Asia's Biggest Slum

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April 20th 2007

Published: April 20th 2007

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Ekim

Kids

Bandra to Dharavi Dharavi - Asia's largest slum! Just a few kilometers from my apartment. One million residents crammed into 432 acres. Tin shacks stacked on tin shacks stacked on tin shacks. Open ditches that try to carry the sewage out of the slum. A constant crush of noise and people and smells.

After all the incredible trips I've enjoyed, all the beautiful sites and sights I've seen, why am I joining a tour of Dharavi slum?

Well, it wasn't far into the Dharavi tour before I realized why. Yes, its crowded. Yes, the living conditions for some are far from ideal. But this is not a slum in the sense of the stereotypical preconception that I came with.

In Dharavi there are over 10,000 small cottage industries. This 'slum' runs on an economy of $665 million per year - a good deal of that economy driven by recycling. By sorting and chipping and cleaning and remaking this city's plastics. By cleaning and refinishing the city's metal containers. By sorting the scraps of cloth that were someone else's trash - and tailoring them into some incredibly creative and attractive clothing for the shops of Mumbai.

There is a sense

Making Matresses

of ownership and pride and community here that was heart warming - especially in the midst of such a crush of people. Flowers sat in windows adding greenery to life. The occasional trees, often shading an old well, were protected and enjoyed by the populace. People smiled and greeted one another in a way that doesn't always occur in huge cities - certainly doesn't often occur in many other parts of Mumbai!

No, this is a slum only by definition. Definition - the residents live here illegally. For Dharavi is built on landfill that started being illegally dumped here by developers back in the 1840's. You see, when the Portuguese came here and named this area Bom Bahia (Nice or Good Bay in Portuguese), it was a chain of seven islands. Seven islands that have now become a peninsula because of landfill or "reclamation", as they usually refer to it here. So, it wasn't long after the developers began to illegally dump their fill here, that people, often the poorest workers of the lowest castes, started living here, squatters on who knows whose land!

Today the residents are still poor. The typical worker in Dharavi makes 100 to

To Recycle

150 Indian rupies a day, a little more than $2 to $3. And they driven to work under the toughest of conditions - 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But they come from all over India pursuing the dream that big cities seem to offer the rural residents of so many countries. The two biggest populations present here are the Maharastran (the state that Mumbai is in) and the Tamil (from South India). Religion is also an important part of life in the 'slum' - there are large Hindu and Moslem populations - working together, side by side, although their home neighborhoods tend to be segregated.

Today, plans abound for building towering apartments, 'projects', to move the Dharavi population into. Give them a better way of life. But better by who's definition? Most families would be forced to move into smaller flats in the new apartment than the home they currently live in! And the cottage industries would be gone, their jobs would be gone, the thriving recycling center that Dharavi has become would also be gone. Well over 90% of the residents of Dharavi are opposed to the government's plan to rescue them. Efforts have

Eggs

been made for similar relocations of other slums, much smaller slums than Dharavi. And almost always the efforts seem to fail. Perhaps there's a lot more to the old saying than we've ever realized. 'Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home'!

Photos for this article are courtesy of Reality Tours and Travel - http://realitytoursandtravel.com/slumtours.html

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