Dharavi Slum & Street Art Tour - Mumbai

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According to Trip Advisor’s Traveller’s Choice Awards, one of the largest slums in Asia has became the favourite tourist ‘experience’ for travellers to India in 2019, beating classic draws like the legendary Taj Mahal. The slum in question is Dharavi, which is located between two main suburban railway lines in the centre of Mumbai.

Originally the area was a mangrove swamp inhabited by Koli fishermen. The slum was established in 1882 during the British colonial era, due to the expulsion by the colonial government of factories and residents in downtown Mumbai.

Interested as I was to visit, the thought of participating in ‘slum-tourism’ didn’t sit well with me. Peering into the lives of those living in such crippling conditions made me feel uncomfortable.

But, when I discovered Reality Tours and Travel, who guarantee all tour profits go towards funding three community centres located in the residential ares of Dharavi, I decided to sign us up for their 3 hour Dharavi Tour & Street Art Walk. During this walk we will visit one of the community centres and learn about the programs that their NGO, Reality Gives, offers the community.

This 225 hectare slum in the heart of India’s capital is home to more than two million people. At the low end, rents start at just $4 a month. It is insanely overcrowded and bustling with industries such as recycling, pottery making, embroidery, bakery, soap making and leather tanning. It’s estimated there are 15,000 single room factories here and 85% of residents work within Dharavi. Products made here are sourced and sold globally with an annual turnover estimated at 970 million Australian dollars.

Residents in Dharavi need better living conditions, infrastructure and sanitation, which is unlikely to happen after all this time. There are no sewage or drainage systems so they are plaqued with severe health problems. Water is collected from public standpipes stationed throughout the slum. The open sewers in the area drain to Mahim Creek causing a spike in water pollutants and septic conditions. Due to the air pollutants, diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis, and asthma are common among residents. As there is an average of one unsanitary toilet per 1000 people, residents use Mahim Creek, where clothing is also washed. Typhoid is rampant, infecting thousands of residents a week.

The land upon which Dharavi is built is next to Mumbai’s financial district. This makes it a prime target for redevelopment. A two billion dollar project is planned which threatens the recycling district, the fishing village and part of Dharavi. Also at risk are the local shops and markets and the community spirit which has taken generations to develop. Officially the slum-dwellers are given 24 hours' notice before their homes are destroyed.

Once this happens, they’ll be moved into multi-story apartment accommodation as proposed by the cities Slum Rehabilitation Authority. This will separate communities and make people work away from where they live. 60% of Dharavi’s families have lived and worked here for more than 60 years.

We met our Reality Tours and Travel guide at Churchgate Station. This tour was busy with 15 people going, too large a group to take into Dharavi, so extra guides were called in and the group split up.

We rode the metro to the Dharavi area, a 30 minute trip, and walked from there. No photography was allowed. All photos on this blog were supplied via a link from Reality Tours and Travel. We had an American family with us, with their twelve year old son. They had thought not to bring him on this confronting tour but had a change of heart, thinking it would be an education for him. They weren’t wrong...

At first we visited some of the one room recycling factories here, seeing men work in conditions which would be unacceptable in Australia. Dark airless rooms, most with no windows, men working under flourescent lighting and tiny fans with no works tables to speak of. They sat on the floor, pulling apart plastic items and sorting the different plastics into bins. They were surrounded by huge bags of recyclable rubbish, squatting in the filth created by their own living conditions.

We visited a soap making factory, another larger one room operation. Here three men were sitting on the floor cutting up big slabs of black laundry soap, wrapping them a dozen at a time into paper, and storing them aside. I did a quick google search to find this soap sells for R28 a kilogram (.56c).

In another room we find a very noisy machine spitting tiny plastic pellets into a huge pile against the back wall. These will become furniture and other household products.

The pottery area was interesting. We watched a man, sitting beneath a wall fan in another airless room, working at his manually operated wheel, throw pot after pot with expert precision, each one exactly the same as the last. Huge brick kilns heated this area up unbearably, and belched smoke through the walkways.

We also visited a leather factory, with piles of goat, buffalo and sheep hides being sorted. All tanning of skins is done off site and there was a modern air conditioned shop here selling the beautiful handbags, wallets and belts which the hides become, all stamped with a Dharavi emblem.

We passed through the residential area, walking in single file behind our guide through the narrow alleyways. So narrow our shoulders touched the walls in some areas, and Ginny used her phone torch to light the way. We had to watch where we put our feet, the floor was usually wet, sometimes uneven, and open drains were everywhere. The rubbish and filth was unbelievable, with dirty malnourished cats and the occasional goat to step around. We looked into open doors as we passed, saw a few big TV’s but nothing in the way of furniture. Everyone seems to do everything on the floor.

I can’t imagine living and working my entire life in conditions such as these, it would be soul destroying. Most people here work ten to twelve hours a day, our guide told us, and rarely venture outside Dharavi.

We ended our tour at the Reality Tours office in Dharavi, with a cold Coke and a quick look through the products on sale there. We had another half hour street art tour in the surrounding Mahim East District so waited for our guide to be ready to go. This street art is the initiative of ST+art Foundation and supported by Asian Paints.

Afterward our guide walked us to the railway station where we caught the train back to Churchgate. We taxied back to the hotel for showers and some down time, venturing out later for a lovely meal at Punjab Grill.

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Photos

Dharavi
Photos of Dharavi supplied by Reality Tours & Travel