Claire: Dharavi Slum Tour
Dani, Natalie, and I took a trip to Mumbai this past week. We went on a tour of Asia’s largest slum, also recognized as the slum from Slumdog Millionaire, called Dharavi. It’s home to an estimated one million people in an area less than one square mile, and surrounded by high-rises.
The official indicators of a slum are high percentage of residents living in illegal housing, lack of water and sanitation, overcrowding, and non-durable housing structures. In Dharavi there is only one toilet for every 1,500 people. The living conditions were no doubt awful, but there was an incredible sense of community and spirit. It was like any village in India, except packed in tightly, and stuck in the middle of the bustling city, Mumbai. I was shocked to see schools, grocery stores, community areas, streets, cars, and factories for their many industries tucked away in little rooms amidst the squalor. Industry and entrepreneurship was everywhere. One thing I was amazed to learn was Dharavi’s industries have an annual turnover of approximately $665 million! Some of the thriving industries included: weaving, recycling, food, clothing, manufacturing, and pottery.
The largest industry in Dharavi is recycling. Majority of the waste from Mumbai is recycled there. This industry employs nearly 10,000 people. They recycle virtually anything. Nothing is garbage. This was refreshing to hear and see, because the lack of recycling bins in the town worried me.
To me, the slum refuted the myth that poverty is due to laziness– that the people living in squalor deserve it because they are stupid, indolent or lack the skills to be successful. The Dharavi slum is a booming negation to that idea. At Dhobi Ghat—the world’s largest outdoor laundry mat, just outside the slum, men and women wake up at 4am to start washing in order to finish the heaping piles of sheets and clothing in a timely manner. Inside Dharavi I saw women making papadam (thin and crispy bread with bits of pepper) by baking them in the sun on wooden baskets flipped upside-down. I saw men working at sewing machines in an assembly line. One does the cutting, another the sleeve sewing, another the collar, and down the line until the product is complete. In another part of the slum a husband and wife combo was making clay pots. The wife mixed the clay while the husband worked at the pottery wheel. They make 80 pots per day. Kilns line the street by their hut and smoke fills the air creating a polluted and even hotter environment than the existing 92- degree day.
These people are working from sun up to sun down, every day. I can’t think of anyone who works as hard as they do. It makes me wonder what quality of life these people would have if they were born into the right circumstances. Instead by pure chance they were born into a place with far less access to education and fewer opportunities to prosper economically, no matter how hard they work or how smart they are.
The company my tour was through is called Reality Tours. We went with them because 80% of the tour cost goes directly into their sister NGO, Reality gives, which supports projects to improve quality of life in the underprivileged communities of Dharavi.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the tour as it would be an invasion on the residents privacy. Here are pictures from Reality Tours website to give an idea of what I saw.
Dhobi Ghat
Recycling area
Poor working conditions
Narrow, dark, claustrophobic alleys within the residential area of the slum.
How the residents live
WE Travel Correspondent Blog: Intern in India 