“Surplus Humanity” and the Margins of Legality - Chapman University

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8 Chapman Law Review [Vol. 14:1
community and economy,‖ which ―has achieved a unique informal
‗self-help‘ urban development over the years, without any
external aid.‖ 48 While bereft of adequate housing, the slumdwellers
have established ―close to 5000 industrial units,
producing textiles, pottery and leather, and performing services
like recycling, printing, and steel fabrication.‖ 49 The economic
activity in Dharavi is ―decentralized, human scale, home-based,
low-tech and labor-intensive . . . pedestrianized, communitycentric,
and network-based . . . . A simplistic re-zoning and
segregating of these activities . . . would certainly hurt this very
unique urban form.‖ 50
Polluting, toxic, and often illegal industries find Dharavi,
where ―Darwin beats Keynes,‖ attractive. 51 Sweatshops
profitably mine cheap labor under the radar of regulatory
oversight. 52 Writers analogize Dante‘s Inferno to portray the
struggle for survival in slums where poverty, filth, crime, and
marginalization stalk the daily life of human beings. 53 Slumdwellers
trade away physical security and public health for
minimal shelter, and suffer environmental degradation including
filthy water, polluted air, and toxic industrial waste. 54 They
contend with the ―garbage dump syndrome,‖ 55 which is ―a
concentration of toxic industrial activities such as metal plating,
dyeing, rendering, tanning, battery recycling, casting, vehicle
repair, [and] chemical manufacture.‖ 56 Dharavi, like most slums,
is located in a disaster-vulnerable, ecologically fragile area, so
that even a heavy rain can wipe out shelters. 57 An omnipresent
48 Prakash M. Apte, Dharavi: India‘s Model Slum, PLANETIZEN (Sept. 29, 2008,
5:00 AM), http://planetizen.com/node/35269.
49 Id.
50 Id.
51 Hans Schenk, Urban Fringes in Asia: Markets versus Plans, in REALIGNING
ACTORS IN AN URBANIZING WORLD: GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONS FROM A
DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE 117, 131 (I. S. A. Baud & J. Post eds., 2002).
52 SHARMA, supra note 37, at xxxv, 106.
53 MICHAEL TAUSSIG, LAW IN A LAWLESS LAND: DIARY OF A LIMPIEZA IN COLUMBIA
114–15 (2003); DAVIS, PLANET OF SLUMS, supra note 39, at 49.
54 ELLEN BRENNAN, WOODROW WILSON INT‘L CTR. FOR SCHOLARS, POPULATION,
URBANIZATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND SECURITY: A SUMMARY OF THE ISSUES 12–14 (1999).
See also DAVIS, PLANET OF SLUMS, supra note 39, at 128–29.
55 GITA DEWAN VERMA, SLUMMING INDIA: A CHRONICLE OF SLUMS AND THEIR
SAVIOURS 16 (2002); DAVIS, PLANET OF SLUMS, supra note 39, at 129.
56 DAVIS, PLANET OF SLUMS, supra note 39, at 129.
57 See Mohamed Hamza & Roger Zetter, Structural Adjustment, Urban Systems, and
Disaster Vulnerability in Developing Countries, 15:4 CITIES 291, 291 (1998) (explaining
that ―urban areas are not disaster prone by nature; rather . . . the structural processes
which accelerate rapid urbanisation . . . increase the disaster vulnerability of the mass of
low-income urban dwellers‖). During the twentieth century, more than one hundred
million homes were destroyed by earthquakes, mostly in slums, tenements districts, and
poor rural areas. DAVIS, PLANET OF SLUMS, supra note 39, at 126.