Residents of Powai's slum cluster look for hope amid civil suit

With the demolition of the Jai Bhim Nagar basti in Powai on June 6, 2024, making headlines, 600 families have dwindled to 30-odd, now living on the footpath behind Powai Plaza. A youth organization, COLLECTIVE Mumbai, is documenting their struggle and preparing a civil suit in the Bombay High Court to fight for their right to housing.

- Sabah Virani

MUMBAI: "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

With these words, invoking the Czechoslovakian writer Milan Kundera, Anand Teltumbde, the civil rights activist, released a report on the struggle of the Jai Bhim Nagar basti in Powai, which made headlines when it was demolished on June 6, 2024.

Teltumbde was commenting on the work of the students' youth organisation COLLECTIVE Mumbai and their documentation of the basti. In the eight months since, 600 families have dwindled to just 30-odd families, who have been living on the footpath behind Powai Plaza.

"No one is listening to us," said Shrimati Chauhan, one of the residents, speaking at the virtual meet. "They brought us here for work, and now that the work is over, they want us gone. We live in darkness."