The law of the land is the law of the realtor
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COMMENTS 
The ongoing battle of the slumdwellers of Golibar, Mumbai, is not just a battle against big builders, but against a system that is loaded against them. It is a battle that is playing out in many different parts of the country
“It’s only after all our homes are broken down that the government will do something about the criminal case,” said Sudesh Paware of Golibar’s Ganesh Krupa Society.
Coming back to Golibar after yet another demolition drive is like meeting a friend whose face has been blown off. Every building that has survived previous demolition drives is an expression of resistance, with graffiti on the walls against the builder and against that symbol of destruction -- the bulldozer. And still the demolitions continue…
The first one was on November 24, 2010, when people managed to drive away the bulldozers. Then, on January 20, 2011, following beatings (a 14-year-old boy was beaten up by the police), arrests and a lathi-charge, the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority managed to break down 20 homes. And again on February 2, 3 and 4, when residents patiently sat out the demolitions. “Let them break our homes, we’re family people, we can’t see our wives and children in jail again,” said Paware.
On May 19, bulldozers drove into the centre of the society, smashing through homes and littering rubble where people used to hold their meetings. Sudesh Paware was in jail for the next six days. This time the script was a little different: after some stone-pelting, the police arrested around 13 people, including an 80-year-old woman. They broke down home after home as residents looked on helplessly and activists tried to contact every official they could, from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) chief to the chief minister, to stop the demolition. The next day, activists and residents were detained at the nearby Kherwadi police station. And the demolitions continued…
On February 2, the High Court ordered the police to chargesheet the chief promoters of the project. People expected the builder to be chargesheeted and prosecuted for fraud. Instead, the police and MHADA came to demolish more homes…
Golibar is in Khar East, between the prime real estate properties of the up-market suburb of Bandra West and the Mumbai aiport, and is rated at Rs 10,000-20,000 per sq ft. With a population of over 26,000 people (7,350 families), it was registered as a slum in 1995. There are 46 societies in Golibar, out of which Ganesh Krupa Society has recently been on the forefront of the struggle against the builder. They had paid a property tax of Rs 504,920 on January 18, 2003 to become legal land owners of the land.
Most of the residents belong to the working class or have small businesses: there are government clerks, railway workers, mechanics, plumbers, artists, street food vendors, small restaurant owners, cooks, waiters, party workers, etc. Almost all the homes are two-storied brick homes with water connections, electricity, a sewage system, along with public toilets for the entire slum.
It’s now over 90 days since the High Court order was passed. As of July 11 there has been no chargesheet against the builder.
What instead happened is that a nine-day hunger strike by Medha Patkar ‘helped’ the government initiate two committees to investigate allegations of fraud against the builder and 15 other SRA schemes across Mumbai. The government has since reneged on this promise, even after thousands of slum-dwellers, working class fathers, husbands, wives and families marched for two days from Golibar to Mantralaya on June 28 and 29.
The builder, Shivalik Ventures, and some residents of Ganesh Krupa Society challenged the government in the High Court, alleging that the committees would be biased. The builder allegedly paid crowds to march to Mantralaya to show the government that they too had support!
The committees have since been cancelled and the people of Ganesh Krupa Society and Golibar know they could face yet another demolition drive.
Government directives state that there can be no slum demolitions during the monsoon. But these directives are not followed when the High Court orders demolitions, as in the recent demolition drive in Dharavi on June 6 and 7, 2011, where hundreds of homes around a water pipeline were destroyed during heavy rains.
Background to Golibar
The Slum Rehabilitation Act requires that a builder get consent from 70% of residents before he can begin to develop the area. In this case, Shivalik Ventures has papers to show that it has the consent of 95% of the residents which, it is charged, is nothing short of forgery. In the case of Ganesh Krupa Society, the general body meeting where residents ‘gave their consent’ was a ghostly affair as even the dead came back to life to give their consent to the builder. One old lady, Sulochana Pawar, who died on January 30, 2005, signed her consent, in English, at a meeting held by the builder on February 7, 2009!
When people went to the police to lodge a First Information Report, the police refused to do so. They then complained to the Slum Rehabilitation Authority that took no cognisance of their complaints. Finally, they went to the courts that ordered the police to lodge an FIR; the police did so without mentioning the builder.
In its order dated February 2, 2011 (during a demolition drive), the court stated: “The first grievance made in this petition is that the investigating officer has, for reasons best known to him, not mentioned the names of the partners of M/s Madhu Construction Company as accused in spite of being named by the petitioner as involved in commission of alleged offence.” The partners referred to are Shivalik Ventures.
“The other grievance made before us is that although more than three months have elapsed since passing of the order dated September 15, 2010, in Criminal Writ Petition No 2383 of 2010 which was filed by the petitioner, the investigating officer has merely registered the FIR and done nothing more.”
“We are also at a loss to know as to why the investigating officer has not proceeded against the accused for the last 90 days.”
The criminal court continued to pass orders that no one paid any attention to. But the response of the civil courts was surprising: It ruled the civil case in favour of Shivalik Ventures by stating: “We find that out of 320 tenements in the concerned slum, as many as 167 tenements have been demolished and occupants have already been shifted to temporary alternative accommodation. Therefore no useful purpose will be served by allowing the petitioners to raise any dispute about the meeting which was held on February 7, 2009.” (italics added)
In essence, what the High Court is saying is that no useful purpose will be served by taking cognisance of mass forgery. In other words, no useful purpose will be served by following the law.
Officers at MHADA and the police are happy to cite this case, which the people lost, to justify their demolition drives.
But what about the order on April 12, 2011, in the criminal case, Writ Petition 172 of 2011?
“That this hon’ble High Court be pleased to direct to issue a writ of mandamus or appropriate writ order in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to include the names of the partners of M/s Madhu Construction Company, viz Bhagwandas Gilda, Vasudev M Gilda, Gangadevi M Gilda as accused in the FIR No 234/2010.’ (italics added)
So the High Court also says, chargesheet the builder. But the police demolishes people’s homes instead, repeatedly stating that “the matter is under investigation”.
All of this was pointed out to Chief Secretary Ratnakar Gaekwad and SRA chief S S Zende under whose purview the letter of intent to the builder can be cancelled according to SRA rules and regulations, if a criminal case were to be proved against the builder.
Still no one moved. It was only after Medha Patkar’s nine-day hunger strike that the government considered setting up a committee. Just the setting up of a committee.
The media is the menace
The reaction of the mainstream media, always quick to support ‘development’ that favours the middle class and rich, has been quite predictable. Most stress that the Golibar slums are ‘illegal’, completely missing the point that the builder has committed fraud. Many term the issue a ‘local’ issue, a ‘right to housing’ struggle. But this is a battle against the rot in the system, against a corrupt system that is supposed to protect the rights of people.
In one afternoon paper a reporter writes: “While you struggle to buy a house with your hard-earned money, all slum-dwellers in the city, irrespective of when they came to Mumbai, could get housing for a pittance if activist Medha Patkar has her way.”
Who does not struggle to buy a house with their hard-earned money? Does a slum-dweller not have the right to demand a home to build the city that the rich live in? Does this reporter think that the working classes of the city don’t “struggle to build a home with their hard-earned” money?
Leading dailieshave mentioned Shubhangi Shinde, ex-resident of Ganesh Krupa Society, who has been chargesheeted as an offender in the forgery case. That she is to be investigated by the police for her involvement in the forgery has not been noted in their reports. She is quoted only as saying that their rehabilitation has been delayed.
Previously, in February, the mainstream media gave full coverage to another pro-builder rally. But when an anti-builder rally was held, most news organisations gave it no coverage.
Meanwhile, the builder is putting up across the slum hoardings of articles written in his favour. The outcome of a very calculated media strategy is one that is repeated across the country: divide and rule. Get at least 10% of the people in favour of the builder and the media can easily manipulate it into a majority.
(Javed Iqbal is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers issues related to human rights)
Infochange News & Features, July 2011