'Can't Demolish Our Spirit': In Mumbai's Jai Bhim Nagar, Women Who Won't Give Up

“We’ve spoken to so many people... when will things change?”It's been more than three months since the demolition of nearly 650 tenements in Jai Bhim Nagar near Mumbai's posh Powai locality – and most residents are exhausted from the apathy surrounding their plight. Ever since they lost their homes, they have been protesting for their right to housing and dignity – and one question weighs heavily on everyone’s minds:“Can we have women’s safety without proper housing?”Their spirit still intact, women, predominantly belonging to Scheduled Castes, talk to The Quint about leading the fight "for getting their homes back... getting back to Jai Bhim Nagar where they have lived for 30 years."The sky is overcast – and an unpredictable weather on a September morning in Mumbai leads to scorching heat interrupted by minutes of rain. The only protection the residents of Jai Bhim Nagar have against the elements are sheets of tarpaulin. Trucks and other vehicles pass merely inches from where they sleep – on the side of the road at 90-ft Road near Powai's high-rise buildings.Dhrupata, a 37-year-old resident of Jai Bhim Nagar, who now lives in a tarpaulin shed with her four daughters and nine-year-old son, tells The Quint, “My husband passed away in an accident around a year ago, and then a few months later, our house was demolished. There’s nothing to go back to in my village, and in Mumbai, this house was all we had. It’s all we had for 30 years.”Dhrupata's house was one of the tenements demolished at Jai Bhim Nagar on 6 June by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Residents claim that apart from the BMC officials and Mumbai Police, ‘bouncers’ in plain clothes allegedly representing a prominent developer were present to carry out the demolition drive.Lakshmi, who works as a domestic help, alleges, “On 6 June, the BMC officials and cops showed up. We were trying to plead with them to not break our homes. We asked them, 'Where will we go? Where will our kids go?'"She further alleges that the residents were subject to violence at the hands of the cops. "There was a pregnant woman who was beaten up mercilessly – and she lost her child. She barely survived,” Lakshmi tells The Quint.The police, on the other hand, had then alleged that the residents threw stones at the demolition party. An official had told news agency PTI, "The police have filed a case against 200 persons and apprehended 57 of them on the charge of obstructing public servants from discharging their duty and rioting in connection with the stone-pelting at police and BMC officials. They were remanded in judicial custody."The Quint reached out to Mumbai Police regarding these allegations, but they refused to comment.“Some ‘bouncers’ from the other side entered our side and they started pelting stones at the cops – and the cops accused us of hitting them and entered our homes and hit us. Around 6-10 cops entered each house. They hit the elderly and the young women, and kids as well."LakshmiSumitra, supporting Lakshmi’s claims, adds that the residents weren’t involved in the stone pelting.“When people came in plain clothes, we thought they had come to help us, but they started throwing stones. When the stone pelting started, we all tried to go hide in our homes, but the cops dragged us out of our homes and hit us,” she says.Lakshmi adds that she lost her Aadhaar card and ration card in the demolition. Even the money she had saved for her children got lost in the rubble. "All we had was the clothes on our back when we managed to escape," she laments.Post the demolition, when the residents returned to the site to recover some of their belongings, they allege that they weren’t allowed to enter – and there was heavy police deployment in the area. Sushila, an elderly resident of Jai Bhim Nagar who asks for alms at a nearby temple to sustain herself, recalls, “All my belongings were gone. I was at the temple when they came to demolish our homes, and some people came to tell me. They had bulldozed my house, and they didn’t let me take any of my belongings. All I could get was some clothes – I lost everything else.”Days after the demolition, residents continued to salvage some of their belongings from the rubble. Most of their tents now contain a chulha, boards or beds to sleep on, and/or the rare sofa and a fridge.With no proper housing, the fight of women like Lakshmi is about women’s safety. So, when protests erupted over the alleged rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor at Kolkata's RG Kar Hospital, the women of Jai Bhim Nagar found an avenue to speak about their safety.Their demands were simple – "The women of Jai Bhim Nagar have been sleeping on the roadside for months. We’re not safe, we’re afraid".On 14 August – when the first 'Reclaim the Night' protests took place – the women of Jai Bhim Nagar reached Powai's Galleria Mall to express solidarity with the women’s protests, but they were asked to leave. “In Kolkata, a woman was brutally murdered even though she was in a place that must have had security guards or CCTV cameras. Despite being safe, so much happened, and in contrast, we live on the road. We have no security; anything can happen to us,” Lakshmi tells The Quint, her voice laden with courage."This was always a movement intended for getting a ‘home’... So, when there was a concerned citizens call for extending solidarity and protesting against the violence that happened at RG Kar Hospital, the women from Jai Bhim Nagar went there to speak about their safety, but they were denied the right to protest even.”Adarsh Priyadarshi, a PhD research scholar in IIT Bombay and part of The Collective, a student-led organisation fighting by their side"Since I am a student at IIT Bombay (in Powai), we were familiar with the Jai Bhim Nagar basti even before the demolition," he adds.The Jai Bhim Nagar basti, and the settlements they live in now, are all surrounded by high-rise buildings. Many of them also work as domestic help in these homes but, since 6 June, many of them lost their jobs. They recount how they and the generations before them had moved to the area to help place the same bricks that built these towers – the same buildings that now shut them out.Even though they were denied the basic right to protest for their safety and dignity in what was supposed to be a welcoming space, the women and children continue to take to the streets in protest.On 4 September, during one of my visits to Jai Bhim Nagar, a young girl comes up to me and makes me promise that I’ll be there in the evening – as Jai Bhim Nagar residents planned to form a human chain to continue their protest.In the evening, some of the placards they carry to the protest site resonate their demands –‘Supreme Court, punish the real criminals.' 'Put a lock on builder raj.' ‘Bulldozers don’t see caste, but the homes of Dalit people were broken.' 'Stop attacks against Dalit women.’ Dhrupata’s nine-year-old son stands as part of the human chain with a placard: ‘Bulldozers broke my home but not my spirit. We demand justice! We demand safety!’Women and children from Jai Bhim Nagar march together as chants of 'Long live woman power!' rings through the air.The protest continues undeterred even as a police vehicle reaches the venue. I meet the young girl, as promised, at the protest – and my eyes are drawn to the bandage on her foot. She had injured herself while running from her friends, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she lived in safe enough conditions for the wound to heal because many of the residents had talked about the detrimental effect to their health in the past three months.The demolitions in Jai Bhim Nagar took place during the monsoon. On 9 July, the Bombay High Court had directed the state government and the BMC to explain the demolition since it purportedly went against a government resolution (dated 29 June 2021), which notes that “unauthorised constructions on all government, semi-government or private land in the state should not be demolished during the monsoon” (between 1 June and 30 September every year).However, speaking to The Indian Express in June, a senior civic official had said, “While the government resolution is valid, the demolition drive was undertaken by the BMC on the basis of court orders.” Other civic officials added that the demolition had been delayed due to the Election Commission's Model Code of Conduct that temporarily suspended any demolition till the completion of the Lok Sabha elections.Having had to live on the streets, especially during the monsoon, the residents are vulnerable to worms and mosquitoes. Dhrupata’s son, for instance, caught an infection from living on the streets – and many other residents have recently recovered from dengue.But their issues with safety are much grimmer. “After we built our houses on the side of the street, goons would show up. One day I was sleeping outside my tent and a goon was about to hit me over the head with an iron rod. A few men showed up on time on their scooters and shouted at him or he would’ve killed me that day," Lakshmi alleges.The entire area where the Jai Bhim Nagar basti first stood is now encircled by blue tarpaulin sheets, hauntingly similar to the sheets the residents have had to use for their makeshift homes.Priyadarshi points out, “Hiranandani Group has encircled this area to ‘protect the land’ – and has placed guards to keep an eye on everything. They have also put CCTV cameras."The Quint reached out to Hiranandani Group, but they declined to comment on these allegations.“After the demolition, the residents have settled in two nearby areas – one just ahead of the Powai Plaza, and then there’s the 90-ft Road. Approximately 40-50 families are living here, and around 70 families live on the other side. Some women, if they’re finding any opportunity to sleep somewhere else, are taking those for their safety,” Priyadarshi adds.Hiranandani acquired the privately owned land for a temporary labour camp in 2007, but the builder hadn't cleared the land, S Ward officer Bhaskar Kasgikar told The Hindustan Times in June 2024, adding, "The land is for government offices – and the owner will build those."In 2017, the builder secured an eviction notice from the BMC under Section 152 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act. Kasgikar had also mentioned that several people had approached the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC) to get the area vacated but previous attempts had been unsuccessful.Priyadarshi recounts that the people of Jai Bhim Nagar had, as a result, been ‘quite vigilant about their rights’ since 2017. “They had started a documentation process, and they filed a case against Hiranandani to claim that they’ve been living here for decades,” he adds.The developer had reportedly offered the residents permanent alternate accommodation in Mahatma Phule Nagar, but they had demanded relocation in the same area.On 28 December 2023, a complaint with the SHRC stated that "non-removal of unauthorised construction violates the human rights of the public at large of those staying in the said locality," Jan Haq Sangharsh Samiti, a civil rights group, found. Civil officials cited a directive from the MSHRC in the matter for the demolition in June. After the demolition, 28 residents approached the High Court seeking prosecution of civic officials and the police under the IPC provisions of trespassing, voluntarily causing hurt, and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.The criminal suit filed by the petitioners questions the legality of the demolition and the arrest of residents from the basti after the stone pelting on 6 June. The petitioners submitted "800 hutments, including the hutments of the clients, were lawfully constructed 30 years back" and claimed that the residents and families have legal and valid documents. Several petitioners had attached their voter IDs and bank documents.In August, the Bombay High Court set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the FIR registered with respect to the violence that erupted in the aftermath.The Quint also reached out to the BMC in the matter. The story will be updated as and when they respond.Lakshmi Pawar, a 60-year-old resident, was among those arrested on 6 June. She recounts to The Quint, “When they came to demolish our homes, I went inside and locked the door, but they broke down my door and hit me. That is the truth, and that is what I’ve said in custody, and this is the matter in court. I am 60; I can’t attack someone. They arrested me regardless and kept me in custody for 8-9 days. I have nothing left with me other than a few clothes."“The cops asked me, ‘How is the prison air?’ But what crimes did I commit? Who did I hit? All I need in life is a place to live and a good education for our children. Our lives have been ruined. I just want the children here to have the opportunity for a better life,” she adds.A woman behind her chimes in that she hasn’t eaten properly in a few days and lives with four children.“How are the poor supposed to live? Who should we go and ask for Rs 20 or Rs 100? What kind of life is this? Just kill us all, no poor people will be left.”A resident of Jai Bhim Nagar

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'Can't Demolish Our Spirit': In Mumbai's Jai Bhim Nagar, Women Who Won't Give Up

With no proper housing, the fight of women slumdwellers of Mumbai's Jai Bhim Nagar is about women’s safety.

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