YUVADHARAVI, MUMBAI
I live in Dharavi, the biggest slum in Asia. How did Dharavi come to be created? When there was drought in Maharashtra, people left their villages and came to Mumbai for mazdoori. And settled in Dharavi. There was an earthquake in Maharashtra, people came to Mumbai. And settled in Dharavi. That is how Dharavi was formed. People were thrown out for other reasons, they came to Mumbai, lived in Dharavi. This is the Dharavi that everyone talks of… It slowly became a very big slum. Home to many families, Dharavi grew. And people looked upon it as their own village, their home. We made it a shelter, we decorated it, we learnt to live with it.
And what is the sarkar saying today? Mumbai will become India’s Hongkong, so Dharavi should be removed. The sarkar wants to remove it because Dharavi does not fit into this scheme. How will they do it? With bulldozers. By demanding payment for land. People who live here earn Rs. 20 a day, how can they possibly pay Rs. 1.5 lakhs to the BMC? Widowed women, deserted women, where will they get so much money from? Give us lakh of rupees and an assurance that you will never come back to Dharavi, go anywhere they say. How can we do that. Women who have come here, who were born here think of it as home. And people who came here have already been displaced once, twice, several times over…
I came here in 1958 when I got married. I had come to Dharavi for the first time. I saw it grow over the years. We cannot allow the sarkar to remove it. We have formed the Dharavi Nagrik Samiti and a Mahila Manch against displacement…