Mumbai: When I ask Naufil Sarang if he has ever worked or trained in journalism, he laughs and says that it is circumstance that has forced him to become one. Sarang started Fight For Wrong, a registered news and media organisation on June 28, 2023, to document the series of demolition drives that residents of Bharat Nagar, Bandra East – where his family has also held residence for the last three generations – have deemed illegal.

Bharat Nagar, in Mumbai’s Bandra East spans over 44 acres, and is divided into 22 societies. The area, located in the Bandra Kurla Complex, has long drawn the attention of multiple builder and developer groups, causing a long battle in which redevelopment contracts have switched hands multiple times. Photopasses are certificates issued to slum dwellers in Maharashtra.

According to locals, the redevelopment projects started in 1996, with Shyamkaran Enterprises first taking up the project, followed by HDIL in 2006, and finally the Adani-group promoted Budhpur Buildcon, whose rapid clearance drives have left the residents in a frenzy.

‘We do not fall under the SRA scheme’

Sarang’s organisation, activists and residents have protested against the issuing of demolition notices, alleging they are unlawful under sections 33 and 38 of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971, and that they have been “misattributed” as tenants of a Basera Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) Society, instead of a Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA)-designated Basera Co-operative Housing Society, which they claim to be registered members of.

Their primary contention is simple: they insist that they possess valid MHADA allotment letters from 1975 and have been paying rent for 50 years.

This follows the Supreme Court order in the Special Leave Petition (Civil) Diary No(s). 1225/2025, dated January 28, 2025, where it disposed of the petition filed by 230 residents led by Hasina Bi. The top court asked the Bombay high court to decide the pending writ petitions, on their own, uninfluenced by the highest court’s observations.

The dilemma is whether Bharat Nagar’s residents are eligible for rehabilitation under regulation 33(5) or 33(10) of the Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR), 1991.

Regulation 33(5) applies to MHADA tenants, offering larger structures (approximately 580 sq ft), while regulation 33(10) pertains to slum dwellers, providing smaller accommodations (approximately 269 sq ft).

Paragraph 17 of the Supreme Court’s directive states that eligible dwellers are entitled to constructed structures under regulation 33(10) for the time being. However, if the Bombay high court were to determine that they are MHADA tenants eligible under regulation 33(5), the developer and the authorities (SRA and MHADA) must make sure that they receive larger structures for accommodation.

While residents and locals have stated that they have no knowledge of rehabilitation buildings being ready, they have also stated that they continue to be recognised as a “censused slum”.

Tariq Khan, a resident who has been handling the majority of legal affairs in this regard, shared that this has been done in spite of there being an alleged 2018 gazette (dated May 23, 2018) issued by the urban development department under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 that classified this area as a MHADA layout.

The tenants have also alleged that the Adani group has been using its sheer financial and political power to undermine the cancellations of previous Annexures and NOCs (made during the HDIL era) which designated the area under the Slum Rehabilitation Act (SRA) by “issuing bogus photopasses”. Photopasses are certificates issued to slum dwellers in Maharashtra.

This has enabled them to execute demolitions and redevelopment work putting the 3,145 residents who claim their legal tenancy in the same boat as those deemed as encroachers.

After the persistent raising of voices, the MHADA has apparently sent a proposal to the government of Maharashtra for the redevelopment of the area to be conducted under sections 33(5), after the homes in the protesting plots of 7, 8, and 9 have been demolished. 

Exclusionary politics of redevelopment

The Bharat Nagar issue is not recent and neither is the ongoing displacement of its people. In a 2010 paper titled ‘Politics of Redevelopment: The Case of Bharat Nagar in Mumbai’, urbanist Prasad Shetty writes:

“In the early 1970s, large numbers of slum dwellers were relocated to different parts of Mumbai from their original places. These relocations were either to the outskirts of the city or to places with low land values at the time of displacement or to any land available to the Government. The displaced slum dwellers were either provided houses or land pitches (where they were to build their own houses) or accommodated into transit camps to be relocated at a later stage.

The relocation was implemented by the Mumbai Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), which became the landlord of all relocated families, who in turn became tenants of MHADA. Bharat Nagar in Bandra (East) is one such site on which relocation has taken place …

Most families in Bharat Nagar came from a nearby settlement that served the city abattoir. These were the butcher communities specializing in meat and skin trade. The abattoir activity was stopped following the new plan of mid 1960s that proposed shifting of polluting activities outside the city. The abattoir went, but the butcher settlement remained – to be shifted to Bharat Nagar.

The settlement was declared as a slum after the notions of good and standard living conditions prevailed in the city following the same new plan. Many such settlements got declared as slums at the same time and were resettled in planned colonies as a part of the large-scale eviction and relocation programme. After relocation, people found it difficult to feed their families as their economic networks had been severed.”

No city for the poor

As further displacement awaits them, the demands of the alleged “land-grabbing” that the residents have brought up need to be contextualised.

The Bandra-Kurla Complex, which is one of the most lucrative commercial regions in Mumbai, makes the value of land float around in the crores.

Besides Bharat Nagar, the Adani Group has undertaken redevelopment projects in several other parts of the city, including Motilal Nagar and Dharavi.

All of this adds up to the chronic problem that plagues Mumbai – that it is not a city for the poor, and that the people who cannot afford the sky-high prices of land and accommodation will be forced to move around, from place to place, knowing that no area is safe from temporality.

This gentrifying scheme is also not new, a possible parallel being Nargis Dutt Nagar, one of the biggest slums in Bandra West, which is going under a thousand-crore redevelopment project, with Omkar and Godrej Properties set out to construct a free-sale component as a luxury residential project. Residents in Nargis Dutt Nagar too have raised similar queries.

As Bharat Nagar and other housing societies stand to be demolished, it becomes increasingly apparent what is to become of Bandra East, and the impending futures of its people.

Promises and perseverance

The region has not been bereft of political interest. While Zeeshan Siddique, the son of former Bandra West MLA Baba Siddique (he was also MLA of the erstwhile Bandra seat before 2008), has linked the death of his father to this redevelopment project, Varun Sardesai, the current MLA of Bandra East, has reassured the residents of action.

A few locals also pointed out that multiple heavyweight politicians, including Aaditya Thackeray, had assured that the redevelopment project would take place under MHADA regulations, but did not follow up on it with much importance.

Upon my visit to Bharat Nagar, the owner of a tea stall in the area (name withheld to protect identity), states, “Media outlets have come and gone, and even when they write, they write very little. What is happening is a scam – not just with us, but the government, too.”

Locals and independent organisations have given multiple estimates, one even calculating that the MHADA will allegedly lose out on an amount of nearly Rs 50,000 crore. Amidst this frenzy, the people living in the area have found themselves in a sort of nowhere land – unsure of what is to come.

Sarang says, “A lot of the residents remain hopeful that everything will be done fairly in the end. They are staying in their demolished houses; some have even taken shelter in the nearby Anjuman School. I have also been urged by multiple people to take payouts, but I intend to see this through till the end.

“If they want to break my house down, so be it. The map of the place has changed, anyway,” he says.

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