Published in Dwarka Express on 5.12.2022

If you land in Mumbai, you will never miss the bird’s eye view of Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Asia and that too if you are allotted the window seat in any airlines. Your ‘love at first sight’ rendezvous with Mumbai will vanish in 17 years, hopefully, if Adani delivers a new look. Congrats Adani, for your ‘not so surprising’ win of the bidding. Dharavi will wear a new look, wow, what a new architype, says the protagonists of ‘redevelopment’. Yes, of late, the word DEVELOPMENT has been pushed to oblivion as the new paradigm REDEVELOPMENT has come to stay.

Dharavi Slum, Mumbai

The not-too-far-off ground breaking ceremony aside, coming to the ground reality, with nearly 7 to 10 lac people, Dharavi, the inimitable slum spread in just 2.1 KMs and is nonetheless a replica of an iconic Indian urban scene. But one cannot set aside the slum just like that. Many ‘architects’ of blockbuster films like Dheewar, Nayakan, Kaala prospered on Dharavi. One can’t miss a church, masque or mandir if he treks through Dharavi. Dharavi formed an asylum for migrant labourers, mainly Tamils. Unsustainable and haphazard growth of this area could be due to its easy susceptibility of the demigod Netas who made it indeed an endless political Kurukshetra. These ‘change-makers’ never risked any change in fact. However perpetual lobbying by inhabitants could equip Dharavi with water supply, electricity and suburban rail connectivity so far. 

Dharavi us not yet another slum that are equated with poverty. It exports textiles, jewelleries etc worth ~$500 million. The per capita income of the slum may be ~ Rs 3 lac per annum. It is rather a quintessence of Indian economy in general. If a Mumbaikar you meet says that he is from Dharavi, none looks them down. Dharavi is rather an ‘icon’ as good as its gateway of India or Dadar or Bandra. So, Dharavi is a developed slum sans hygiene and degraded environment. This probably may be the motive behind the corporatized ‘redevelopment’ of this area

Adani, the ‘buyer’ of the slum at a cost of Rs 5069 Crore, of this Rs 20000 Crore worth redevelopment project is the new saviour who could successfully snatch the deal from other bidders, DLF and Naman who quoted far less. But one has to live another 20 years to see how the metamorphosis takes place. Life goes on as usual; we plan, develop and redevelop. Will the Dharavikar or for that matter the Mumbaikar really benefit from the model in the offing? Let us wait… wait for, say, 2 decades to see. Many may not be there, many may forget, so what, life goes on!