Rethinking Slum Rehabilitation in Mumbai: A Rights-Based Perspective

Introduction

Mumbai, which started as a group of seven islands on the western coast of India, grew to become the financial capital of India. It houses many stock exchanges and multinational corporations. As of 2022, Mumbai ranked as the 25th richest city in the world, with more than 60,000 millionaires and 32 billionaires. Yet, this affluence exists side by side with utter poverty.

The city is home to Antilia, one of the most expensive private residences in the world, as well as Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Asia, along with numerous other slums marked by poor provision of basic services. This contrast between poverty and wealth makes Mumbai an extreme example of an unequal city.

The roots of this housing inequality lie in the colonial past. During the 19th century, British-era industrialisation transformed Bombay into a centre for trade. The growth of textile mills in particular drew large numbers of migrant workers from rural India, in search of livelihoods in the city. However, the colonial administration and private mill owners failed to provide adequate housing for these workers. As a result, informal settlements (known as chawls), and pavement dwellings began to emerge.

Almost 1 billion people, or 32 per cent of the world’s urban population, live in slums, most of them in the developing world. Moreover, the locus of global poverty is moving to the cities, a process now recognized as the ‘urbanization of poverty‘. Urbanization of poverty occurs as impoverished individuals migrate from rural areas to cities in search of better opportunities and this leads to a concentration of poverty in urban settings.

As per the data of 2022, 7.3% of Mumbai’s area is covered by slums. The physical conditions of life in Mumbai’s slums are marked by extreme deprivation. Many homes are built with recycled materials, lacking proper foundations, ventilation, or sanitation. Narrow alleyways become clogged with waste and stagnant water especially during monsoon and sewage often runs openly along the streets. Access to clean drinking water is highly limited and most of the slum residents rely on public standpipes that are turned on for just a couple of hours each morning.

Despite the formal recognition by the United Nations in 2010 that access to safe sanitation and hygiene is a basic human right, millions in Mumbai continue to be denied these rights daily. What should be universally guaranteed has instead become a marker of privilege.

In this regard, this article looks at Mumbai’s housing inequality through a human rights lens, and analyses how current redevelopment practices hamper fundamental rights of the slum dwellers. It uses the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (“DRP”) as a case study, assesses the pitfalls of large-scale urban projects and propose rights-based approach to development.

Violation of Human Rights during Urban Development

Slum development projects in Mumbai, despite good intentions related to the need to upgrade the city, reveal the extent to which human rights are violated in the city’s most marginalized spaces. These violations occur on various fronts. The violation is connected to the infringement of housing rights and the stability of residents. Demolitions and evictions have gradually been made the norm in the name of “emergencies” to clean up these spaces.

Some recent examples, such as the DRP conducted by the Adani Group, reflect how these redevelopment projects are carried out irrespective of the rights held by residents. Even in officially recognized municipal colonies like Shahu Nagar, the threat of coercive action, such as arrest for failure to pay taxes due to a genuine inability to do so, is common for inhabitants. In other cases, many residents are under threat of being relocated without notice or consent.

Such redevelopment schemes violate the right to housing through short notice periods of eviction, inadequate compensation, and exclusionary decision-making. These practices leave the slum communities that with virtually nothing to fall back on for their livelihoods. Further, the slum dwellers often are resettled on the remote fringes of the city. Hence, they have to incur increased commuting times and additional financial burdens in accessing their places of work.

This is especially harmful given the fact that most livelihoods are embedded in or around the organised and informal economy sectors, which are situated near their last residence. Such displacement not only adds to the already weak levels of family expenditure but usually results in unemployment, since it becomes impossible to go to work.

The loss of livelihood for the workers and the loss of economic security that result from this displacement are a severe violation of the right to livelihood. It is estimated that, from the total one million population in Dharavi, two-thirds may be made ineligible for the benefits of redevelopment, thereby facing the process of eviction without the option of sustaining their economic activities.

Additionally, slum living usually translates into living outside the formal legal system. As noted in the supplementary material, slum residents live outside the law where they reside and labour. This state of legal limbo results in systematic denial of rights and services. Governments usually deny services on the pretext that the settlements are illegal, even where these have been in existence for more than 50 years and include a majority population.

Categorising slum dwellers into “eligibles” and “ineligibles” represents a pernicious form of discrimination. In many redevelopment schemes, including the current Dharavi project, residents living in the area for generations may be deemed “ineligible” simply because they lack formal documentation.

The cultural aspects of displacement are also a degradation of dignity rights. As author and researcher Aarohi Damle wrote in describing the displacement of Dharavi’s historical fishing settlements - “The Kolis, fishermen, original settlers of Mumbai, the Bhumi putras [sons of the soil], would feel completely displaced and dispossessed in any new space, away from that land which had been their centuries-old dwelling home.” Such displacement and effacing of the very identity of one’s community constitutes a deeply profound degradation of dignity.

Case Study on Dharavi

Dharavi is one of the biggest slums in Asia. It is an extensive area of densely packed homes covered with blue tarpaulin roofing. It is located in the centre of Mumbai and occupies around 240 hectares with 1 million residents.

Many residents of Dharavi have lived in the area for generations. In the process, they have also created a complex socio-economic ecosystem within Dharavi by establishing numerous small-scale manufacturing businesses, cottage industries, informal retail, and local business enterprises that provide the necessary means for residents to survive day-to-day.

Lately, the government of Maharashtra in partnership with the Adani Group has announced an ambitious proposal to renovate the slum located in Dharavi into a modern township through the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (“DRP”). Due to this, the place has been trumpeted as a ground-shifting redevelopment initiative that would facilitate different housing options, improve infrastructure, and provide modern conveniences of living.

There are certain positive aspects of the project. For instance, residents staying on the upper floors of chawls, who were excluded from rehabilitation schemes so far, now come within the ambit of rehabilitation under the DRP. This marks a shift from the past when such forms of residential existence were disregarded. Also, the transfer of 256 acres of salt pan land in Mulund, Kanjurmarg, and Bhandup for the rehabilitation of persons found ineligible for in-situ resettlement has been approved.

However, serious concerns persist. The ongoing eligibility survey has caused considerable doubt on the part of residents about their chances of being relocated, especially considering the unclear information provided on this matter. The proposed use of salt pan lands also raises additional concern, especially due to the flood prone nature of these lands and the poor suitability of salt pan lands to support complex types of residential buildings.

The resettlement of communities away from their sources of livelihood, and into environmentally vulnerable areas, even where adequate housing is formally provided, may jeopardise the right of livelihood. Similarly, the right to health may also be affected, where environmental conditions and are compromised and access to essential services are inadequate.

Proposed Reforms and Conclusion

The slum policy in Mumbai needs a radical transformation in thinking. Learning from comparative jurisdiction like South Africa shows the way in which the right to housing, as a matter between the state and the citizen, and the right to alternative accommodation before the destruction of even an illegal dwelling, can be established. The judicial response in India has eroded the via right principle in favor of slum residents, a trend evident in judicial language depicting them as “pickpockets,” as expressed by B. N. Kirpal.

Secondly, there is a flaw in the high-rise resettlement schemes adopted in Mumbai, which hinders the development of the community. From past attempts at housing development in Mumbai, it is clear that high-density development in a low-rise construction format has been a positive approach for improved infrastructure development in these areas. The model proves that urban development does not necessarily have to result in social exclusion.

At the same time, the policies concerning the rehabilitation of slums have never dealt with the economic losses that result from displacement. DRP makes it evident that slums are not just spatial units where living takes place, but are also economic systems where living and earning are interwoven. Thus, rehabilitation strategies must consider home-based businesses and economic operations being carried out from residential areas.

The aspiration to transform Mumbai into a “world-class city” cannot be realised at the expense of its most marginalised citizens. The reality is that slum communities are not problems waiting to be solved. They are working communities with their own resilient economies and impressive mechanisms of self-governance.