Outside the building where this newspaper’s office is located is a footpath where a handful of families have made makeshift homes, cobbled together with a few plastic sheets, a couple of bamboo sticks and scotch tape.

Every now and then a van of the municipal corporation comes along, demolishes these structures and carts away the meagre belongings of the residents. A few days later, the shanties are back and with them, the wretched dwellers too.

This has been an oft-repeated Mumbai scene for decades. The municipal corporation says the shanties are occupying public land and have been given alternative accommodation in far away places where they refuse to move. It is a valid point, legally speaking.

The law has once again been invoked in the demolition of the gaothan, popularly called Pereira Wadi in Bandra where, during the course of this week, many homes were broken down by BMC workers under the watchful eye of the police.

A builder had won the right to develop the gaothan, one of many all over the city. These gaothans — 189 of them — house the original inhabitants of Mumbai and are a narrow cluster of structures where families have lived for generations. They are in need of modernisation and sit on prime land. Not surprisingly, in a city where land is at a premium, builders salivate at the idea of getting their hands on these gaothans.

Enter the notorious Slum Redevelopment Scheme. This allows builders to obtain the consent of 70 per cent of residents of any slum (including gaothans) to develop the plot. Compensation is given, but not choice; the rest of the residents’ views count for nothing.

Even those who sign are often bullied and threatened and take the safe and secure way out. Once that number is reached, the bulldozers move in.

Something like that happened at Pereira Wadi. BMC workers and the local cops landed up one day and began demolishing the homes that families had lived in for decades. Those who resisted were reportedly pulled out and beaten up.

The cops were faithful in upholding the law to an extent that they did not mind dragging women and old people outside, notwithstanding protests by many that their signatures had been forged and they had never agreed to the scheme. A senior politician’s name was mentioned; when he has given the orders, how dare any resident come in the way?
The two cases outlined above are very different. The residents of Pereira Wadi are not encroachers upon public land (not that encroachers ought to be mistreated in this manner) — they are there legally. Which makes the whole thing that much more unsavoury and shocking.

Mumbai is currently going through a real estate boom. As it races towards
becoming a global city, which apparently involves only chrome and glass buildings, malls, tower blocks and luxury flats with private swimming pools, the city and state’s policy-makers have decided that no pockmarks, in the shape of slums or chawls or gaothans will be tolerated — what will the expats say?

These must go, just as the traditional courtyard dwellings were almost totally wiped out in Beijing.

It is not merely a matter of aesthetics,  though vernacular architecture does add flavour to a city. It is also about untold profits which the builders, fully backed by the law and the law-enforcing machinery, want to get their hands on. What is a notified forest area or saltpan land or coastal regulations before huge profits?

Given the huge stakes involved (and the kickbacks and bribes to be paid), the builders cannot and will not make cheap housing. The poor therefore come in the way twice over — they are sitting on valuable land and they cannot afford to buy the apartments that come up on that land. Therefore they must be pushed out. Gradually but firmly, the poor and even the lower middle-class are slowly being edged out of the city to far flung areas. Soon it will be the turn of the salaried middle-classes; the bulk of Mumbai will be only for the well off (or those whose forebears had the sense to occupy Rent Control apartments years ago.)

This is not a new phenomenon; the same has happened in Manhattan and London, where the service sector — domestics,  peons, secretaries, teachers, shop assistants — lives an hour or two’s train ride away and comes in only to service businesses and households and then retreats into their own separate worlds. Townships will come up, complete with shopping and entertainment, but communities will be destroyed.

Is that the inevitable fate of the poor in Mumbai? It shouldn’t be. Just and equitable solutions can and should be found, but as long as the state apparatus leans towards the builders this will not happen. If the government is serious about its commitment to the aam aadmi, it can start by doing away with the SRA in its present form. And also at the very least, show some humanity and respect towards the poor.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1169374&pageid=2

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