In Bombay, the largest slum in Asia threatened by the greed of real estate developers

The ovens heat continuously, spreading acrid smoke to the top floor of Yusuf Galwani’s workshop, a three-story house accessible by steep iron stairs. They bake diyas, small terracotta candle holders, and oil lamps. Cast one floor lower, they will soon be used by Hindus for Divali, the festival of lights, celebrated each year between the end of October and the beginning of November. The season of religious festivities has begun in India and, for Yusuf Galwani, it marks the peak of his activity. The artisan exports his products all over the world and employs seven potters who also shape large ornamental pots for the major hotels in Bombay. The renowned potter is not based in an upscale neighborhood, but in Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, with nearly a million residents and extreme density in the heart of Bombay: more than 350,000 inhabitants per kilometer square. This city within a city offers an extraordinary range of religions, castes, languages, provinces and ethnicities. A concentrate of India, both precarious and joyful, with a thriving informal economy, far from the sordid image conveyed by the film Slumdog Millionaire, which made it famous. The 240 hectares of Dharavi form a labyrinth of alleys, where small adjoining brick houses fit together: temples, mosques, churches and some 20,000 businesses and specialized workshops. Leather goods, suitcases, backpacks, textiles, clothing, pottery and papadums (thin, crunchy bread cakes which dry in the sun on huge overturned baskets) come out of here. The shantytown also recycles, in noisy workshops from another century, old machines, car parts, oil cans, drums of chemicals, bottles: everything that the city has rejected. The global annual turnover of companies is estimated at 1 billion dollars (approximately 0.92 billion euros). In a workshop that makes lamps used during the Hindu festival of Diwali, in the Dharavi district of Bombay (India), November 7, 2023. NIHARIKA KULKARNI / NURPHOTO VIA AFP The smoky potters’ district (Kumbharwada), where Yusuf lives Galwani, has nearly 2,500 families. With his three brothers, he inherited his parents’ house. He was born here, has never known any other environment, but his future is uncertain. The government of Maharashtra, managed by a coalition close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, entrusted, following a call for tenders, in November 2022, a project to renovate the slum to the Indian tycoon Gautam Adani. You have 78.02% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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