India, Also Full of Contradictions
January 12th, 2008
Submitted By: Tai Massion
Dharavi is allegedly the biggest slum in Asia . It is located in the city of Mumbai, India . With a population of 1 million housed (if you could call it that) in low-rise wood, metal and cardboard dwellings, within one square mile, it is cramped to say the least (and you thought Isla Vista was bad- try taking out all the parks/roads in IV and plugging in 1 million people — are you getting a visual?).
A family interviewed for an article in the December 22 issue of the Economist said he and his extended family (mother, father, brothers, brother’s wives, kids, etc.), 12 people in all, live in a 90 square-foot room (half the size of a parking spot) which is very typical of Dharavi. This level of poverty many of us will never be able to comprehend unless seen by our own eyes, and even then it may be hard to believe. But Dharavi is thriving.
Dharavi’s formation began in 1943 as migrants came into the city from farmlands during the large famine at that time. Waves such as this continued over the years when there were droughts and natural disasters. Migrants claimed a patch of Dharavi by squatted on it and constructing a shanty-type shelter. Today there are more permanent dwellings and many one room factories. Shanties are even sold, and the prices are gong up, but no titles exist. A small hutment will go for about 500,000 rupees ($12,700 dollars). The city has put in some wells, one water pump per 100 people and 16 public latreens — one per 300 people, (but that costs $0.75 for a monthly family pass). On many levels the shanty-town is working. There is a sense of ownership, community, culture and business.
This article synopsis: Asia’s Largest Slum Is An Economic Powerhouse tells of how residents are industrious and fierce entrepreneurs:
“Dharavi…may be one of the world’s bigger slums, but it is arguably its most prosperous, a thriving and productive business centre propelled by tens of thousands of micro-entrepreneurs. Estimates vary considerably, but the collective economic output of Dharavi is as impressive as it is improbable: at least $800-million a year, and perhaps well over $1-billion.
This is the unspoken side of the Indian economy, the impoverished counterpoint to the gleaming call centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad that have transfixed Western investors and come to symbolize the country’s gradual emergence as a potential global power. It is also a rebuke to the typical prejudices that dog slum-dwellers: that they somehow inhabit a world of despair, that they have no other community than that of shared poverty and frustration. These people may be lacking, but they are also industrious and enterprising — and, for the most part, fiercely attached to the slum.
Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai, India, may appear at first to be a squalid concentration of misery. It is also the prosperous home of some 5,000 single-room factories and tens of thousands of entrepreneurs.”
To make this situation more interesting, the state desperately wants to redevelop the land into high-rise apartments. It has offered to give the residents a new apartment for free, but many are opposed. The biggest reason is that the one-room factories are free from taxes and regulations. City officials do not set foot in Dharavi. If it were redeveloped business owners would be forced to rent commercial-spaces at high prices. Many small entrepreneurs would be finished. Redevelopment work was scheduled to start this year, but has been stopped due to bad press and local protests.
What should be done? Does Dharavi have a good thing going here? Or does the state need to be more forceful in stepping in and knocking out the shanty-town to make way for high-rises? What potential problems do you see? Keep in mind the UN expects the population of Mumbai to double in size over the next 10 years, also keep in mind the many cases of Chinese city-planning corruption we have read about.
Entry Filed under: India, Mumbai, Pre-Departure
16 Comments Add your own
1. Morgan O'Hara | December 20th, 2008 at 9:20 am
My first brush with India was a book called “Shantaram,” which I read a few years back. Most of it takes place in the slums of Mumbai. Though their lives were full of hardships, the slum residents in the book loved their neighborhood, and there was an extremely strong sense of community. They weren’t itching to get out.
Also, last night I saw the Indian movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” Really good flick – I highly recommend it to all of us going on the Chindia trip. It’s about a kid from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on the game show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”
As for forcibly moving the slum tenants out? There’s no clear cut solution, and I can’t profess to have an answer. As a Westerner it seems bizarre – how is it possible that there is a slum in the downtown area of a nation’s financial capital? But then again, why not? Is it better to shuffle slum dwellers to the city’s outskirts? I hope this doesn’t sound condescending, but I’m looking forward to seeing high-rises and slums side to side. Very incongruous, but also enthralling, I imagine.
The slums represent both the ingenuity and spirit of India’s poor people, and also the failure of their government to provide adequate housing and services for them. It reminds me of a poor person going to a shaman because they don’t have access to a doctor. It might not be their best option, but it’s better than nothing. Until the state gets its act together and implements an agreeable, comprehensive plan for relocating slum residents, just razing them will prove difficult, and costly. They’ve tried to do it before, but couldn’t muster that show of force. There a million people living in Dharavi! What happens if things get violent?
It’s as Zakaria and Khanna both assert – the Indian state is fragmented, and often nonfunctional. Therein lies the main problem. The slums of Mumbai symbolize a much bigger issue. Slums pervade India’s cities. Until the state gets its act together and starts implementing a practical program to deal with the issue, demolition will only act as a stopgap, rife with problems. Razing Dharavi is sort of like covering up a bruise mark on the face, while the rest of the body is still covered in black and blues.
2. Matt Eves | March 11th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
What should be done?
More research. Listen to the people. Ask them what they want done. Test their water, find out what they eat, what they sleep on, look at their clothes and where they wash them, if they wash them. How do they make their money? What tools would help them improve their business?
Then make a plan to help them and develop a trusting relationship, you need their trust and support before you go pummel down their lives.
Does Dharavi have a good thing going here?
Sounds like the people have made a lot of good out of their situation. I think this is somewhat of a loaded question. Of course slums themselves are a sign of poverty and lack of infrastructure… you can see it with your eyes. But what is under the surface is the community and energy that people mentioned exists in the slum. If the people honestly do not want to move out than there must be something good about living there - I imagine it is the relationships and the loyalty to people who know how they feel and live the same way they do.
Or does the state need to be more forceful in stepping in and knocking out the shanty-town to make way for high-rises?
If it will improve the lives of the people living in Dharavi and that is the goal, do it. If it won’t, take other measures to help these people who are in need. I think that it will take time to develop a trusting relationship, and it would take leaders from within the community to rise up and desire change.
What potential problems do you see?
I see a potential for corruption in this program, even from the outset it seems to be an effort that isn’t focused on directly helping the people living there. The people in the slum will not just let this happen and I would imagine heavy resistance from them.
3. Alex vanDalen | March 15th, 2009 at 12:46 am
So my question is…. ARE WE GOING TO SEE THIS?… or will it be sanitized from out trip due to “safety” issues? I think there would be nothing more important that for first world MBAs to see the thriving entrepreneurial spirit of people who have absolutely nothing.
This post reminds me of some research I’ve been doing for a pet project of mine. Mogadishu is the capital city of a country that has had no functioning government for the past 20 years, has no running hospitals, no working traffic lights or power stations, no public service, pretty much nothing that one would expect find in a major city. In addition there are daily gun battles between warring rebel factions and the majority of the male population is employed either as armed guards or mercenaries. The one thing that Mogadishu does have however is a highly regarded (for Africa) university with an MBA program. Looking at their course offerings (can be seen here… http://www.mogadishuuniversity.com/MBA.htm) one can see that they have relatively the same schedule and requirements as Cal Poly… including an advance MIS course! I would be extremely interested to meet the caliber of student who has successfully completed their graduate degree in a war zone… and we think Dr. Carr’s requirements are tough!
It’s interesting to see that the school, which funded by Qatar and Yemen and also teaches Sharia law, prides itself on the Scholarships that it offers to women. It says that females make up more than 20 percent of its student body (it admits this number is low and wants to address the issue… hence the scholarships) They are at present building a new library and tech center in addition to offering expanded courses in the next year. (Do I need to compare this with our “greatest country in the world” which is cutting funding to higher education and can’t even afford to keep current course offerings while it increases spending on warfare?) I want to meet these MBAs from Mogadishu… what can they teach me?… most likely quite a bit.
The worst slum I’ve seen in my life was the outskirts of Mexico City. Miles upon miles of tin and cardboard with stolen power lines strung between them. During the day it looked like a dump, but wow did it sparkle at night. I’ve never really forgotten how the people lived there… despite the poverty they seemed in many ways to have more life, hope, and drive than 95 percent of the suburbanites I’ve met in the US. I really hope that on our trip we can meet some of these real entrepreneurs, the people who come from the gutter, work hard, and create life and prosperity from sewage and despair.
4. Alex Thornton | December 16th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Some suggestions:
India might consider moving away from tight rent control in order to alleviate their housing problems. Price ceilings on rent discourage landlords from making improvements to their properties, creating slum conditions over time.
Furthermore, vacant land in India is generally exempt from property taxes. By not charging taxes, owners can simply let the land idle with no penalty. Property taxes should be imposed on vacant land to encourage the transfer of land to an owner who will get the best possible use out of it.
5. Emily Schaapveld | December 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
This is a tough decision and one that city planners battle with everyday. It an attempt to make a city more viable and attractive, the poor communities often get displaced. The residents of Dharavi have done an outstanding job of making the best out of the cards they were dealt. For the ten of thousands who have created business for themselves within the slum, they seem to be content with life. What about those who are not a part of the thriving businesses of the slum? Would they like the opportunity to have better living conditions? I do not think that building new high rises and offering the residents of Dharavi a free apartment is the most economically sound option. If the government is going to spend the money to fund such a project, it would be a better choice to invest in education and job training, rather than giving residents a free apartment. By tearing down the slums and building high rises, the only thing Mumbai has done is displace the poor. The only way to help the poor is to provide opportunities for them to combat the cycle of poverty. However, for those in the slums who have develop successful small businesses in the slums, they should be held responsible to paying taxes and contribute to the economic well-being of the city.
6. William Ary | January 3rd, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Dharavi seems like a real-world approximation of a deregulated and perfectly free market economy where only the market determines prices and there is no interference from the government beyond minimal infrastructure. It is rough living in a place like that. From what I have heard, the biggest step to regulating and improving a slum like that it to guarantee the population basic property rights. That means a police and legal system for ownership, probably supported by taxes.
Another question to answer is whether or not people who are living there would rather keep their tax money and look out for their own belongings. In order to understand how to transform a slum into a city, we must examine the pressures that executed the same conversion in western cities (most of which still have slums and shantytowns of varying sizes) which will end up rising the standard of living of the average person. Ultimately, the question is an economic one and it probably has a historical answer. I would personally look at the evolution of the middle class in other British colonies for a starting point.
7. Lindsay Leaver | January 9th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
There is obviously no easy answer to this conundrum. The city planners want to get rid of Dharavi and replace it with the new direction that the city is moving in. The people in the slum feel proud of their home and fear for what will happen if it is taken away. Both sides are right from their perspectives.
That being said, I don’t think people should go one living at this level of poverty if it can be avoided. Sure, they fiercely attached to the slum, that is their home! I wouldn’t want someone to bash my house down, no matter how small it is. But, if there was away to improve the lives of the people living there and involve them in the process, maybe they will be up for it. The solution might not be a high rise condo, it might be an expansion or renovation. I don’t know how building and infrastructure works, but I do know that people generally respond better to things when you include them in the decision process.
8. Jason Silver | February 14th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
It must be the job of government to listen to the people. The citizens living in this humongous slum are generally opposed to new developments being built in place of their current dwellings. If this part of the population produces close to $1 billion of economic value, their opinions should be taken into account. If they want to keep their standard of living the same, they should have the freedom to do so. Until there is a fundamental shift in psychology that people cannot live in such conditions, this type of poverty will persist. And with so many people living such poor conditions, it will take quite a while to see that change.
9. John Barry | March 2nd, 2010 at 1:23 am
The best thing to do here would probably build something that’s going to last. These slums sound a tremendous amount like those in my native Rio de Janeiro so I can think of a plethora of problems with this plan in the short-run, but in the long-run it would probably be the best thing to do.
One concern would be the potential backlash caused by the temporary relocation of the residents. The next problem would be finding them temporary housing. Will they get apartments in the new high-rises? My guess is no. And while I believe wholeheartedly in the attachment the residents feel to their slums, I believe that a public relations campaign would solve any issues with initial resistance to a move or change of lifestyle. The biggest concern I foresee in the minds of residents, is how they will make their living outside of the slum. While industrious and enterprising, their micro-businesses mostly revolve around the slums and the needs of its residents. In a more developed and modern living situation, the need for such services may infact vanish.
10. Jay Ponto | March 6th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Robyn Meredith discusses Indian slums in “The Elephant and the Dragon,” and focuses her discussion on Dharavi. She notes that visitors who land at Mumbai’s airport must drive past Dharavi to get to the city.
In her words, “Shacks defy gravity to stand on top of other rickety shacks until slum neighborhoods reach several stories tall.” Half of the residents of Dharavi are children, and Meredith compares it to the devastation seen in the United States after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans.
It is very surprising that Dharavi is such a prosperous slum. With so many entrepreneurs, so little unemployment, and so many people, Dharavi can be a treasure chest or nightmare for a politician, depending on whether or not its residents support the lawmaker. Many politicians court the slums residents by promising to not tear down the slum, despite the valuable land and close proximity to downtown Mumbai that could arguably be allocated for a better purpose than shacks.
Mumbai residents would rather the slum exist though, because this prevents the slum’s residents from living on the streets of Mumbai. In 2008, 25,000 FAMILIES lived illegally along Mumbai’s streets, many claiming that they were too poor to live in an “up-scale” place like Dharavi.
11. Danielle Steussy | March 6th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I believe that a successful organization is one that listens and collaborates with its employees. I think that the same success occurs when the government listens and collaborates with its citizens. Although the residents may say that they are fine with the current living conditions, have they been spoken to about how different and more sanitary their living conditions could be? Have they survived in this environment long enough to not be able see the potential of something different? Has the government communicated with them? Have the citizens been given ample opportunities to express their concerns?
I think the key to this dilemma lies in communication. The government should speak with the residents and find out what they want. They should also express what change would be like and give the residents a plan of action. It’s a starting point to figure out a compromise that not only improves living now but also gives Dharavi some longevity and sustainability.
12. Michael Minasian | March 10th, 2010 at 8:36 am
This is interesting. This reminds me indirectly of one of the “special economic zones” that are used in China. The difference is that the slum isn’t officially sanctioned by the government. The only thing keeping them from some form of eminent domain where the government forces the people to accept the normal tax rate of the country and the upgraded housing is that there is a democratically elected government.
The most interesting part of this article to me is that it provides a perfect example of how business, especially small business can thrive without taxation. High taxes are obviously stifling business and growth worldwide. This shows a large amount of micro transactions that could be occurring if tax rates didn’t stifle the opportunities, in India, and beyond.
13. Michael Harroch | March 18th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
It seems like the current status-quo has many negatives but also some positives. Perhaps the solution here is to find a way to eliminate the negatives (terrible living conditions, poverty etc.) while keeping the positives (economic opportunities, sense of independence for the residents etc.). Needless to say, it is easier said then done.
I also very much agree with what Danielle said about communicating with the current residents. In light of the negotiation class we have just taken, the Indian government should try to identify the people’s interests and make sure that whatever plan of action is decided upon falls in line with them.
14. Leslie Mann | March 19th, 2010 at 2:23 am
I don’t know if I would call it a good thing what Dharavi has but it is something that works and I’m sure the people living there, at least the ones who oppose the redevelopment project would agree, ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ I would have to argue though that lack of clean water and sanitary conditions seems a bit ‘broken’ to me. The $800 million a year of economic output suggests that things are working fine for Dharavi’s residents but I do agree with many that the government redevelopment program can be very beneficial for the residents, so long as it is done with the residents in mind. Often though, corruption will wield its ugly head and I can’t help but think that the residents will be the ones to suffer after they are relocated.
With Mumbai’s population doubling over the next 10 years, a plan needs to be in place for the area and its residents. Housing should be a top priority. The small businesses are thriving and the government should take the necessary steps to see that they can continue to survive. Though, according to the government’s redevelopment plan, these small businesses will be relocated only if they are not “polluting.” Loopholes and corruption abound by statements such as these. If the government cannot relocate those businesses they see as polluting, then the residents would be better off living the way they do now. It is up to government, to take the moral high-road and avoid the corruption that the neighboring city-planning Chinese have engaged in.
Yes, the residents and government need to communicate to find ways to improve the area for the city and also improve the lives of its residents. John mentioned a public relations campaign to solve issues with resistance to relocating and at least communication is happening. It’s a step in the right direction.
Check out the website for more: http://www.Dharavi.org
15. Jeff | March 19th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
India has a problem. How can they incentivize the small business owners in Dharavi to change or allow redevelopment? They could just bulldoze it down and rebuild, but that will put the powerhouse out of commission for quite a while, as well as causing riots that will probably get the politicians thrown out of a job.
Maybe they could follow Las Vegas’ lead and not charge a property tax for some period. It’s working to bring business into Las Vegas.
The appearance of the slum is a blight, and it is unsafe. They need to find something that will satisfy the majority of the Dharavi population, even if it’s not all of them.
16. Yuxiang Gao | March 19th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
In my opinion, the whole world is full of Contradictions.
Dharavi is just a little epitome of the all the developing country.
Even India is developing so fast, but the truth that a huge group of people still live below poverty line.
I was surpired by the fact that so many entrepreneurs, so little unemployment, and so many people in Dharavi. it looks like pretty prosperous.
From what I read, Dharavi has the quality that can become a new economic growth point for the government. And all these depending on how powerful the goverment is.
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