HISTORY RENAMED....DHARAVI FROM A LOOSE MUD

Dharavi, spread over 540 acres of land and around 70,000 households, is the biggest slum in Asia. The history of Dharavi dates back to the pre-independence period. As per the records, the earliest colony of fishermen in the area known as Dharavi today was set up way back in 1910. Dharavi means ‘loose mud’ in the Tamil language. It might have got this name as 18th Century Dharavi was an island and a mangrove swamp, inhabited by the Koli fishermen. The Fishing Industry disappeared after the swamp areas filled up

Dharavi is located in Sion, also its old  name is  sheev.  The  translation of this Marathi word is ‘Border’. Historically, the Dharavi slum was set up outside the city because as per the prevalent social norms of that time, people involved in occupations such as leather, pottery and fishing were considered of lower caste and their place was outside the village.so they are live in city as 'Gavkusa bahercha jina.

In 1912, Mumbai was developing, and a port and sea-route was the only convenient itinerary to reach Mumbai from Gujarat. Around 150-200 potter families used to come from Saurashtra via the sea route to Mumbai for eight months a year. The next community to settle in Dharavi were the Embroidery workers from U.P. who were mostly Muslims and masters in their craft. The leather Tanning industry gave rise to the brewing of illicit liquor and boot legging and Dharavi became the refuge for criminals and Mumbai's Underworld.

Dharavi is routinely called "the largest slum in Asia," a dubious attribution sometimes conflated into "the largest slum in the world." This is not true. Mexico City's Neza-Chalco-Itza barrio has four times as many people. In Asia, Karachi's Orangi Township has surpassed Dharavi. Even in Mumbai, where about half of the city's swelling 12 million population lives in what is euphemistically referred to as "informal" housing, other slum pockets rival Dharavi in size and squalor.

Yet Dharavi remains unique among slums. A neighborhood smack in the heart of Mumbai, it retains the emotional and historical pull of a subcontinental Harlem—a square-mile (three square kilometers) center of all things, geographically, psychologically, spiritually. Its location has also made it hot real estate in Mumbai, a city that epitomizes India's hopes of becoming an economic rival to China. Indeed, on a planet where half of humanity will soon live in cities, the forces at work in Dharavi serve as a window not only on the future of India's burgeoning cities, but on urban space everywhere.

                                                                                               - Beyond Dharavi Tours 

                                                                                           poonam@beyonddharavi.com