Al Jazeera: Mumbai Land Grab

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2012/10/20121014113746742151.html

Filmmaker: Faiza Ahmed Khan

Simpreet Singh is facing the fight of his life as he tries to stop businesses and the Indian government from evicting Mumbai slum dwellers from their homes in order to build luxury apartments on the land where they currently reside.

The slum-dwellers of Mumbai are being evicted – in many cases unfairly – to make way for upmarket developments. And Simpreet is fighting to stop these land grabs.

He is organising resistance, using India’s Right to Information laws, and mapping the slums in his fight for justice for the slum-dwellers – who constitute 60 per cent of Mumbai’s population yet occupy only seven per cent of the city’s land.

It is a city rife with land scams, where evictions are commonplace and new developments regularly appear – including the Oceans of Justice, a housing complex for High Court judges built on land meant for the homeless.

The next slum re-development scam is about to take place. Simpreet knows a demolition is scheduled even though the residents have not given their consent.

Officially the slum-dwellers are given 24 hours’ notice before their homes are destroyed. Simpreet rallies the inhabitants to resist the demolitions.