Kamathipura in Mumbai's faces herculean task of a makeover
Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red-light district, immortalised in Namdeo Dhasal’s revolutionary poem Golpitha and stylised in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film Gangubai Kathiawadi, will soon be gentrified under one of the largest cluster redevelopment schemes in the country. In his definitive book on the city, Suketu Mehta observes: “Bombay is a city humming, throbbing with sexual energy, a city of migrant men without women; a city in heat. The womanless rickshaw-wallahs, the Bollywood wannabes, the fashion models and the sailors from many countries — all in search of some heat." In addition to the red-light areas that define its identity, Kamathipura is also the area where these seekers merge.
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People seen in Lane number 11 in Kamathipura, Mumbai, on January 6. This month, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that Kamathipura, a grid of 15 lanes spread over 27.59 acres, will be gentrified under one of the largest cluster redevelopment schemes in the country. (Satish Bate / HT Photo)
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A view of an old dilapidated building in Kamathipura, on January 6. Instead of redeveloping individual buildings, several buildings will be jointly taken up for redevelopment. Still, while the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has already been appointed as the nodal authority for the project, it may be some time before Kamathipura’s crumbling warrens make way for shiny skyscrapers as envisaged. (Satish Bate / HT Photo)
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A man seen in the gallery of an old, dilapidated building in Kamathipura, on January 6. Kamathipura is also home to hundreds of small manufacturing operations: scrap markets, jeans dyeing units, zardozi units, leather manufacturing units, and shifting their businesses out even for the few years that it will take to demolish and rebuild the area, means loss of livelihood.(Satish Bate / HT Photo)
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According to a Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) report, Kamathipura was built on reclaimed marshes about 200 years ago to house low-caste Telugu-speaking construction workers called “kamathis”, brought in from the erstwhile Hyderabad state to build the city of Bombay. In the 1880s, the colonial police designated Kamathipura as a zone that would tolerate European commercial sex workers, marking the start of prostitution in the area. (Satish Bate / HT Photo)
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