It may have seemed like looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but when Parveen Shaikh, a pavement dweller, moved into her free-of-cost government-built dwelling unit in Natwarlal Parekh Colony in 2008, she and others like her were struck by the rudimentary design and architecture.
“It was as if the government thought that these people used to live on the footpaths so they wouldn’t mind whatever residence we provide them with. If they had thought to consult the end-users first, especially the women, we might have been able to suggest how small spaces could be made better,” says Ms Shaikh. For instance, she adds, a small slab could have been built over the kitchen space to store utensils, or a partition to divide the single room between the kitchen and the sleeping area.
The narrow road that runs behind Shivaji Nagar police station near Chembur that leads to a large block of 60 buildings that form Natwarlal Parekh resettlement colony — a free housing scheme for pavement dwellers — smacks of poor design: extremely narrow lanes separate buildings, their proximity to each other ensuring that very little sunlight gets through even into balconies on the upper floors. Many wear a rundown look and open sewers line the lanes.
A few, however, seem to have been given a recent coat of bright pink paint, and several dwelling units have been refurbished, thanks to the work done by Ms Shaikh and other leaders of the Mahila Milan, a poor womens’ collective that works in alliance with the Mumbai-based NGO SPARC (Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres) and the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) to improve access to housing for the city’s poorest and works in partnership with the government to provide better living infrastructure.
SPARC, founded in 1984 by Sheela Patel, worked to build capacity and organisation among the city’s pavement dwellers and introduced a system of household savings. In 1986, SPARC joined hands with the NSDF and Mahila Milan to form the Indian Alliance that today works in about 70 cities across India and has networks in about 70 countries.
“When we started working with them, pavement dwellers were not included in any government category eligible for alternative housing. We did a survey of pavement dwellers living on arterial roads and proved that they were among the poorest people, had been living in the city for many years and deserved to be included in rehabilitation projects,” says Ms Patel.
The SPARC alliance’s initiative to help inhabitants of free housing schemes recalibrate how they use their living space earned it the prestigious Curry Stone Design Prize, given to projects that improve living conditions for communities around the world. While the prize acknowledges urban, landscape and even product or graphic design, the award for the SPARC alliance recognises its contribution to innovation and improvement of built environment.
The alliance project, titled ‘What slum dwellers can teach design professionals’, throws up crucial questions on the role of architects and planners in Mumbai’s context, where slum redevelopment and the running initiative for a slum-free Mumbai has a long narrative.
Making the most of little
Walking through the corridors of one of the painted buildings, Ms Shaikh, a community leader with Mahila Milan — the collective manages savings and credit schemes in their communities — explains how the organisation has worked to refurbish the building that had been unoccupied for years. “These buildings were built to provide free housing for pavement dwellers, but the government didn’t move people in on time and the buildings eventually fell into disrepair,” she says.
When the recipients finally took up residence, they found the units to be pretty much unliveable. Over three years, the Mahila Milan hired plumbers and contractors to fix toilets, electricity lines, proper doors and sliding windows in each unit before getting people to move in.
Going beyond changes to the internal architecture of each unit, Mahila Milan has worked to refurbish some of the buildings, converting many ground floor units into workshops where community members make bangles, handkerchiefs and sanitary pads. “When people are moved here from faraway places, they need some work,” says Ms Shaikh.
Amateur architects
In a makeshift meeting place outside one of the passageways, a group of Mahila Milan functionaries sit chatting with 67-year-old Jockin Arputham, president, NSDF. Though none of them have been formally trained in architecture, their conversations revolve around physical improvements that can be carried out in each building.
The story of how the alliance evolved while working to improve living space best explains why its input on design is crucial today. When they started, says Mr Arputham, their predominant concern was to get pavement dwellers to move into permanent houses. “When I asked them why they couldn’t move to a permanent residence, they pointed to the lack of land. I organised weekend trips with about 300 women, and we would take a train to different parts of the city and identify empty tracts of land that could be used to construct housing schemes. We would find out who the land belonged to and initiate a dialogue with the government to get them to give the land for our use,” he says.
The next big question, says Mr Arputham, was on the kind of house these pavement dwellers wanted to live in. It involved conversations with the women residents on the ideal size for each house, where each member sleeps and where the toilet and kitchen should be located. Women, he says, are the actual architects in this initiative. “When you engage with the woman of the house, you know exactly what the family needs,” he adds.
In an organic way then, the Indian Alliance moved towards a discussion on design and architecture from what began as a process to organise communities. “When we formed the NSDF, the conversation was centred on anti-eviction. Then, with the backing of the alliance, we began talking of alternative housing when the evictions started. Then once we got into this space, we had to think about design and architecture,” says Mr Arputham.
Relook at slum redevelopment
Mustansir Dalvi, a professor at the Sir JJ College of Architecture, says the alliance’s work has played a key role in initiating a new kind of discussion on slum redevelopment and design. “Many firms are mainly engaged in building projects like those by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). They have never considered a participative process in which they can utilise the expertise that slum dwellers have in designing their own spaces,” he says. The reason behind this, he adds, is partly that for years, slum and pavement dwellers had a bad reputation and were portrayed as an unwanted urban plight that the city had to be rid of.
That conversation may have evolved over the years with people acknowledging the importance of these communities to the city’s economy, but as far as housing goes there is still a trust deficit. Ms Shaikh alludes to it when she says she reads reports in newspapers that pavement dwellers shouldn’t be given free housing because they will sell them and move elsewhere.
“There is a middle ground here and people have to realise that if you give them houses that are badly planned and don’t take into consideration how they actually live, then they will want to move elsewhere,” she adds.
