Various documents remind me that as Indians, we have no right to land. We are simply caretakers of land for the government to claim when they arbitrarily choose to. Atleast in all of this, they could be a little honest.
Dharavi has opened my middle class, closeted eyes to a whole new world of wheeling-dealing. Claims are made of being the authority on the area by everyone. Some of whom we are against, some we work with. The ones we are against have engaged in fudging records and statistics so much that in the eventual rehabilitation, 40% of those who need to be rehoused will be left without any means of shelter. Which means on one hand we'll see multi storeyed SRA apartments, and on the other hand hundreds of shanties refusing to move. And you and i, the privileged few of this country will say, 'See these shameless slum dwellers. Even after constructing so many buildings for them, they still choose to live in those jhopadpattis.' The ones who we are working with sell dreams to these slum dwellers of living in SRA apartments. After months of effort (and don't forget money) spent by these slumdwellers in trying to get the dream in motion, when the dream gets caught up in red tape, they say 'Look at these shameless slum dwellers. We did so much for them and they show no energy, and now they complain that nothing is happening.'
So what is worse. Selling dreams or selling livelihoods?
1 comment:
oye! write more.
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