Mumbai: Shantabai Annapowar, 60, sat down quietly on a pavement overflowing with drain water from a recent downpour. She did not try to bail out the water or do anything else. 

There was little choice. 

The pavement has been her home since 6 June 2024, when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), aided by local police, demolished her two-room brick home and others like it, leaving about 700 working-class families—including construction workers, auto drivers, maids, street vendors—homeless. 

Many residents, including women, were beaten and some detained for up to a week, according to Annapowar’s now-homeless neighbours.

Annapowar’s home on the pavement is in Jai Bhim Nagar or JBN as it is known locally, a slum in northeastern suburb of Powai, directly opposite a forest of high-rises, malls and cafes in a neighbourhood called Hiranandani Gardens. 

The demolition of JBN and the aftermath is a case study of what happens frequently in India’s richest city when, as local and activists allege, a politically connected builder gains construction or redevelopments rights to a low-income neighbourhood. 

The process, they said, often leaves those on the land without homes, an issue that has arisen again as India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, is poised to gain control of Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, home to nearly a million people.

The latest example of the poorest being evicted while rich developers flourish was evident when a 30 October 2024 deadline to vacate about 8,000 residents of a working-class neighbourhood in Mumbai’s Nalasopara East expired. 

The Supreme Court confirmed a high court order to demolish 41 illegal buildings, urging the government to consider rehabilitation of the thousands of mostly workers who may soon be homeless.

JBN was originally a labour camp for the builders, the Hiranandani Group, whom a state-government body, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, in 2011, accused of converting low-cost housing into luxury flats. 

The evictions of 6 June are seared into the memory of the families of his former employees who lived there and helped build the tony sprawl of Hiranandani Gardens.

“They came (BMC officials, the police and private bouncers) with such  force that we had no time,” said Annapowar, a calm, Marathi-speaking woman dressed in a pink and yellow saree. 

She lived in her JBN house for 30 years before backhoe excavators tore it down. “They started beating us up, injuring me and several others.”

Reduced To Rubble

The bruises on her legs, arms and back are no longer visible, but Annapowar winced as she spoke, at the memory of the day when her life’s possessions and home were reduced to rubble. 

Around her, other women spoke of the lack of privacy and safety with their toilets demolished, the struggle for hygiene during menstruation. 

Near Annapowar, Laxmi Powar, 32, a maid, had set up a changing and washing space for other women outside her tent. It was enclosed with a dupatta and bedsheets. This is where women now change and bathe, using a bucket with water from two water tanks supplied by municipal tankers after pressure from students and other activists.

Many children fell sick after the demolition, they said, from exposure and water entering the tents.

JBN was mainly inhabited by Dalits. Many migrated from south Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Most residents were the offspring of migrants who made the journey north between three and four decades ago. 

Starting from scratch, carving out homes in what was then an uninhabited area.

“I have lived here, I got married here. My kids were born here and my husband died here,” said Annapowar, who was about a year to two years old when her parents came to JBN from Andhra Pradesh. “This area was nothing but thick forest.”

The JBN demolition was one among a rash of similar actions by governments nationwide, particularly in states run by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This manner of demolitions —without hearings, notices or translocation opportunities—violates due process, as Article 14 has reported (here, here and here). 

The targets of these demolitions have overwhelmingly been minorities and other disadvantaged communities, according to a February 2024 report from Amnesty International, an advocacy. 

More than 738,000 had been evicted nationwide in home demolitions, according to a 2024 estimate by the Housing and Land Rights Network, a think tank and advocacy group.

On 13 November 2024, the Supreme Court declared demolitions without due process illegal and violative to the constitutional right to shelter. It stopped all demolitions, except those on a road, footpath or along a railway line or water body or if there is a demolition order pending.

The demolition at JBN appeared to violate several court judgements, including the latest in July and September 2024 by the Bombay High Court, restricting or forbidding demolitions in the manner that the state government did.

Undermining The Law

The JBN demolitions reveal how—as the Supreme Court noted—the law is undermined: notices, even when issued are either backdated, cursory & issued as little more than a formality in a manner meant not to uphold but subvert the law and due process

On 3 June, JBN residents said, two BMC notices were pasted on the doors of a toilet and a storehouse, ordering the residents to vacate their homes within three days, since the land belonged to the Hiranandani Group.  

The residents alleged they were only given three days to vacate the area. “They (BMC officials) told us to leave the area on 6 June,” said Govind Limbode of JBN.

On 5 June, the residents were called for a meeting by Mumbai senior police inspector Jitendra Sonawane of the Powai police.

“The [police] said the place where we have been living for decades belongs to the builder and BMC had given them a notice,” said Limbode.  “He threatened us and told us they would force us out if we did not leave.”

Sonawane accused JBN residents of violence against his colleagues, throwing stones at the police and injuring 35.

"Not only did they throw stones at us, they also threw mirchi powder on us, and we still did not do anything to them," he said.

After pleas for four more days to gather their things, the police said they ordered JBN residents to vacate their homes by 6 June. 

Early the next morning, the residents decided to make a last attempt and began a sit-in. Adorning the entry with B R Ambedkar’s photos, they demanded the government take back the notice.

Soon after, the residents said, the police, BMC officials and “bouncers of Hiranandani” forced their way in.

The JBN demolitions came to public notice after allegations that the builder of Hiranandani Gardens was involved, against a backdrop of allegations that a “real-estate mafia” was active in Mumbai, where land values are among the highest in the world. 

The Hiranandani Group is one of India’s leading real-estate developers, with projects in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad. The group was started by Niranjan Hiranandani and his brother Surendra in 1978.

Forsaken By City They Helped Build

JBN residents said they had either played a part in building the city or worked in the homes of those who came later but had now been forsaken by city officials and their employers.

Govind Limbode, 45, said he first came to JBN in 1996 to work on one of Mumbai’s link roads connecting the western and eastern seaboards.  “It was when I was working on the Link Road construction that I stayed back in Jai Bhim Nagar,” he said.

Others said they had been part of various construction projects through the 1990s and early 2000s, after which they stayed back. Many made temporary homes in then sparsely populated Powai, and worked at jobs constructing Hiranandani Gardens.

Currently, the majority of JBN’s people work as migrant labourers, while many women work as maids or cooks in Hiranandani Gardens. 

“When our homes were demolished, these [people from the] same homes did not show us an ounce of sympathy,” said Laxmi Powar, 32, mother of five. Wearing a yellow saree, her hair neatly tied in a bun, she said since their home was gone, the children asked why they were living on the pavement.

“We live on the pavement… how do we send our children to school in this situation,” she said.

On the pavement abutting her demolished home, wearing a green saree, Meenabai Limbode said even the strongest among them were left “broken”.

“We decided to protest (that day) because not only were they taking away our houses, but also demolishing them,” said Limbode, 40, a mother of six, and a domestic worker in one of the Hiranandani buildings. 

She is now de facto spokesperson for JBN’s people. “Over almost three decades, we built these homes, but now we are left with nothing,” she said.

At least 15 now-homeless residents we spoke to displayed Aadhaar, ration and electricity bills, official acknowledgement that JBN was home to them. On many cards, their address reads: “room number N-2/4, Jaibhim Nagar – 2, 90 Feet Road, Powai.”

No FIR, Despite Court Order

On 20 June, Meenabai and 26 other residents filed a petition before the Bombay High Court seeking a first information report (FIR) against municipal and police officials for “extremely high handed and illegal and inhuman action” in demolishing their homes. 

The petition accused the Hiranandanis of “conniving and conspiring with the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai”  to evict them.

The petition alleged that officials ignored a 2021 Maharashtra government resolution prohibiting demolition of slums and houses on government or private lands in Mumbai during the monsoon, from 1 June to 30 September.

“If there is prima facie something amiss, we will look into it,” said a bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan on 8 August 2024, ordering the public prosecutor to begin investigations.

On 8 August, the Bombay High Court ordered the Powai police to register a FIR, the start of an investigation, against their compatriots and BMC officials and the establishment of a special investigation team. On 30 September, that order was reiterated.

On 1 October, the SIT released its report, holding the demolition to be illegal. 

"There was no order of demolition,” public prosecutor Hiten Venegavkar said, presenting the SIT report in Bombay HC on 30 September. The BMC contradicted that stand, claiming that the State Human Rights Commission had cleared demolition.  

The court asked that an FIR be registered within two days, said Rakesh Singh, lawyer representing JBN’s residents.

When this story was published, the FIR had not been filed.

“Since the SIT is investigating the matter, we will be able to comment only after it has completed its investigation,” said inspector Sonawane of the Powai police, quoted earlier.

Low-Cost Homes Become Luxury Flats

The history of JBN began in 1968 when the owner, the late Tara Sarup, a Mumbai businesswoman, said she gifted about 10 acres to her son Ajay Mohan. 

Mohan, in turn, sold it to 10 buyers.

The land was then sold again, after Mohan objected to some of the decisions made by the 10 buyers.

In 1984, the government signed a pact with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to build low-cost housing. The Hiranandani Group was to construct flats measuring 40 sq m and 80 sq m in size on the 230 acre land. 

Instead, a large majority of apartments were amalgamated and sold as luxury flats of 2,000 to 4,000 sq ft.

The government sold the Powai land to the Hiranandani Group in 2002. In 2008, the Bombay High Court restrained Hiranandani from selling the flats it had built. 

In 2012, the Maharashtra police Anti-Corruption Bureau registered a case against the Hiranandani Group after an inquiry by the MMRDA commissioner revealed that the developer had used just 15% for low-income housing instead of 100% as the government required. 

Simply put, the plush Hiranandani Garden and other landmarks in Powai are allegedly built on land reserved for mass housing, worth Rs 45,000 crore today. 

Mumbai activist Shubham Kothari from the Jan Haq Sangharsh Samiti, or People’s Rights Protest Committee, said, "In 2023 Hiranandani told the Bombay High Court that he has constructed those 3,100 houses and is willing to hand them over to the MMRDA."

In 2012, the Bombay HC had ordered the developer to construct 3,100 houses. MMRDA had only demanded 128 houses. “The rest were sold by Hiranandani but were not under his jurisdiction to do so,” Kothari said.

“We have now comment on this for now,” said Ritika Shah, group communication head for the Hiranandani Group, when Article 14 sought comment on the demolitions and the allegations against them.

When the developer put up a board for construction in 2005, some of the original 10 buyers went to court, and a long, legal battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, in a case called Ajay Mohan & Ors vs H.N. Rai & Ors on 12 December, 2007.

While Hiranandani’s name was not mentioned in the fight for ownership, the group used a part of the property, without ownership papers and set up a labour camp in 2002 for their construction workers. 

This was what came to be known as Jai Bhim Nagar. 

On 8 November 2023, Namit Keni, son of former Bharatiya Janata Party corporator Ranjana Keni filed a case with the State Human Rights Commission seeking the demolition of JBN because it was an illegal settlement.

However, the BMC and the district collector said JBN was not an illegal slum. But the Maharashtra (SHRC) ordered demolition. 

A real-estate developer who works with the Hiranandani Group, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed the government for the confusion.

“We need development, and Hiranandani is a visionary who has that,” he said. “The slums are handled by the authorities and they should look into it.”

2 Toilet Blocks For More Than 3,000

For JBN’s people—homeless in their tents after their brick homes built painstakingly over the years were demolished—vulnerability to diseases and safety have become major issues. 

Blue barricades covered what was once JBN when we visited. Private guards in navy, blue uniforms patrolled the area. 

After civil-rights groups intervened, the BMC installed two portable toilet blocks, inadequate for more than 3,000 now homeless.

“We dispatched a letter to the authorities after which they just provided two running toilets and water, but it is not enough,” said Adarsh Priyadarshani, member of Collective Mumbai, a union of student activists. 

The condition of JBN’s people, said activists, revealed how most marginalised communities fell victim to the rush for land in Mumbai, which has some of the highest real-estate prices in India and the world.

A Nexus

Mumbai environmentalist Zoru Bhatena alleged that Mumbai’s real estate business was now part of a “political mafia”.

“They run the government, the police and the SRA (Slum Rehabilitation Authority),” said Bathena. “They (government authorities) make a show of helping or supporting the people. But their work is contrary to that.” 

More examples of handing over land to big businesses have emerged in Mumbai, with two major contracts to the Adani group.

Earlier this month, the union cabinet approved an Adani takeover of 103 acres of salt-pan land on the city’s eastern peripheries to construct rental housing for slum dwellers.

Across town to the west, Adani’s Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRV) aims to rehouse 650,000 residents who live in a 2.5-sq-km precinct that is considered to be one of the world’s largest slums. 

The joint venture between the Maharashtra government and the Adani Group—first proposed in 2004—has been severely criticised by locals and others. The contract was signed by Maharashtra’s current coalition government, led by the BJP.

Both projects will allow the conglomerate to develop a portion of the land for profit.

“This is a fight between Adani and the people of Dharavi,” said Samya Korde, a member of the Marxist Peasants and Workers Party of India. 

Sitting in a small office in the teeming slum of Dharavi, the young 23-year-old activist cum organiser said that the people of Dharavi were fighting the  project through the Dharavi bachao andolan or Save Dharavi movement.

The Dharavi Project

A government official with the DRV, speaking on condition of anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the media, acknowledged that the project would not be easy.

“We have been unsuccessful in getting tenders for the project before,” said the official. “The Adani group is brave enough to take over the project. It is true that the tenders were given… at a lower price compared to what it was set at, and that is mostly because no other company stepped forward to take over the project.” 

S V R Srinivas, head of the Dharavi Redevelopment Authority, which comes under the SRA, said they were meeting locals to allay concerns.

“Regular surveys are also taking place,” said Srinivas. “Initially, the people of Dharavi were hesitant but they are on board now.” 

Korde and other residents of Dharavi said these claims were not true.

“Both Dharavi and Jai Bhim Nagar are separate cases but reveal an eerie picture of land mafia and corporates in Mumbai,” Korde said.

Back at JBN, they intend to fight on.

“We want our [new] house here itself,” said Meenabhai. “We want the authorities to compensate us, so that we can rebuild our lives.”

(Nikita Jain is an independent journalist.)

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