We wrestled with this decision right up until the night before we decided to go on a Reality Tour of Dhariva Slum. I can honestly say that while we feared it might be ghoulish exploitation, or it might be a tourist trap, or it might end up a guilt-trip-from-hell; it was in fact one of the most horizon-broadening three hours I can remember. A severe dose of how-the-other-half-live perspective can be a truly life-changing experience.
We began the tour at Dhobhi-Ghat, dubbed "the world's largest outdoor laundry" (pictured above), an area in central Mumbai dedicated to the city's dirty laundry (although one rapidly losing its relevance as more and more people can afford their own washing machines, we were told). As many as 1,000 people staff this facility, originally put in place by The British one hundred years ago; and as many as 10,000 move through its cubicles in a year. More than 200,000 items of clothing are washed here in a day. But far more importantly, rupees are earned and saved by the itinerant workers who see it as their chance to radically upgrade their financial fortunes. It's a phenomenal sight, but served only as a preview of the main event: human resourcefulness writ large.
Another brutal preview was a miserable and fiercely depressing drive through the Mumbai red light district, also instituted by the British a hundred years ago. We were hit with the stark evonomic reality many of the women who staff this zone face every day. Most are trafficked here on the promise of lucrative jobs, only to find that they must buy their freedom from squalor and sexual farming at a cost of 30,000 rupees. This alone is not wholly shocking. This disgusting reality occurs in Sydney too, although at a smaller scale. What was disturbing and soul-destroying was driving past the Police Station which turns a blind eye to both the illegal prostitution and human traffic racquets in return for baksheesh from the brothel owners.
Exploitation of the poor and needy is a horrible crime. But you'd be surprised who else is complicit. That it's the police in this case is infuriating; but when it comes to Mumbai's poor, no one's hands are clean as we found out as the morning grew older.
Dhariva - an hour north of the Victoria Terminus and within sight of planes landing at the International airport - is the Mumbai slum where Slumdog Millionaire was set as well as many scenes from Shantaram. In many ways it's the "poster-child" of slum life, if such a phrase can be palatable. An astonishing one million people dwell here in an area half the size of New York's Central Park. But a more remarkable statistic, and one that tells Dhariva's story very succinctly, is its annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product - its turnover): US$655 million. Within three generations since its founding, heart-shaped Dhariva has plugged itself indispensibly into the global supply chain to make itself a critical piece of most multi-nationals' production line. Many producers might not even know, consumers certainly do not, but it's an inescapable truth we cannot hide from.
Dhariva's main business is industrial scale recycling. Paper, plastic, metal, anything. Paint cans, TV dinner cartons, soap, TVs. The roofs are stacked with mountains of waiting office furniture and electronic devices while the narrow grimy streets are rammed with second or third generation material product. All of it re-constituted for the big companies so they can re-purpose waste at a great saving on the bottom line. Crushing machines for recycling materials are resourcefully engineered right there in the slum. Some have made fortunes setting up these factories amid this "informal housing zone", the real "Slumdog Millionaires".
Thousands of workers - of all ages, beginning maybe at 13 - slave long hours in health-damaging conditions to feed their children and/or send money home to relatives in rural India. The stench of petro-chemical fumes resulting from these toxic processes mixes with the already putrid smells of the hygiene-challenged streets to turn the stomach and take the throat. But the sheer resourcefulness of the people we walked past and encountered is so uplifting, in a way that amplifies what we first felt back in Kolkata in our first week on this trip across India. Determination, innovation, initiative and discipline are all the hallmarks of these people, and it was a privilege to witness it in action.
The pre-conceptions of slum though are sadly realistic. Lean-to dwellings made from anything from brick and concrete to corrugated iron cheek-by-jowl on dirty streets so narrow both your shoulders can brush the walls at the same time as you walk. Large extended families liven rooms not much bigger than your average office cubicle. Electricity wiring is improvised low overhead in a way that threatens great danger one would think. Drainage and sewerage is Dickensian (as I found out when my foot plunged down almost to my knee into a open drain of god-knows-what - something I was pleased to hear also famously happened to a cameraman shooting scenes for Slumdog!).
But life goes on. Children are fed, clothed and bathed. Hard work is pursued, families grow and subsist. Community nourishes. In fact, the slum community is so strong that when Government Rehabilitation programs sought to re-house people in privately-built apartment blocks, many - in theory lifted out of slum poverty - soon returned to the slum as the comparative comforts of a flat did not make up for the deprivation of what really got people through their struggle - community. Community is knitted together based on religion, region and caste. Many lifted up through education programs continue to live there, despite their white collar jobs. Our inspiring guide Ballalji for instance, who still lives in the slum despite working for Reality Tours and studying.
But while so much of the two-hour walking tour was uplifting and inspiring, one over-riding thought kept returning as we perused the finished product of all this resourceful and productive labour: who profited? We saw laptop bags being made, we saw tanning shops producing leather builds of the kind you see hanging in department stores for $30-80 each. Leather jackets, shoes and handbags ready to be branded with expensive luxury icons. Empty paint tins ready for filling with new paint product companies will retail at profitable mark-up. Small local operations to huge global companies together are stripping extensive cost out of their production line but no doubt failing to share the profits fairly or responsibly with those working so hard and so in need of their deserved due. Who was providing healthcare for these workers who were ruining their unprotected lungs with toxic exposures in order to keep their paymasters competitive. Who was providing the super-annuation for this army of labour who would hit a weak and tired old-age long before their time?
As with the women in the red light district, a lot of blind eyes are being turned. But instead of ignorant and corrupt local policemen, in this case it is likely much higher up the food chain.