Transformations under way in Indian cities have begun to alter the opportunities for democratic participation among the urban poor. Highlighting efforts to promote globally oriented urban developments in Mumbai, this article examines the state’s engagement with groups directly impacted by these efforts. Based on ethnographic research and interviews with key stakeholders in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), the article traces the character of such engagements over the project’s four-year planning process. It finds that the state undertook an unusually inclusive process, consulting with resident and activist groups at points throughout this period. The article posits that this novel engagement is an unintended consequence of pressures to promote rapid development and ease investor concerns. Situating this case in the recent literature on political shifts in the globalizing Indian city, it concludes that the state may be engaging more with the urban poor than many of these accounts suggest.
Mukesh Mehta is the actual name of the project management consultant of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). The names of elected officials and the project management consultant have been left unchanged in this article. All other names used in the article are pseudonyms.
2.
I was later told that the meeting participants appreciated being addressed in their native language, although the more cynical attendees quipped that was just a cheap ploy to build support.
3.
Meeting held on September 20, 2006.
4.
The Kumbhars also have a certain symbolic power that distinguishes them from many of Dharavi’s other communities. As one of the oldest settlements in Dharavi with roots in the area dating back to the early 1930s, Kumbharwada, in many people’s minds, is Dharavi. Furthermore, because the Kumbhars were living in Dharavi before the area came to be regarded as a slum, they neither consider themselves slum dwellers, nor are they considered such by most Mumbai residents, but are generally thought of as members of a traditional Hindu laboring caste.
5.
The definition of a slum is a contentious issue and has been the topic of considerable academic debate in recent years. See, for example, Alan Gilbert "Return of the Slum: Does Language Matter," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31, no. 4 (2007): 697-713; and Vyjayanthi Rao, "Slum as Theory: The South/Asian City and Globalization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, no. 1 (2006): 225-32. Although most public debates about the designation of slums in Mumbai-including this particular debate in Kumbharwada-center on questions of residents’ legal tenure rights, the state policy defines slums only according to the area’s physical attributes, specifically whether "the buildings in any area, used or intended to be used for human habitation are in any respect, unfit for human habitation, or by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light of sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors, detrimental to the health, safety or convenience of the public of that area." Government of Maharashtra, The Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance, and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 (Mumbai: Government Printing, Stationary and Publications, 2006): 20. So while the Kumbhars may claim that the current slum policy does not apply to them because they possess documents proving legal tenure, the state may still invoke the slum policy on the basis of the area’s physical conditions. These contestations over the designation of slums have been particularly important in the case of the DRP, where the state has sought to declare all of the 535 acres of Dharavi a single slum area.
6.
Meeting participants later expressed disappointment that Khandare remained so quiet, speaking up only once during the entire meeting. It is likely, however, that Khandare, a Maharashtrian and non-Gujarati speaker, was linguistically locked out of the discussion. This only occurred to me later, and I never asked Khandare about communication challenges he faced during the discussion. At the time, I interpreted his silence-as many meeting participants did-as intimidation in front of Mehta.
7.
I saw Mehta employ this particular negotiation strategy frequently. He practically never left a meeting without getting the meeting participants to agree to something. Whether or not the Khumbars ever helped with the survey seems irrelevant; it only seemed to matter that they pledged their cooperation, and the opposition was defused. I never heard mention of this Kumbharwada survey again.
8.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
9.
These types of negotiations are not unprecedented, however. In the case of World Bank-sponsored infrastructure projects in Mumbai, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and member organizations have worked to secure the support and participation of slum residents. It is unlikely, however, that the implementing agencies would have elicited NGO mediation or resident involvement without such involvement stipulated by the World Bank.
10.
P. Sainath , "The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing," The Hindu, February 5, 2005.
11.
For a more extensive discussion of Mumbai’s November 2004-February 2005 slum demolitions, see Liza Weinstein and Xuefei Ren, "The Changing Right to the City: Urban Renewal and Housing Rights in Globalizing Shanghai and Mumbai," City and Community (forthcoming); and Ananya Roy, "Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beruit and Mumbai," Antipode 41 (2009): 159-79.
12.
From September 2005 through December 2006
13.
As I discuss in the article, resident consent had been a requirement for the project before November 2006 when it was announced that the consent requirement of the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme would not apply in the case of the DRP. See Chapter I-A of Government of Maharashtra, The Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance, and Redevelopment) Act, 1971: 4-19.
14.
Maharashtra is the regional state in which the city of Mumbai is located. Urban development is defined by the Indian Constitution as a state subject, and most urban development activities are coordinated at the state level.
15.
There is an extensive literature on subalterneity that spans from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. For an effective discussion of the nature of subaltern politics and the challenge it poses to traditional Indian historiography, see Ranajit Guha, "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India" in Selected Subaltern Studies, ed. R. Guha and G. Spivak (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988): 37-44.
16.
Arjun Appadurai "Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics," Environment and Urbanization13 (2001): 23-43.
17.
Partha Chatterjee , Politics of the Governed ( New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004 ).
18.
Roy, "Civic Governmentality."
19.
Gyan Prakash, "The Urban Turn," in The Sarai Reader 02: The Cities of Everyday Life, ed. Ravi Vasudevan, Ravi Sundaram, Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Geert Lovink, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta (New Delhi: Sarai, 2002): 2-7; and Vyjayanthi Rao, "Slums as Theory: The South Asian City and Globalization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (2006): 225-32.
20.
Appadurai, " Deep Democracy"; and Arjun Appadurai, "Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination," Public Culture12 (2000): 1-19.
21.
Appadurai, "Deep Democracy ," 25.
22.
Appadurai, "Grassroots Globalization," 15.
23.
See Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics ( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
24.
Appadurai, "Deep Democracy," 41.
25.
Appadurai, "Grassroots Globalization," 15.
26.
Roy, "Civic Governmentality," 162.
27.
Ibid., 168.
28.
Collin McFarlane, "Geographical Imaginations and Spaces of Political Engagement: Examples from the Indian Alliance," Antipode 36 (2004): 890-916; Liza Weinstein and Tarini Bedi, "Building Politics: Gender and Political Power in Globalizing Mumbai," in Globalization, Power, and Women, ed. Samir Dasgupta (New Delhi, Sage, forthcoming); and Romola Sanyal, "Contesting Refugeehood: Squatting as Survival in Post-Partition Calcutta," Social Identities 15 (2009): 67-84.
29.
Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed, 38.
30.
Ibid., 41.
31.
Ibid.
32.
Ibid., 40.
33.
Ibid., 41.
34.
See also Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).
35.
See, in particular, Chatterjee 2004, pp. 139-140 and 142-144.
36.
Jonathan Anjaria, "Guardians of the Bourgeois City: Middle Class Activism and the Politics of Public Space in Mumbai," City and Community (forthcoming); Amita Baviskar, "Between Violence and Desire: Space, Power, and Identity in the Making of Metropolitan Delhi," International Social Science Journal 55 (2003): 89-98; Mark-Anthony Falzon, "Paragons of Lifestyle: Gated Communities and the Politics of Space in Bombay," City & Society 16 (2004): 145-67; and Solomon Benjamin, "Governance, Economic Settings and Poverty in Bangalore," Environment and Urbanization 12 (2000): 35-56.
37.
Government of Bombay, The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, Vol. II (Pune, India: Photozinco, 1978): 2.
38.
Kalpana Sharma , Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia’s Largest Slum (New Delhi: Penguin , 2000).
39.
Ibid.
40.
Mehta’s consultancy fee is 1 percent of total project expenditures, which are estimated at $2 billion dollars, making Mehta’s share approximately $20 million dollars.
41.
McKinsey & Company, Vision Mumbai: Recommendations for Transforming Mumbai into a World-Class City (Mumbai: Bombay First, 2003).
42.
State of Maharashtra, Transforming Mumbai into a World-Class City (Mumbai: Chief Minister’s Task Force, 2004), 14.
43.
"Bandra-Kurla Land Deal Struck at Record Price," Business Standard, November 27, 2007.
44.
For example, at a January 2006 meeting of nonresident Indians (NRIs) held in Hyderabad, the head of the state’s task force, Sanjay Ubale, solicited NRI interest and investment in the two projects concurrently. See Deepak Lokhande, "NRIs Eye Dharavi after BKC Auction," Midday, January 10, 2006.
45.
"Rehabilitation" refers to the on-site resettlement of slum dwellers into mid-rise buildings. Eligibility is based on whether residents can prove continuous occupancy in their current dwelling since January 1, 2000. It is difficult to assess the number of residents currently ineligible, but a conservative estimate places this population at about 200,000 people or a quarter of Dharavi’s current population.
46.
This estimate is based on early projections provided by Mashaal, the research firm hired to conduct a census of Dharavi in advance of the DRP. This number will likely be revised once the census is completed and the estimates are made available.
47.
Smita Deshmukh, "78 Firms in Race for Dharavi Makeover," DNA, August 31, 2007.
48.
Appadurai, "Deep Democracy ."
49.
Erik Swyngedouw , "Reconstructing Citizenship, the Re-scaling of the State and the New Authoritarianism: Closing the Belgian Mines," Urban Studies33 (1996): 1499-521, 1499.
50.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
51.
Discussion on June 19, 2006.
52.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
53.
Meena Menon , "Dharavi Residents Wary of New Project," The Hindu, August 8, 2004.
This meeting occurred before I began my fieldwork, and I was not present for it. It was described to me, however, by several informants throughout my research period. Some of the accounts I was given have conflicting details, and I have not been able to corroborate the accounts. Consequently, my description of the meeting remains vague.
57.
The consent clause is discussed in the Development Control Rules of Greater Mumbai, DCR 33(10), the policy governing all projects entailing the rehabilitation (or rehousing) of slum dwellers in mid-rise buildings. Although the policy requires resident consent at the 70-percent level, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority quietly reduced the consent requirement to 60 percent for the DRP in 2004. Few activists or housing advocates and practically no Dharavi residents were aware of the rule change until years later. Public officials with whom I spoke in 2005 and 2006 were cagey about the consent clause, sometimes explicitly citing the 70-percent figure, although it had been reduced to 60 percent months earlier.
58.
For further discussion of this issue, see Liza Weinstein, "Mumbai’s Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime, and Land Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32 (2008): 22-39.
59.
Roma Chatterji , "Plans, Habitation and Slum Redevelopment: The Production of Community in Dharavi, Mumbai," Contributions to Indian Sociology39 (2005): 197-218.
60.
Menon, " Dharavi Residents Wary of New Project."
61.
Ibid.
62.
Discussion on September 20, 2006.
63.
The same explanation was invoked by Herbert Gans in The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian Americans (New York: Free Press, 1962) to account for the limited opposition he found to the redevelopment of Boston’s West End in the late 1950s. "Over the years, they began to realize that the redevelopment plans were in earnest, but they were-and remained-skeptical that the plans would even be implemented. On the day of the taking, the person just quoted told me, ‘I don’t believe it; I won’t believe it till it happens. I’ll wait till I get my notice. . . . You’ll see, they’ll start at the lower end, but they’ll never come up here’" (p. 322).
64.
Discussion on September 20, 2006.
65.
Discussion on June 27, 2006.
66.
Meeting held on May 8, 2006.
67.
Discussion on October 17, 2006.
68.
K.S. Rajyashree, An Ethnolinguistic Survey of Dharavi (Mysore, India: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1986).
69.
The Shiv Sena is one of the dominant political parties in Maharashtra, representing the right of the political spectrum. At the state level, the Shiv Sena is currently part of the political opposition. In Mumbai, however, the Shiv Sena holds the largest number of seats in the Municipal Corporation. Koliwada’s political importance is partially due to the Kolis’ support for the Shiv Sena, while the remaining districts in Dharavi are considered Congress strongholds.
70.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
71.
Discussion on September 7, 2006.
72.
Discussion on September 7, 2006.
73.
Discussion on February 14, 2006.
74.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
75.
Medha Patkar is a prominent social activist who is active in housing rights issues in Mumbai. She has also been involved in other high-profile struggles, including protests in response to the World Bank’s Narmada River Dam project and the Dhabol Power Plant built by Enron.
76.
A Bollywood actress who, as leader of Nivara Hakk (Right to Shelter), has been actively fighting for the rights of Mumbai’s slum dwellers.
77.
Discussion on November 14, 2006.
78.
Discussion on September 12, 2006.
79.
Meena Menon , "Supreme Court Order Cheers Dharavi Residents ," The Hindu, April 6, 2008.
80.
"90,000 Dharavi Slum Dwellers to be Rehabilitated," Economic Times, May 6, 2008.
81.
Discussion on June 19, 2006.
82.
Sunil Bhandare , "Maintaining Mumbai’s Premier Financial Service Center Status" in Mumbai Vision 2015: Agenda for Urban Renewal, ed. R. Swaminathan and J. Goyal (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2006), pp. 168-177.
83.
"Set the Stage," Times of India, March 19, 2005; and Jan Nijman, "Mumbai’s Real Estate Market in the 1990s: De-Regulation, Global Money, and Casino Capitalism," Economic and Political Weekly, February 12, 2000.
84.
In a high-profile example, the scandalized energy firm Enron had attempted to construct a power plant eighty miles south of Mumbai but was met with considerable protests in the mid-1990s. Although these mobilizations were not the only political problem facing the project, they provided the state justification to stall on implementation. The power plant was still not completed in 2001 when Enron collapsed under the weight of scandal. See Abhay Mehta, <aut@>Power Play: A Study of the Enron Project (Mumbai: Orient Longman, 2000).
85.
Discussion on June 19, 2006.
86.
Global Expression of Interest (EOI), issued by Slum Rehabilitation Authority on May 30, 2007, published in Times of India (as well as numerous other papers), June 1, 2007.
87.
Ibid
88.
"Dharavi Makeover: 19 Consortia in the Running," Indian Express, January 10, 2008. After the casualties of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, however, four consortia were forced to withdraw from consideration, including one consortium that had included the now-defunct financial firm Lehman Brothers. See Chittaranjan Tembhekar, "4 Firms Drop Out of Dharavi Plan," Times of India, March 13, 2009.
89.
"Dharavi Slum Dwellers Threaten Agitation," DNA, May 29, 2007.
90.
"Residents of Dharavi Oppose Redevelopment Plan," The Hindu, June 19, 2008.
91.
Kiran Tare, "Parties Rally Behind Sena on Dharavi," DNA, March 13, 2008.
92.
"Dharavi protesters shave their heads," The Hindu, July 24, 2007.
93.
"Gov’t Urges MLAs to Help Baseline Dharavi Survey," Indian Express, March 26, 2008.
94.
Abhiram Ghadyalpatil , "Govt’s Bid to Hike Flat Size Halts Dharavi Makeover," Economic Times, May 1, 2008.
95.
Menon, "Supreme Court Order Cheers Dharavi Residents."
96.
Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed.
97.
Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grassroots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1966).
98.
This conception of co-optation is congruent with Ananya Roy’s discussion of the populist mediations that comprise "civic governmentality." See Roy, "Civic Governmentality." Our understandings of the democratic implications of these politics, however, differ somewhat.
99.
Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore, "Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing’ Neoliberalism," Antipode 34 (2002): 349-379, 369.
100.
Chatterjee, Politics of the Governed, 41.
101.
Including the incidents of Enron’s Dhabol Power Plant, the Narmada River Dam project, and opposition to the redevelopment of former textile mill lands in Mumbai led by labor unions. For further discussion of the opposition to the mill land case, see Weinstein and Ren, "The Changing Right to the City."
102.
See, for example, Sanjeev Khagram, Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004) and Appadurai, "Deep Democracy."
