DEMOLITION on 14th GULLI
The Mahila Milan
movement was born out of the refusal of some of the women who live on the
pavement in Byculla to see their huts destroyed every two or three weeks by
the Bombay Municipal Corporation. But demolitions still take place. There's
even a department of the city government called the BMC Demolition Squad who
do nothing but remove so-called illegal structures.
It remains illegal in Mumbai, just as it is in New York or Paris, to use the
sidewalk or the actual roadway itself as your home. Of course, it was the
British (but if it hadn't been them it surely would have been someone else?
The Mughals, if they'd come a few centuries later?) Sidewalks are for walking,
goes the argument. They should be kept clear, not just of the homeless, but
of unlicensed hawkers, selling everything from hot-dogs and kebabs to cheap
tourist souvenirs.
Over the years I'd been in Mumbai, I'd heard lots of stories about the horrors of these demolitions. I'd met groups whose street had been demolished yesterday, three days ago, last month, but I'd never seen a demolition firsthand. In the bad old days, they just used to occur. There was no advance warning. Today, you're supposed to get twenty four hours notice, in writing. But in practice, nothing's really changed, as I found out one Saturday morning.
*****
I had just reached the Mahila Milan office in Byculla. I planned to just look in and then h op into a taxi to meet a friend for lunch at Grant Road station, a couple of miles away. I was literally walking in when Bali, one of the street kids, rode up behind me on a very rickety bike, followed two yards behind b y an agitated Sona. No one was in. I stood out like a sore thumb.
"Come! Julian bhai! They're demolishing the huts in Thirteenth Gulli.
Come quick!"
Well, I didn't know what I could do. But I bundled Sona into a taxi and we drove as fast as we could the half mile to Shantinagar. Shantinagar's the name of the area where you find the Red Light district in Mumbai. There are more than a dozen lanes or Gullis that run down from Suklaji Street. They're all short, no more than a hundred yards long, but crowded with brothels. And Sona and Shehnaz both live on Fourteenth Gulli.
We get out of the taxi at the top of Suklaji Street, tell him to wait and scurry off to Fourteenth Gulli. Everybody's out in the street. In confusion and talking a mile a minute. Basically waiting for someone to come and take charge.
"Thank God you've come, Sona. They're in Twelfth and Thirteenth Gulli. They've got a crane. They smashed that house across the road! Someone should go and phone the office! Tell them what's happening!"
Men and women, all members of Mahila Milan, crowd round the tiny figure of Sona. She gives one woman the number for the office - three zero nine, six seven three two. Go see if Jockin bhai or Celine didi are there? Chello!
"Khainar's here!"
Now this is news. Khainar is the legendary head of the Demolition squad, one of five Deputy Commissioners, and in charge of clearing the streets of pavement dwellers. Last week he'd been in the news because he'd cleared away all the street-hawkers around Crawford Market, the great fruit and vegetable market in the center of the city. The hawkers didn't have permits.
I walk to the end of the Gulli, to see for myself. Just in time to see a municipal truck accelerate off down Suklaji street, and away from us.
False alarm? Looks like it. So I go to find my taxi and lunch with Anand. Ten minutes to Grant Road station. I'm only a few minutes late and Anand's waiting.
"Mr. Julian? Ready to go and eat?
But something's bothering me. I have a premonition - I should get back NOW to 14th Gulli.
"Anand! Are you very hungry? Or can you wait half an hour? I must go back to 14th Gulli. Will you come with me?"
We get back in to the taxi and drive back, at what seems an agonizingly slow speed, until we stop back at the corner of Belassis Road and Suklaji Street.
I run to the top of Fourteenth Gulli to see two huge front-loaders, already twenty yards down the lane, a large open municipal truck following on behind.
Anand is having a hard time keeping up: "Just stay with me! Stay with me!"
The front-loader's scooping up the hopes of fifty families and depositing them into a truck.
"Who is? Who's the person in charge here?" Anand answers without missing a beat: "Khainar"
Presumably, he's the tall man in Army fatigues, striding down the Gulli behind the two front-loaders.
Stopping at each hut. I thrust my microphone, uninvited and unannounced into his face: "I want to know why you're doing the demolition today?" Khainar carries on regardless. He doesn't mince his words Gets straight to the point. He's tells the man in front of me: "You don't have a permit for this shop. It's an illegal structure. You move it or we'll have to demolish it! You can't conduct a commercial business on the street without a license."
I try again:
"Mr. Khainar!" Khainar checking their papers and their ration cards
himself And he seems to be trying to calm everyone down. And he doesn't seem
to be putting on any airs. He is a Big Shot. But he's also a Backward caste
man who's risen up through the ranks. Nor does it seem to bother him that
I'm thrusting the microphone right into his face! One of his workers points
to me: "Sir, sir! American journalist...."
"Can I just ask you for National Public Radio why you're doing the demolition
now on a Saturday in the monsoon?"
Khainar turns towards me as if giving walking interviews to an NPR journalist was the most natural thing in the world: "We're removing unauthorized encroachments on the roads and footpaths. Most of them are commercial!"
"Even in this street they're commercial?" I am a bit credulous
Some people have represented they're residential occupation. That's why I'm inspecting. And whenever I find that they are really a genuine residential people, we're excluding them from demolition."
"Do you normally give them notice that you're doing this?..."
Somebody behind me says: Khainar's just demolished that house on the corner. Belongs to Dawood. That's why he's here today!
Now, Dawood Ibrahim's the city's most notorious Mafia Don. He lives in exile in Dubai. He's the man accused of masterminding bomb blasts that have killed over a hundred in the city earlier this year. But people in the apartments nearby are also complaining about the pavement dwellers setting up house here in the street.
".. So, I'm just looking around whether there is any major encroachment on the roads and footpaths which can be removed so as to give relief to the public members."
"So if people are genuinely living here, and they are not in commercial activity, they can stay?"
"Right, especially residential people we are not demolishing during monsoon."
"Even if they are pavement dwellers?"
"Pardon?"
"Even if they are pavement dwellers?"
"Yea. We
are not normally removing during monsoon. So here some people are residing.
I have come to see if they are really occupying for residential purpose. If
they are residential we are not removing. Only commercial and this...illegal
activities."
"So, if it's a shop or anything you'll remove?"
"Right! Shop, plus building materials. Then other encroachments, like stocking up the wood."
(Whatever that may mean!)
"You're the famous Mr. Khainar, right?"
"I'm Khainar myself, yes ....we're very sympathetic to the pavement dwellers. Whomsoever is occupying on the road they are residing out of compulsion. So we ...have a full sympathy for them. But at the same time...normally during monsoon, although I am not removing, but after monsoon we might take demolition action. I cannot guarantee....
(Even if they are blocking pedestrians in 14th Gulli. And even if those pedestrians are customers visiting the brothels!!)
"Whenever they cause serious obstructions or inconveniences, annoyance to the public members..."
"You just take the building materials? What do you do about the pots and pans? And all the things that are household possessions? Do you leave them for the people? Or do you take them as well?....."
(Apparently, the BMC just confiscate people's building materials. You can claim them back, if you pay.)
"Cooking materials? Yes. If it is for commercial purpose we are taking away. If it is residential we are not normally removing."
"I'd love to know how you make the difference!"
"But those can be released after paying the necessary charges."
"So you're
sympathetic to the plight of the pavement dwellers?"
"Certainly, certainly! Poor people..Although basically it is my duty
to remove all sorts of encroachment. But if it is a poor and very pathetic
scene, or downtrodden people, we do(sic) sympathetic. We normally try to avoid
that.....then...."
"And you don't basically give any of them notice?"
"Pardon?"
"You don't give any of them advance warning that you're coming?"
"Normally for the roads and footpaths we're liable to remove without notice!"
My five minutes are up. The front-loaders are impatiently revving up. And Khainar's off. No more time to waste! Behind his little band two trucks piled high with the flotsam and jetsam of people's lives. It's like the tide going out. You look to see what's been left behind. And there's one familiar sight, I can tell you right away, it's missing. I stop to talk to an old woman who looks bewildered and dazed:
"You Mahila Milan member?"
"Yes, Mahila Milan!"
What's happened to Shehnaz's shop?..."
"Shehnaz?"
(An unseen voice pipes up:) "Madras."
"I know that. But where's her shop gone?"
Shehnaz is away in Madras on Mahila Milan business. Shehnaz sells cigarettes, soap, batteries and toothpaste from a plywood bookcase outside her hut. It fits the definition of an illegal commercial structure to the T. And I don't see it.
"Come on, Chalo.." Time for Anand and I to find our taxi, yet again. We head back to the top of the Gulli. And I know something's missing here. But what?? I know what it is! Suhel Ahmed's sari shop's disappeared into the front-loader. All those pinks, greens, oranges - all gone. Just a blank dirty wall left. Suhel and his brother look as if they've been hit by a hurricane.
"You must be pretty angry now?"
"Yes, I'm very, very upset!"
"How much have you lost?"
"I was making 100 Rupees ($2.50) from this shop daily."
"So you've lost all the stock?"
"I'm a sari merchant, all lost.... 50,000 Rupees ($13,000)
"You just lost like that! In Ten minutes, gone! Will you be able to put back your business together again?"
I bet Suhel Ahmed will start up again, even if it's just on a bench. His regular customers are here. He can't just move to another street.
"What choice do I have? This is the only work I know."
A lot has happened since that Saturday on 14th Gulli. Suhel Ahmed was indeed back on his feet inside a couple of months. It turns out I was wrong about Shehnaz's shop. Her husband had removed the goods from the shelves before Khainar and his boys entered 14th Gulli. And belonging to Mahila Milan was definitely a plus. The members knew what to do, how to stay calm. And their huts were spared.
As for Khainar: he got into a political dogfight with the Chief Minister of the State of Maharastra, who accused him of being hand in glove with Ibrahim Dawood, the Mafia don. Of turning a blind eye to Dawood's property holdings in Bombay. The Chief Minister said Dawood owned nothing in Bombay. Khainar was suspended. He went on the offensive. And became for a year a public symbol. He stood in elections and was defeated. It appeared he'd become yet another footnote in the never-ending fight against corruption in High Places. But in the late 1990s, his star waxed: Mumbai's administration changed hands: Khainar was re-appointed back to his old job. There have been more demolitions in Shantinagar since. And, sadly, there'll probably be more to come.
Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episodes
33 - 35
Main Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3
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