Life in Dharavi
	Inside Asia's Biggest Slum
	By Alex Perry | Dharavi

Posted Monday, June 12, 2006; 20:00 HKT
A sure sign of the change coming to Asia's most populous slum is the transformation in Mohammed Sayyed's sales patter. The 33-year-old is a real estate broker in Dharavi, 535 acres of shantytown, open sewers and rat-infested lanes in central Bombay. "Ten years ago, poor people were my only clients and huts my only properties," he says. "My only line was: 'Poor people can afford it.' Now I sell to businessmen, investors and speculators. I tell them, 'This place is a commercial center. It's slap in the middle of the city. Its development is approved. It's a sure thing! It's golden! Get in now!'"

A slum might sound like an odd candidate for a boomtown. But Dharavi is testament to Bombay's spirit. Once a marsh next to the Mithi River, Dharavi's first residents would catch fish in the creeks and sell them to the Portuguese, and later British, city to the south. As Bombay grew and industrialized, Dharavi became a "human dumping ground" for dispossessed workers and penniless migrants arriving to seek their fortune in India's commercial capital, says longtime resident Ram Bhaukorde, 69. "Anyone too poor for Bombay proper could find a home and a living here," says Bhaukorde. Today, Dharavi has a population of between 600,000 and a million—the figures are rough because the area was officially an illegal settlement until 2004 and the authorities have yet to quantify it—and it's the largest contiguous slum in the world.

Yet in recent years prosperity has been trickling down to Dharavi's residents, many of whom are no longer rib-counting poor. Today, there's 24-hour electricity and running water—albeit for just an hour a day. In a research study published in 2002, C.K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond reported that 85% of households own a TV, 75% a pressure cooker and a mixer, 56% a gas stove, and 21% a telephone. Locals estimate that 70% of Dharavi's buildings are now used for commercial purposes, such as banks and restaurants. Dharavi is home to some of the city's best leatherworkers, as well as textile and furniture factories, potteries and bakeries. Moreover, as Bombay has expanded, what was once malarial swamp on the edge of the city now occupies prime real estate right at its center. Sayyed says a standard two-room, 21-square-meter apartment now sells for more than $11,000, up from $7,000 two years ago and $1,500 a decade ago. "We did this," declares Bhaukorde, gesturing at Dharavi's bustling main drag. "No government, no rich people, no charity. Just poor people, working hard."

Which is why those who live in Dharavi are suspicious of a sudden interest in the area by the government. Maharashtra state officials have unveiled plans to demolish Dharavi, move all residents to free apartments elsewhere and erect a $1.3 billion development of business parks, hotels, riverside restaurants, and even a university. Twenty-five property developers from as far afield as Dubai and California are bidding for the project. Municipal Commissioner Johny Joseph says that if it wants to be a world-class city, Bombay can no longer afford to ignore the fact that its slum-dwelling population has soared to more than 10 million, in part because so many migrants have been flocking to the city. But there are no plans to relocate the thousands of successful businesses run out of Dharavi. Adding to the controversy, the proposal to move residents is based on the official number of families legally residing there—51,000—not the true figure, which includes hundreds of thousands of illegal squatters. To residents, the plan is an attempt to dump them outside the city once more. "Of course we want Dharavi to be developed," says Bhaukorde. "That's why we worked so hard all these years. The question is: Developed for whom? The government's idea of development doesn't include us. I've seen the plans. Wonderful. No room at all for ugly poor people."

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