Book Shook | Marginalised Pushed to Mumbai’s Margins, Slums Replaced by Luxury Aparments: Sidharth Bhatia

Name: Book Shook | Marginalised Pushed to Mumbai’s Margins, Slums Replaced by Luxury Aparments: Sidharth Bhatia - The Wire
Uploaded: 2026-02-13T16:29:40+05:30
Channel: The Wire
Description: On the question of the relation of Mumbai with its working class, Bhatia mentioned, 'Our relation with the working class now is very transactional. There is no entity called the working class left anymore. The working class is the service working class.'

On the question of the relation of Mumbai with its working class, Bhatia mentioned, 'Our relation with the working class now is very transactional. There is no entity called the working class left anymore. The working class is the service working class.'

Seema Chishti

In this episode of Book Shook, The Wire’s editor Seema Chishti is joined by Sidharth Bhatia, the author of Mumbai: A Million Islands, to discuss Mumbai of the past, its journey of change, its people, their dreams versus their reality and the increasing tendency of pushing its people to the margins of the city, in place of slums, having luxury buildings and a twisted sense of what ‘development’ means.

"[There's] a strange sense of loss, a change that is happening in the city, which is visible to every person who lives in the city. There have been references in all kinds of places. I have seen artists commenting upon it. What is happening? What is this turbo charge transformation. The marginalised communities have been pushed to the outskirts of the city and in their place, where there was a slum, there are luxury cars and luxury apartments," Bhatia said.

On the question of the relation of Mumbai with its working class, Bhatia mentioned, "Our relation with the working class now is very transactional. There is no entity called the working class left anymore. The working class is the service working class."

This article went live on February thirteenth, two thousand twenty six, at twenty-nine minutes past four in the afternoon.

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