In Mumbai: demolition as development

The air in Garib Nagar is thick with dust. And grief.

An anti-encroachment drive, carried out between May 19–23, 2026, destroyed around 500 hutments in Bandra East, Mumbai. These are the homes of daily wage and domestic workers.

Rubble is everywhere.

Under a tarpaulin, Alia Sheikh, Ruksar Khan Afsar, Asma Sheikh and Hina Khan are sitting together. They have been sleeping on the pavement opposite what used to be their homes for decades in this predominantly Muslim neighbourhood.

On the evening of May 17, residents of Garib Nagar received a notice that all the settlements surrounding Bandra Junction will be razed within two days.

The festival of Eid, celebrated by most of the residents here, was just a few days away. “Insaan ki insaaniyat kahan hai [Where is the humanity of human beings]?” Alia, a 52-year-old homemaker asks this reporter. The new clothes she had bought for her daughter-in-law and three grandchildren remain packed with the rest of her belongings.

The demolition was a result of a Bombay High Court order issued on April 29, 2026 permitting Western Railways to “continue demolishing structures it considers unauthorised on railway land near Bandra station as part of its expansion project.”

Residents of Garib Nagar were caught unawares. “The police arrived in vehicles and made announcements over loudspeakers telling us to remove our belongings because BMC vehicles are coming,” Ruksar says.

She gathered her belongings — a few clothes and one charpai [cot] — and walked out of Kaleem Seth’s scrap waste shop which she had swept clean that morning.

Rubble-clearing operations continue across the site. The hapless families have shifted to another pavement, but this too is off bounds, say the police who keep coming around.

Meanwhile, local residents and volunteers have been bringing food and water for the now homeless families. No official relief has been announced. This reporter reached out to Western Railways, but there has been no response.

Before the demolition, Ruksar earned around Rs. 200 a day, sweeping floors in the shops of Garib Nagar, all of which now lie in a pile of debris. She paid no rent. In exchange for sleeping outside Kaleem Seth’s shop every night, she used to sweep it clean every morning.

Ruksar’s expenses were small but unavoidable: 25 rupees for a bath and 20 rupees for laundry at the public toilet, beneath the Bandra station bridge.

Forty-five rupees a day — nearly a quarter of what she earns — goes towards simply staying clean. For food, Ruksar says, her neighbours opened up their kitchens to her. Aliya confirms, “hum sab milke dete the khana, humare sath hi khaati thi [we used to provide her food, and she would eat with us].”

This is not the first time Ruksar has had to start over with nothing. She arrived in Garib Nagar in 2006 after a decade of living on the streets in different parts of Mumbai. It was here that she found a sense of permanence. “No one bothered me while I slept here at night,” she says.

Now, the only home she had managed to build after years of homelessness is gone.

Born Adi Laxmi Reddy in Sri Sathya Sai district, Andhra Pradesh, Ruksar came to Mumbai in 1990 as a tourist. This resident of Kodapaganipalli village then eloped with her late husband, Sher Afsar Khan, taking on a new name and religion after marriage.

The marriage did not last. In 1996, while pregnant with her fourth child, she says she was forced out of her marital home. Though all four of her children now live in Jogeshwari which is roughly 10 kilometres away from Garib Nagar, she has had no contact with them for more than two decades.

Ruksar has been offered work sorting plastic bottles at Bandra Terminus. “Plastic ki bottle se label nikalne ka, chaaku se. Dhakkan nikalne ka. [I have to remove the labels from plastic bottles with a knife and separate the caps],” she explains.

The new arrangement comes with its own challenges. “There's no toilet there. Every morning I'll have to walk back here to bathe and wash. It's a 10–15 minute walk each way,” Ruksar says.

The promised job will cover her expenses and get her a place to sleep. Ruksar says, “kidhar bhi jaenge toh thode din ke hi mehmaan hai, fir bhatak ke idhar hi aana padega [no matter where we go, it will only be temporary. Sooner or later, we'll end up drifting back here].”