‘They’re breaking people apart’

Devanandhan Nair has no desire to be rehabilitated even though inducements have come his way. He is among the 184 families who have refused to vacate their homes for developers under the Slum Rehabilitation Act. Moreover, he is outraged at the attitude of the developers.

“Do you know what they said? ‘These people want five-star treatment or what?’ That’s what their lackeys said about us,” Nair fumes.

“There is something fundamentally wrong with how the elite sees slums in Mumbai,” he continues. Their battle is being fought in the heart of the city, but it seems to have largely escaped public notice.

On November 9, over 300 policemen descended upon the Ganesh Krupa Society of Golibar in Santa Cruz, Mumbai, where Nair lives. They broke down two homes of a slum that already looks as if an earthquake has hit it — every second home is in ruins, debris lies in every corner of what looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape.

One home belonged to Dadabhai Pandre, and the other to Ansari Abdul Hasan at the edge of the slum. Ansari didn’t want to leave his home. Neither did his wife or his daughter. Yet behind everyone’s back, his son had accepted rent-compensation — Rs 7000 for 22 months — a total of Rs 1,54,000.

“I asked for two days to empty my home, and the MHADA fellow said he wouldn’t give me even two hours.” Asked why his son accepted compensation, “My son said there’s no point fighting or resisting when everyone’s house is going.”

Out of 370 homes, 184 homes of the Ganesh Krupa Society remain. In neighbouring Sambaji Seva Nagar Society, one home remains. In Shivaji Nagar Society, four homes remain.

The 69 societies in Golibar make way for a “project that has the vision to develop mixed use integrated development of residential skyscrapers, state-of-the-art commercial buildings, high-end retail and hospitality ventures,” — or “Santa City”, according to Unitech’s website, “the flagship project of Unitech in Mumbai in partnership with Shivalik Ventures. Spread over 140 acres, this is one of the single largest slum rehabilitation projects in Mumbai.”

Unitech’s name has featured in numerous reports on the 2G scam. And it’s keeping company with another controversial name. According to the Enam Securities report in June 2008, “Lehman Brothers’ Real Estate fund has acquired a 50 per cent stake in Phase 1 (1mn sq ft) of the JV’s (joint venture) 97 acre slum rehab project (18mn sq. ft. of saleable area) in Golibar, Khar East, for Rs 7.5 billion. The deal also includes a right of 1st refusal for Lehman on a total of ~5.5mn sq ft at similar valuations.”

“The money received by the JV shall be utilised to fund the acquisition and construction of the JV’s other Mumbai projects.” Lehman is gone, but its

malign influence apparently flourishes.

Almost every other resident remaining in Golibar thinks that the ‘slum rehabilitation project’ is a scam. Not only have Unitech/Shivalik started to build on 62 acres of Air Force land without an NOC from the relevant ministry, but almost no one since 2008 has got a flat under the SRA scheme yet, even though homes are broken down at a regular rate, often illegally and under intimidation.

When the first buildings came up for the residents of Pragati Society of Golibar, people felt assured. Eventually they began to think it was nothing but a ruse, especially as it turned out that Shivalik

had managed to acquire the project without competitive bidding, or the knowledge of the majority of slum dwellers.

‘Commitment is commitment’

This was discovered when slum dwellers used the Right To Information Act. And that was not the only thing they discovered. Aba Tandel, around 65, grew up in Golibar right before the fences of the air force land, and when he saw Shivalik/Unitech building there he, along with other residents, filed RTIs, and alerted the air force. Now it wants those buildings demolished and the matter is in the courts.

Navnant Murulidhar Shinde has the last home standing in Sambaji Nagar Society. He was fired from Shivalik Ventures when he refused to vacate his home. And when he was given a key to a home in the transit camp, the lock was changed.

“They (the dalaals) offered me Rs 50,000 for my house,” he says, “But I offered them Rs 1 lakh to keep my home. They said it didn’t work like that.”

Pravin Balkrishna Gupta was one of the landlords of Ganesh Krupa Society who had four rooms demolished there. He filed a case against Subangi Shinde, once member of the committee and ‘broker’ for the developers, who had ensured that three of his four rooms were deemed illegal. His ration-card holding, electricity-bill holding brothers were thrown out with nothing but one key to one room in the resettlement colony.

“All these dalaals were told to make 25 out of 100 rooms illegal tenants,” says Vithal Ganpath Sawant, whose own tenancy was deemed illegal even though he has the papers to show he is a legal tenant.

Their stories are like the others in Golibar who want nothing to do with the developers — a trust deficit that worsens by the day. Shivalik’s banners around the slums have the slogan, ‘A commitment is a commitment’, which the educated class of Golibar reads with brutal irony.

As for the resettlement colony, it is a dark, dingy four-storied steel frame with cement ply for walls where the water is often bad — a few days ago, there were insects in the water, claimed the residents.

During the rains it leaks from the top, and it is crowded with people waiting for flats being built on property that the Air Force claims, so it’s not even clear if they will get anything in the end.

An embryonic resistance has grown into a formidable movement ever since residents across societies began to share information about how their homes were being broken down. On November 13, hundreds of people from Ganesh Krupa Society, supported by other societies hit the streets with accusations of the government being hand-in-glove with the builders.

The Bombay High Court had given the remaining families of Ganesh Krupa Society, until October 30 to leave — either accept compensation, or go to the resettlement colonies. The residents then wrote to the builder saying they would leave if the court

order was followed to the letter — it mentions that the resettlement colony must be within 300 metres of the slum, which it is not. The residents are still there, hanging on, aware they are not in contempt.

And how have the authorities reacted to the insecurities of slum dwellers in the rest of Mumbai?

On March 25, 2009, Mumbai slum dwellers had marched to the Slum Rehabilitation and MHADA office to complain about the irregularities, the

numerous frauds in the SRA project and that a majority of the people were still languishing in transit camps, or resettlement colonies.

Simpreet Singh of Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan was part of the meeting. “We spoke politely to the officials, and they  heard everything. But when we came out, the police lathi-charged all of us. Around 200 people were taken to jail and released the next day. A warrant for that incident came out on November 19, now,” he said.

“They are breaking people apart, not just our homes.” Sawant S, from Hanuman Society in the resettlement colony is afraid he may never get a flat. The dalaals are asking him to persuade the people of Ganesh Krupa Society to vacate their homes.

“‘You have links there, they said, you know them, why don’t you convince them to leave, break their resistance?’ They’re always coming, and I know that as long as I am here, I have few options. And please don’t write my name in your

report, I may get into trouble.”

Land acquisition was a slow,  tedious process though both developers had a lot of help from the Bombay High Court. The 181 families of Hanuman Society, for instance, went to the High Court and lost. An order was  passed on a Friday, to vacate their homes in two days. The timing ensured the order could not be challenged on the weekend, when the court is closed, and on Monday, the society was demolished. Around 30 residents who had hope in the courts got nothing but keys to a home in the transit camp. The rest took what they could and left.

Going for the head

In every plan for acquisition, the developers first target the committee of the slum — once the slum dwellers realise their representatives have been working in close affinity with the builders, there are often confrontations. The committee, once exposed, leaves with everything they were bribed with. In

Ganesh Krupa Society, every member of the original committee got a flat or two for themselves along with money. What did the builder want from the committees? Get people surveyed, get them to leave, convince them to take money rather than a flat, and scuttle every effort of the people to build up resistance. This is how ‘development’ is breaking up communities and neighbours and families.

This is a society that was a once-loyal Shiv Sena voting base where Muslims and Hindus live next to each other. In Golibar, in 1992, according to the Srikrishna report, there were 12 incidents of stabbing. Today, Dutta Mane, a once loyal Shiv Sena party worker, has even lost faith in his own party.

“In 1995, Mathoshri (Bal Thackeray) sold us a dream about our right to our home. He’s old now, he may have forgotten. Maybe he has to remind his children about this.” No party has come to their aid. Mangesh Ghai of Golibar had close links with the Shiv Sena corporator in Golibar until the troubles started. “After I spoke to him, he backed off completely. They’re all working with the builders.”

Cynicism is the currency to break resistance. Those who don’t believe anything can change have taken whatever they got and left Mumbai, a city built over a thousand scams and corrupt deals. “Nothing changes, how does it matter?” is literally stamped into the city. Yet nothing is impossible for the desperate few who stand before bulldozers.

— javed@expressbuzz.com