Sanjay Sangvai
At last, after month long siege at Azad Maidan, the Maharashtra government recognized the right to housing for over 4.00,000 slum dwellers in Mumbai. For over a month the poor, exhausted people faced the scorching sun, heavy downpour, aggressive police and officials, unsympathetic attitude of the blue collar and middle classes, the active hostility from almost all political parties and of all the undeclared censorship and hatred by the Marathi and English media in the metropolis. Despite all these over a thousand-two thousand evicted people kept up their struggle of Ghar Bachao, Ghar Banao Andolan (Save the house, re-build the house) alive and increased its intensity. According to a veteran trade unionist of 1980s, Mumbai did not see such a protracted battle for last many decades for their rights. The place was turned into another settlement of thousands of poor, underprivileged, worn out and yet determined men and women from various castes, religions, including Dalits, Muslims, South Indians and North Indians, living and sharing the food and strategy in perfect harmony. They were in the Azad Maidan from May 16, 2005. They were most disciplined lot, organizing their Sangharsha Wadi (settlement of struggle ) or Azad Nagar (freedom township), keeping it clean, neat, erecting a dwelling each for every settlement, and keeping it like a professional work-place. They were carrying on meetings, various activities of women, children, artists, speeches or singing etc. – along with organizing various protest programmes.
The people raised pertinent questions regarding their rehabilitation. They asked for the details of land available and the plans for rehabilitation; the role of builders in it; and how the state will rehabilitate the slum dwellers before monsoon. The agitators demanded concrete policy to be announced before Monsoon and decried the idea of rehabilitation outside Mumbai city limits.
In the end, on June 15, the state Chief Minister and declared that there would be resurvey of those who had settled till 2000 and would be resettled in the western and central suburbs of the metropolis. In spite of the availability of land with in Mumbai, the State Government wanted to rehabilitate slum –dwellers outside Mumbai. NAPM strongly opposed this move, and the government finally conceded to their demands. Though the Government will not rehabilitate slum dwellers on the land they had earlier occupied, it has promised to allot 150 sq feet of Government land to each family as rehabilitation, in the same region ( Eastern or Western Suburb of Mumbai) that they had occupied earlier. After this, they will be given permanent housing.
Planned Demolitions
The hutments give shelter to over 60% of the Mumbai’s workforce, including domestic workers, sweepers, laundry workers, milk-vendors, taxi drivers, newspaper vendors, vegetable vendors, plumbers, mechanics, construction workers, free labourers, cart wheelers, tea and fast food kiosk-owners, people selling clothes to hardware, pens to medicines, and umpteen number of occupations which the 20-30 % Mumbai needs. Many policepersons live in the slums. The slum is a vibrant society, a wonderful mix of people from almost all parts of Maharashtra and India, there is a peaceful co-existence of all religions and castes, in harmony, sharing the spaces, relationship and life with each other.
The ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress party and other parties’ United Democratic Front came to power in Maharashtra on the strength of votes from the poor, backward and minorities. Most of them live in the slums, not by their choice. The Font in its pre-election manifesto promised for regularizing and developing the slums in Mumbai up to 2000. However, after the victory and government formation by the Congress-NCP combine, the winter session of the Assembly at Nagpur, on December 8, 2004, the Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, announced in the plan for development of infrastructure and beautification of Mumbai, at the cost of Rs.31, 800 crores. For that, as a first step, he declared to clear all the ‘encroachments’ of slums on the government lands after 1995.
As the Chief Minister was announcing the decision in Nagpur, the metropolitan Commissioner Mr. Johnny Joseph was almost ready for a full-scale military-like crackdown. He had already summoned more than 4 to 5,000 policepersons and security personnel including the state reserve police (SRP).He gave orders for summary demolitions of the post-1995 slums without going into the details of every house. By February 2005, over 4,00,000 people from the 56 slums were removed by demolishing 90,000 houses. The cost of the operation was Rs. 84 crores. The state government claimed that it ‘recovered’ 300 acre of land worth Rs.1500 crores.
How Media ‘Behaved’?
While all this was taking place, hardly any newspaper in Mumbai took serious note of such newsworthy event and process. None of them covered the month-long dharna of the slum dwellers, who created a mini-India at Azad Maidan. In the months of March and April 2005, the Mumbai newspapers spent reams about the predicament of the Bar-dancers in Mumbai and the so-called moral-policing. The self-proclaimed ‘journalism of courage’ of English newspapers along with their Marathi siblings published interviews with film stars, company executives and right activists for the defense of dance-bars. They also claim to be worried over the livelihood issues of a few thousand bar-girls, a perfectly legitimate concern. But the same media did not write about the loss of livelihood and right to a dignified life of four lakh people evicted. No one cared to write about the embarrassment and inconvenience of over 2,000,000 evicted women and young girls, compelled to carry their daily chores in the open.
Most of them gave glorified accounts about the evictions, the police force and the ‘determination’ of the municipal staff. ‘The Indian Express’ and other English dailies glorified one Mr. Vijay Kalam-Patil, the officer in-charge of demolitions. The media relished in the graphic account of how hundreds of police trapped the people, cut off their electricity and water and carried on the demolition. To justify the eviction almost all them kept on repeating ad nauseum the allegations like ‘illegal encroachers’, ‘filthy’ slum dwellers, usurping on water and electricity of the city, ‘outsiders’ and the haven of anti-social elements- all of which were without any substantiation. Barring some exceptions like the Marathi dailies like Nava-Kaal, eveninger ‘Mahanagar’ and to some extent ‘Sakal’ and in English ‘The Hindu’, no newspaper cared to look at the condition of the evicted people or their account.
While Mr. R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister, made a feeble attempt to compel the officials to demolish 592 unauthorized structures of the rich and famous people, the officials flatly refused to do so. They used the media to ridicule Patil and media pliantly reported that the officers “did not want to loose the ‘golden opportunity’ as for the first time any CM has shown a political will deal with the ‘menace of slums”.
For the first time one could see the convergence of politicians and media belonging to Congress, Nationalist Congress and Shiv Sena-BJP were united on any issue. Moreover, the Chief Minister of Congress Party and Marathi newspapers followed the suit of Shiv Sena and its mouthpiece daily Samna by raising the specter of Bangladeshis to deflect the serious issue of eviction and resettlement of the people. Otherwise progressive and balanced journalists raised the scare of people from Bihar or UP crowding the slums.
The newspapers actively encouraged and insisted on eviction and spouted venom against the anti-eviction movement either by stifling the voice of those who were raising the issues of human and democratic rights of the evicted people or pro-actively defaming them, to divert the attention from the serious human issue. And they zeroed on the best known, hardworking and most effective leader - Medha Patkar. Suddenly, the entire media – particularly the Marathi newspapers like Loksatta of Express group, Lokmat belonging to Congress M.P. Vijay Darda, Samna of Bal Thackeray along with regional newspapers like Pudhari and local Marathi tabloids like Vritta Manas seemed became obsessed with Medha. Their Medha-mania was so much that they became anxious about her past and future; published imaginary stories about the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Medha losing support in the valley, which purportedly made her to look for some other pasture. As was done by the mature Mumbai media too copied the juvenile Gujarati language media regarding the Narmada project issue by dismissing and discrediting Medha, with no basis, just to evade the real issue of people’s misery and demands.
Desi Cravings
For the mainstream Marathi media, it was a face saving device to skip the original question regarding slum dwellers and concentrate on the fate of Medha Patkar. They could not appear like as contemptuous as English language ‘elite’ media towards poor and ‘desi’ people and had to maintain ‘balance’. Medha bashing is result of the media’s archaic and individualistic perception of socio-political processes. Medha-bashing came in a handy tool for them, so that they need not dwell on the merit of the issue, human tragedy and illegality of the builders, but could belittle the whole issue just by ridiculing the leader. It is interesting to probe further deep the new strategies of the neo-liberal language / native journalism to deal with the dissent from the exploited people and how thy are being a part of growing intolerance within the elite of any dissent. No longer the Marathi media is prepared to allow the English media to monopolize the all the spoils of Globalization! The editor of Loksatta, Kumar Ketkar, who flaunts his ‘progressive’ credentials, attends the meeting of the elite ‘Mumbai First’ of the builders and industrialists, which felicitated Dr. Manmohan Singh and Deshmukh. His newspaper reporters never probed illegalities and violation of rules by the builders or ridiculed their outrageous plans for making Mumbai a ‘world class city’, but allowed its prejudiced adolescent reporters to run down respectable and senior activists. These Marathi journalists dared to take casually and humiliate Medha Patkar also because she has been accessible to them and was considered ‘our own Marathi’. They published the versions of the builders about how to solve the slum problem, but not a word by the activists who have thought about the alternative Development Plan for the metropolis. Ketkar is a diehard aficionado of Smt. Sonia Gandhi, and yet his newspaper did not publish her stern letter to the CM regarding the rights of the slum dwellers. Rather it distorted and twisted the story ( CM, thwarts attempts by Medha to misuse Sonia letter). Loksatta and some other newspapers also suggested that why Congress should ‘tolerate’ Medha Patkar.
The distortion and Medha-obsession was aided by rival Marathi newspaper, ‘Lokmat’. One of its journalist carried series of articles on ‘why Medha Patkar appeared all of a sudden in this matter and where she was when the police beat the people?’ Despite the fact that eminent persons like former high Court judge R.M.Mehrotra, former Chief Secretary of state J.B. D’Souza mainstream dailies just ignored that.
When the Congress General Secretary Smt. Margaret Alva for debunked the expressways-flyovers kind of elitist development and advocated strengthening of public transport and housing for poor, in the ‘Vision Mumbai’ meeting (Feb.13), Maharashtra Times editor slammed her in the meeting as ‘rhetorical speech fit only for Shivaji Park (a place for public meeting)’. The Shiv Sena mouthpiece ‘Samna’ was carrying on the vitriolic of its leaders. It branded the slum dwellers as Bangladeshis and anti-nationals. Its executive president, Uddhav Thackeray, son of Bal Thackray, asked her to go back to Narmada valley, as ‘Mumbai is not her territory’. But when the NAPM published the number of the Bangladeshi, based on the information from the state government in 2004, it was revealed that there were only 625 Bangladeshis in Mumbai! Such an important information too was suppressed by the media.
English Media
As expected, the English media supported the demolition, ignored the protests, and pronounced the select few groups like ‘Mumbai-First’ as the ‘major section of the mainstream’. They all wailed and blamed everyone for protecting the encroachers ‘at the cost of taxpayers’ money’, as if the poor people do not pay taxes while purchasing or using the transport or electricity. The ebullient Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express wrote a special article targeting ‘purbiyas’ (north Indians) coming in Mumbai:
"Just a drive around Patna could help you see the ongoing slum demolition controversy in Mumbai in a comprehensive perspective. If you allow divisive vote politics (emphasis added) to determine every aspect of governance, this is what you get: India's most non-functional capital of India's most non-functional state."
This gentleman has been campaigning for the free hand for corporates and denounces the ‘vote politics’ and the democracy where the ‘mobs’ ruled. Anish Trivedi, another columnist of Mid-Day, a glossy, eveninger of the metropolis. He writes ( May 8, 2005):
“Praise for what a communist country, with need for neither citizens’ rights nor electoral inconveniences. Let’s face it. When, as a government, you couldn’t give a crap for the concerns of your countrymen or for the criticism of the world’s media, you can pretty much do what you want. That works for China, so let them do it. It’s not going to work for us. Every time we try and rebuild and reconstruct here, we get hell. From the opposition parties. From the press. And from concerned citizens”.
So, it is the democracy that is a problem. This is quite a serious attempt by the ‘significant minority’ and their media to denigrate democracy.
That was why none of them raised the issue of 592 unauthorized high-rise building, built in contravention of all the acts. While aggressively advocating the ‘freedom’ of the business or ‘making money’ by the corporates, they deny the same freedom to millions of others who similarly came to Mumbai to earn livelihood or ‘to make money’. They did not ask whether Hiranandanis, Rupanis or Rahejas were originally from Mumbai or ‘outsiders. It was inconvenient for Indian Express or Times of India to enquire into the water and electricity consumption by the rank outsiders – the filmwallahs, page-3 crowd they thrust daily on readers.
These journalists did not investigate into the illegal usurpation and construction on public land by the builders. Despite the press conferences at Mumbai and other places in Maharashtra, with loads of copies of relevant documents, hardly any newspaper published the names of the builders and the land grabs they have made. None of the journalists from the mainstream media tried to probe the illegal procedures regarding demolitions, whether prior notices were given or any resettlement plan for the evictees.
Among the private news channels, the English language channels toed the expected line – even the supposedly progressive and secular channels passing caustic remarks on the resistance by the slum dwellers. In contrast, the two Marathi channels (ETV and Alpha) showed some concern for the evictees and their arguments.
The media behaviour on the issue of Mumbai slum demolitions, by and large, was unprofessional and clearly biased. The English and Marathi newspapers refused to go to the roots of the problem and instead raised unjust, unconstitutional issues. They demonstrated that, like in the US, the liberal democracy too can be manipulated into a totalitarian system, through a highly professional and scientific censorship by the media itself. This is akin to the oppressive totalitarianism in the United States in case of McCarthyism or Iraq, entrenched in every walk of life, all the branches of political class- be it media, political parties, many civil society groups and other institutions in democratic structure act to suppress the truth, the dissent and rights of the victims. It is the Gramscian hegemony that the poor and their organizations have to countenance in the post-Globalization era political discourse. The issue of the slums, right to housing on equitable basis to all is one such parody of the modern urban-industrial democracy.
Sanjay Sangvai
7, Chintamani Apartments, 19, Shikshaknagar, Paud Road, Kothrud, Pune –411038, India.
Telephone- 91-20-25450870. Email -
sanjsan@rediffmail.com, sanjaysangvai@yahoo.com 
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