly unsuitable and prohibited location, remains there for 20 odd years, even while it was demolished several times. How to explain the apparent coexistence of what looks like ‘formal’ rules such as no-development rules and ‘informal’ dynamics where illegal plots are sold and water mains are illegally tapped? This book hopes to answer such questions, by specifically examining the dynamics of politics and power, as well as governance changes resulting from recent national and global developments. The liberalisation of the Mumbai and Indian economy, a related exposure to the forces of globalisation and neoliberalism, and the increasing presence of vocal middle classes have strongly impacted Mumbai as a global city as well as its poor and slum people.
