Peripheral Mechanisms

PERIPHERAL MECHANISMS Obhishek Mandal

PREFACE “Somewhere, buried beneath the wreck of its current condition­—one of urban catastrophe—is the city that has a tight claim to my heart, a beautiful city by the sea, an island-state of hope in a very old country. ” Suketu Mehta, 20041

Despite having lived in the United States for the past six years I still feel very much as part of the city where I have lived a majority of my life— Mumbai. When I reflect on my connection to the city, I realize that it’s because its what made me and it continues to rapidly evolve while I am away.

My drive to be a part if the city’s future has lead me to the pursuit of knowledge of the city and understanding the forces that shaped it. The point of departure was my understanding of built environments through my training as an architect.

This pursuit lead me to the discovery of a multitude of information which helped me understand the city better.

It’s intriguing how Mumbai went from a cluster of islands to a prominent global city, a hub of commerce. It is equally astonishing to realize the fallout of the growth and the progress. Having lived in the city, I was aware of the discrimination

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based on economics and environmental disregard which also defined the city, but the scale of demographic marginalization and environmental apathy has inspired me to scope my focus to these topics.

Using this opportunity to research not these topics in there entirety due to time restrictions, but instead using a point of overlap between the marginalized people and the suffering environment as the line of investigation. When I do finally come to the end of this part of what I hope to be a larger investigation in the future, I aim to have produced a document which can be used as the first step of many in an area of research which I aim to extensively delve into in the future.

ABSTRACT

Mumbai is a city of complexities. These often compete with one another— large-scale infrastructure against coastal forests, indigenous and informal settlers against urban policies, local focus against one which is global, money against equity, dynamic against static. Learning from the past, we must not approach them with an intent of controlled master-planning, but instead gradual, decentralized, localized growth of resilient systems. I believe that this could address issues of accommodation and integration of the urban-rural, as well as the coastal ecologies into the systems of the city.

I chose to keenly focus on a local scope of the networks of community and livelihood that the Kolis have developed on land and coastal waters which serves as a crucial point of negotiation with the larger context of the formalized city. This lent itself to a more detailed and robust production of work. The goal of this is to tap into the localized knowledge, the community itself and the

3 | Preface

aforementioned networks to facilitate a system of lo-tech dynamic mapping of the marginalized urban edges which include informal settlements and the mangroves.

The mapping technique that emerges is speculative to a certain degree while displaying a very personal representation of the Versova Koliwada and the Malad Creek at various scales.

The maps expressly focus on the interconnectivity of the natural and the built brought through their adjacency, therein making a statement on the linked plight of the two. Making this visible in a way which it hasn’t before through techniques so approachable has the potential to open opportunities for marginalized communities and activist groups to have conversations with governing organizations rooted in spatial, empirical data, while simultaneously anchoring these communities in place through a revitalization of indigeneity for the contemporary and future city.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LITERATURE REVIEW 6 CONTEXT 14 SHAPING THE ‘EDGE’ 20 MAPPING 32 VERSOVA KOLIWADA & MALAD CREEK 50 GRAPHIC SPECULATION 70 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 88 ENDNOTES 90 BIBLIOGRAPHY 96

LITERATURE REVIEW With research within the pages of this thesis seeking to take a multi-faceted approach to address the marginalization and tension in Mumbai’s urban peripheries, it was important to source information presented by a range of lenses through which the urban space can be visited.

approaches to name a few. The list by itself is not one that claims to be all encompassing. Short remarks under each source summarizes their relative importance to my focus.

In the following list are is this very range. These sources probe the issues in question with social, cultural, environmental, economic and political

Mathur, Anuradha, and Dilip da. Cunha. Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2009.

A text which provides insight in to ways in which one can begin juxtapose the physical constructs of Mumbai today and the natural terrain and its flows that we have forgotten. It speaks on the importance of the idea of impermanence through “places of wet theory and urban generativity.” Mathur and Cunha are critical of the historical practices that did shape Mumbai from the aqueous terrain of the past, while simultaneously mapping the traces of these in the contemporary urban fabric. SOAK emphasizes the vitality of speculating on the intersections of our lives with water and its ecologies and our relationship with these.

Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2007.

Davis brings a global perspective to my understanding of informal settlements (slums). He has detailed, through examples social, economic and political mechanisms which lead to the development of slums and contemporary policies, or lack there of which allow for their spatial expansion but qualitative deterioration. The adeptness with which the fragility of the urban poor in many of the world’s metropolis, Mumbai being one of the them is portrayed has allowed me to acquire a scalar understanding of these spaces, as well as the forces of urbanization which marginalize these demographies.

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Anand, Nikhil. Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.

Mapping the importance of water to the development of contemporary cities, especially Mumbai as a point of departure, Anand addresses the contentious subjects of the dichotomy of legal and illegal settlements “traversing across the boundaries of il/legality and il/liberalism” in terms of heterogeneous politics, critical infrastructure, shelter, as well as he pivotal role of water in the resolution of these urban mechanisms.

Huyssen, Andreas, and Rahul Mehrotra. “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai.” Essay. In Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age, 205–18. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Focusing on a new reality which reinterpreted the city in post colonial Mumbai, one where the two distinct identities of the city exist within the same urban fabric. Mehrotra terms these the “static” and the “kinetic” cities. The article touches on emergent realities which form in the city through human agency as well as the significance of the relationship it maintains with the permanent. The importance of the source is in the fact that it attempts to theorize on the fluid negotiation between this relationship of intersections in Mumbai. It points at the issue of housing in Mumbai as one of the most real evidences of this negotiation, and how this affects the city on a global scale.

Mehrotra, Rahul “One Space, Two worlds.” Architecture + Design, 12-19. Mumbai: Nov-Dec 1991.

This journal article observes again the duality of Mumbai in its recent history, one of the “pukka versus the kutcha city.” It speaks of the changes that have shaped this duality, which have their own duality of large scale transformations versus the smaller incremental changes which have strengthened the idea of the two worlds within the city. Mehrotra finds historical seeds in colonial practices which normalized this contrasting environment. The divide created was never resolved due to a “lack of will” to find “architectonic clarity in the emerging city.” It concludes that the normalization of this divide encourages a capitalist pedagogy of urban growth, one devoid of a consideration of social issues, resulting in lack thereof of a focus on adaptive growth which seems to be the only way forward.

UNDESA. “World Population Projected to Reach 9.8 Billion in 2050, and 11.2 Billion in 2100 | UN DESA Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” United Nations. United Nations, 2017. https://www. un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html.

A projection of global population rise, especially that in the developing nations. This gives insight into the challenges that cities such as Mumbai must be prepared for.

Mehrotra, Rahul “Bombay: A Factitious City.” The Taj Magazine, 56-71. Mumbai: Nov-Dec 1991.

Here, Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay and it’s evolution is shown to pivot on singular primary aspiration—establishing a sense of permanence when it comes to the edge between land and sea. In this vein the act of land reclamation becomes the central theme in this article, illsutrating Mumbai as a city of incremental patchwork in the name of expansion and economic endeavors rather than a holistically considered urban environment. These practices as mapped in the temporal dimension as well, from the colonial Mumbai to the contemporary one.

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Manecksha, Freny. “Pushing the Poor to the Periphery in Mumbai.” Economic and Political Weekly 46, no. 51 (2011): 26-28. Accessed September 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23065542.

Manecksha questions the unchecked pedagogy of the displacement of slum dwellers and delves into the forces that are at play. Through the text, policies and their methods of implementation are highlighted, with qualitative and quantitative data used to critique these.

Corner, James. “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention.” Essay. In Mappings, edited by Denis E. Cosgrove, 213–52. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2002.

Corner expands on the meaning of the act of mapping and the importance of its use as a way to unearth and address obscure entities and their relationships rather than the redundant practice of the duplication of reality. The text brings attention to the critical inventiveness needed in map making through the examples of techniques such as “Drift,” “Layering,” “Game board” and “Rhizome.”

Pathak, Sushmita. “Mangroves Help Fight The Effects Of Climate Change. So Why Is Mumbai Destroying Them?” NPR. NPR, November 25, 2019. https://www.npr.org/sections/ goatsandsoda/2019/11/25/781990792/mangroves-help-fight-the-effects-of-climate-change-sowhy-is-mumbai-destroying-t.

The article touches on the intrinsic link between nature and the urban fabric—mangroves in the case of Mumbai. Detailing the benefits of the coastal forests, the author goes on to underlines current policies and arguments which fail to understand the comprehend the urgency for their preservation. These claims are backed by graphic and historic examples, most notably the 2005 floods in the city.

NAPM. “Truth & Lies Of Slum Rehabilitation in Mumbai.” Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, September 12, 2010. http://gbgb.in/docs/reports/Report%20of%20Public%20Hearing%20 on%20Slum%20Rehabilitation%20in%20Mumbai.pdf.

Details the information validated and conclusions drawn form the public hearing on the policies and actions taken in relation to the rehabilitation of slum dwellers in Mumbai. The hearing mainly focuses on the fallout of the Slum Redevelopment Scheme, its promises, shortcomings and expected actions to be taken to remedy these. The report also captures the depositions of individuals ranging from slum dwellers, to social activists, to government workers.

Banerjee-Guha, Swapna. “Ideology of Urban Restructuring in Mumbai : Serving the International Capitalist Agenda,” Mumbai, 2000.

Banerjee is critical in addressing the current trend of industrial globalization, which has impacted the structure of local life and policies in a city like Mumbai. Through the lens of government initiatives and their implementation, the literature finds that the urban systems prioritize conservation of capital over public interest. Mumbai is being “restructured,” but not equitably, with great gaps between positive planning and mediocre execution, with critical infrastructure failing to reach a majority of the population. This frame of mind bleeds into the environmental consciousness of the city planners as well, where economic impetus always overpowers environmental stewardship.

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Bose, Shibaji, Ghosh, Upasona, Chauhan, Hemant, Kumar,Narayanan, N.C., and Parthasarathy,D “Uncertainties and Vulnerabilities among the Koli Fishers in Mumbai: A Photo Voice Study.”Indian Anthropologist 48, no. 2 (2018): 65-80. Accessed September 23, 2020. doi:10.2307/26757766.

This report is an account of the marginalization of the original inhabitants of Mumbai— the Kolis, through a Photo Voice study. This method allows the understanding of the reality of these communities through individual accounts by using photography as a documentation tool, in the process consolidating “critical consciousness.” The findings demonstrate political marginalization through discriminatory policy making and accounts of economic as well as environmental effects of these on the Koli communities. It points specifically at the Coastal Zoning Act and the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme as the primary policies at play when is comes to environmental and social ignorance in the planning of the contemporary city.

Voiland, Adam. “Landsat Image Gallery - Monitoring Mumbai’s Mangroves.” NASA. NASA, November 28, 2017. https://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=91333.

Commentary on the spatial evolution of mangroves based on temporal parameters using satellite imagery. The imagery highlights how the coastal forests were overlooked in the past and stresses on the importance of this very tool in the conservation efforts.

Kale, Owi. “Environmental Problems of Mumbai.” Bartelby. St. Xavier’s College, August 2, 2012. https:// www.bartleby.com/essay/Environmental-Problems-of-Mumbai-PK6ATZ4KRYYS. Kale speaks of Mumbai as a city that is stuck in two kinds and cannot embrace either because it is chained to “bureaucracy and politics.” Looking at the city through the lens of the environment, he credits “pollution, population and lack of space” to be the three main issues.

Covering topics of historical practices, consideration of the environment, sub-par policy making and their illegal workarounds, as well as reporting their social and environmental fallout, the text sets a stage for a dystopian extrapolation of these urban mechanisms.

Kozlowski, Gabriel. “Walls of Air.” ISSUU, May 23, 2018. https://issuu.com/g.kozlowski/docs/16a_mia_ catalogo_eng_low_completo.

A book compiled on a part of the exhibition curated for the Brazilian Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale. The exhibition seeked to map the hidden boundaries and spatial evolutions created through interactions between people and “processes of urbanization” in Brazil. This document is an influence conceptually and graphically on thesis.

Miller, Johnny. “Mumbai.” Accessed August 31, 2020. https://unequalscenes.com/mumbai.

Miller displays the evident dichotomy of the urban fabric of Mumbai through aerial photography. The images and the accompanying text finds the importance of he slum to the identity of the city but also as a space of negotiation between the planned and the unplanned.

Watson, Julia. Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism. Cologne: Taschen, 2020.

Described as the retelling of “an ancient mythology—that humankind can and must live symbiotically with nature,” the text is critical of the obsession that our civilization has had with the presumed perfection of novel technology, which has resulted in the alienation of the community from the context that they occupy. Demonstrating the sustainable practices of indigenous communities and their “traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)” on a global scale through detailed explanations of their lifestyles and through diagrams to show their resiliency historically and in the Anthropocene. These case studies and the conclusions drawn from them by Watson to suggest “biodiversity as a building block,” inspires a new urban vision of indigeneity.

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Warrier, S. Gopikrishna. “Mangroves: Do They Make Economic Sense?” Nature India, March 27, 2017. https://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2017.44.

Warrier used quantitative data to illustrate the economic impetus that the conservation of mangroves can offer. The most financially significant benefits that are noted are the fish, coastal protection and carbon sequestration. Using this data, the text determines exactly why it makes sense for the governing bodies to promote policies to protect these forests in the face of encroachment and pollution.

Rademacher, Anne. “Rectifying Failure: Imagining the New City and the Power to Create It.” In Building Green: Environmental Architects and the Struggle for Sustainability in Mumbai, 65-90. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Accessed September 27, 2020. http://www.jstor. org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt2204r4v.8.

Noting the current trends of Mumbai as a city which is failing to meets the housing and critical infrastructure needs that the current population demands, while recognizing this as an opportunity for environmentally conscious designers to contribute to redefining this narrative of the city. Rademacher lists various proposals for the revitalization of Mumbai through its environmental assets and critiques them on their still evident top down approaches instead of “civic agency and inclusion.” Through the description of the history of Mumbai land use and the social, political, economic, as well as environmental layers of the urban condition, the text highlights the complexity to be contended with.

Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Disaster Risk Management Master Plan in Collaboration with Earthquakes & Megacities Initiative . MCGM. Mumbai: MCGM, 2010.

A document composed by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai detailing the various institutional and legal agreements in place that relate to disaster risk management. It details these policies at national and state levels while noting the contribution of and implication for various governmental organizations.

“Absolute Hell: the Toxic Outpost Where Mumbai’s Poorest Are ‘Sent to Die’.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 26, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/26/mumbai- poor-mahul-gentrification-polluted.

The article talks about the marginalization of the urban poor through forced displacement and relocation to toxic environments. Mahul, a historic Koli fishing village was chosen to be the rehabilitation housing space for the slum dwellers who were displaced to make space for developments which they would realistically never be able to use. It notes that the area that they were relocated to had no amenities, industrial and urban pollution, poorly planned housing and virtually non-existent transportation links. The results this is illustrated through personal accounts of sickness, deaths and loss of livelihood, among others.

Hosagrahar, Jyoti. Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005.

The book centers around the study of colonial influences of the definition of eastern cities of today and then proposing an alternative view of an indigenous modernity which could redefine these urban spaces.

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“About Us: Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority.” Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority, Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai.

Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra. Accessed October 1, 2020. https:// mczma.gov.in/content/about-us.

The official homepage of the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority. The ‘About Us’ page provides historical background information on the organization such as when is was established, as well as the tenets based on which it is supposed to make policies.

Chouhan, Hemantkumar A, Parthasarathy, D, and Pattanaik, Sarmistha. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 (2017): 971-85. Web. This report looks at the connection between mangroves and the indigenous inhabitants of Mumbai— The Kolis. In this context the authors go on to highlight the legislation that is supposed to protect the fragile coastal ecosystems through coastal zoning, but have failed to do so.

The failures are cited through named examples of the breach of policies through illicit or discriminatory means, affecting not only the ecosystem but also the livelihood of the coastal communities that depend on them.

Everard, Mark, and Jha, Rohit. “The Benefits of Fringing Mangrove Systems to Mumbai.” Research Gate, April 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264405208_The_benefits_of_fringing_ mangrove_systems_to_Mumbai.

Jha and Everard identify the importance of the preservation of mangroves. They also understand that there needs to be a quantitative backing for these efforts in the face of the opportunity cost of the profits that any form of replacement development could yield. Looking at mangrove as a sustainable commodity, their economic value is extrapolated through the lenses of Supporting, Cultural, Regulatory and Provisioning services , while also attempting to decipher the value of unquantifiable services provided by the coastal ecosystems.

Aravena, Alejandro. “Transcript of ‘My Architectural Philosophy? Bring the Community into the Process.’”

TED, 2014. https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_ the_community_into_the_process/transcript.

Aravena speaks on the importance of dialogue with the community that one is designing for and how this step is often overlooked by governing bodies. He uses the example of the social housing projects undertaken by Elemental, in Chile. He speaks of the knowledge that emerged from the conversations that he had with the inhabitants of the marginalized settlements, and how based off of these the studio undertook the certain priorities during the executions of the projects such as access to critical infrastructure to each family and opportunities to expand their living spaces as their families grew.

Förster, Wolfgang, William, Menking, and Mladen, Jadric. “Asia: Public Housing in China, India, Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea.” Essay. In The Vienna Model 2: Housing for the 21.

Century City, 28–43. Berlin: Jovis, 2018.

The section on Asia in the book stresses on the importance of good housing solutions in contemporary urban spaces, especially those in many of the cities in Asia which are projected to grow exponentially in the coming decades. One segment of this section on Asia focuses on cities in India and their collapsing infrastructure, inadequacies in coping with housing demand and attempts of the past by architects such as Balkrishna Doshi to address these issues.

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Gupte, Rupali, Prasad Shetty, Rajeev Mishra, Anuja Mayadeo, Apoorva Jalindre, Apoorva Shenvi, Darshan Maru, et al. “TYPOLOGIES and BEYOND.” Critmumbai. School of Planning and Architecture, July 2010.

A study by researchers and students from the School of Planning and Architecture along with teams from other educational institutions to address the vulnerabilities faced by the informal settlements in Mumbai and the underlying mechanics that has brought the city to this impasse.

The merit of this study is in how it posits and acts on the idea that the issues within the settlements can be worked on only through a more microscopic understanding if the social, economic, cultural and spatial organization of these spaces. It has served as an inspiration in my graphic understanding and representation of the built environments of these settlements.

Worldwide map files for any design program. (2013). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https:// cadmapper.com/ A source for digital information that I used to produce layered maps of the city.

Mehrotra, Rahul, Felipe Vera, Diana L. Eck, Dinesh Mehta, and Dipti Mehta. Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015.

A book produced through a collaboration between a range of disciples at Harvard, lead by the Harvard University South Asia Institute. Its aims understand and record the intricate processes of deployment and execution of the Kumbh Mela in India. My interest in this investigation lies in the methods used to graphically represent these processes and their relation to the natural elements, as well as material constraints that influence the site.

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CONTEXT “The interdependence of architecture, planning and urban design achieved through the language of landscape, which combines the capacity of artistic visualization and the potent energy of conceptualizing terrain, is the only perceptive way that can challenge the design concerns of overgrowing cities.”

Rajiv Lochan, 20093

The image of Mumbai has been cultivated from a terrain of porosity, fluidity and accommodation to one of control, rigidity and an obsession with definition over the last three hundred years.2 What once was a terrain that could adapt and actively participate in the negotiation between, land, water and the ‘in-between’, has become a constricted mass of sub-par infrastructure. This latter state is an amalgamation of a dedicated ideology of separating the ecology of the land from that of the city.

The complex situation which I have labeled a crisis has many faces ­— natural, social, political, economic, cultural, but to understand and delve into these complexities I believe that the best places to begin are the underrepresented spaces within the city where they intersect.

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One of these intersections is the ‘edges’ of urbanity. Edges which are neither land nor sea, the edges where urban transitions into the urbanrural, the edges which the two gray areas in today’s metropolis aggressively negotiate to occupy.

It is at this precipice that it becomes important to understand not just the physical but the social, ecological and economic structures of these edge conditions, which despite their nonglamorous generalization play a pivotal role as a foil to their extensively planned counterparts.

Ignoring this fog of generalization in most traditional media, I see immense intricacy.

Understanding this complexity, I think is better served in viewing the ‘edges’ in terms of their component elements and then tracing the connections which enable these to collaborate.

This section begins to understand these elements by individually contextualizing them in the city of today.

Informal Settlements (Urban Rural / Slums) The word ‘slum’ originated as a way to refer to criminal activity, which then was reinterpreted into a word that highlighted areas where these criminal activities take place. Although in this age of neo-liberalism and ‘wokeness’ we would imagine that these antiquated connotations of the word are long gone, it still carries the burden of its maligned past.

It is due to this very reason that I will refer to these ‘urban-rural’ conditions as (informal) settlements inspired by Nikhil Anand in Hydraulic City.4 Mike Davis explains how, “the classical stereotype of the labor-intensive countryside and the capitalintensive industrial metropolis,” has flipped in developing countries resulting in uncontrolled urbanization through, “the reproduction of poverty, not by the supply of jobs.”5

or city, with that figure set to rise to 68 percent over the coming decades.”6 Lack of formal housing and systems for allocation of such housing has and will continue to leave the essential migrants to the mercy of their agency. This atmosphere has made the sustained emergence of informal settlements inevitable and the question of their citizenship highly contentious. The duality of the served and those serving city rose from a colonial pursuit of expansion in terms of the urban fabric and commerce. The monied society claimed what they pleased. This persists to this day, not only in terms of physical configurations but government policies as well. Initiatives such as the Slum Redevelopment Scheme (SRS), introduced to develop improved housing and

Forces such as the mechanization of agriculture have pushed the rural population towards the illusion of the economy of the city, while the city lacks the infrastructure to support the demographic explosion. According to a 2017 report from the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “around 55 percent of the world’s population is thought to be living in an urban area

New Delhi

Kolkata Mumbai Mumbai

Arabian Sea

Population Density by District 2020

Chennai

Mangrove areas Sea

India

<2000000 2000000 - 4000000 4000000 - 6000000 6000000 - 8000000 >8000000

Bay of Bengal

The estimates are consistent with the midyear national projections from the U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base (IDB).

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access to infrastructure revealed itself to be one which quite openly accommodated illegalities to serve the private developers while the displaced communities of migrant workers and indigenous Kolis found themselves in inhumane transit camps.7 Scholars such as Mehrotra worldwide have shown deep curiosity and commitment to documenting the robust social, cultural economic systems which emerge, not despite but because of the normalization of these conditions of presumed depravity.8 In contrast to the negative narratives, it is important to view these settlements in terms of their historic context and in doing so, the relation between indigeneity and modernity within them leading to a robust system of survival.

Using existing documentation of these complex systems I hope to unearth opportunities within these communities for new ways of mapping that might enable the validation of their right to the city as well as the ingenious entrepreneurship through which they survive in this age of unsustainable over-development.

Wetlands / Mangroves Ignoring this fog of generalization in most traditional media, I see immense intricacy. The historic foundations of Mumbai’s coastal ecology are the mangrove forests, developed over millions of years. These ecologies include a spectrum of micro-ecologies— sea to the creek to mudflats to mangroves to intertidal zones to dry land.

They existed before the Mumbai we know today was crafted. These forests have traditionally played a vital role in the coastal ecosystem. From serving as breeding grounds for fish, to erosion control, to acting as a buffer between land and sea, their importance cannot be overstated.

What makes them of great contemporary vitality is their found properties of processing industrial chemicals and urban pollutants to cleanse coastal peripheries and sustaining the roots of

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local communities.

Over the last three centuries the aspirations of human control over the peninsula, maximizing its economic potential as well as extremely limited understanding of this ecology have normalized the act of land reclamation at the expense of the mangroves. The colonial claims of these spaces being sources of “illness and bad odour”9 in the 1600s, to the blatant violation of Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZ) such as that in BandraKurla Complex, shows an escalating trend of ignorance.10 The Koli fishing villages, which have had roots in these lands and waters for abundantly longer than the idea of Mumbai as a city has existed, are being marginalized through housing and environmental policies which have vested interests in the capitalist market.11 This forms another edge to the city. One between the natural conditions of the ecology and an imposed landscape of impermeability.

The failure to learn and acknowledge the flexible and resilient systems of the coastal ecosystem, as well as those of the communities whose lives intersect with them has resulted in an impasse.

One which bodes negatively for us (the citizens) in the long term.

At this crossroads, it has become imperative to take a step back and consider an alternate ideology, one in which “our survival is not dependent upon superiority, but upon symbiosis.”12 Learning from the marginalization and displacement implemented through the urban design practices of the past and their effects on the indigenous communities and the greater urban environment as in the case of the floods of July 26, 2005, policies such as the Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZ) could be revisited along with contemplating newer policies to sustainably leverage the latent socio-economic potential of the coastal forests by first understanding their complex processes.

Water Ignoring this fog of generalization in most traditional media, I see immense intricacy. If I were to identify a single natural resource that you could credit with defining the identity of the landmass we call Mumbai, it is water.

The monsoon and the sea—one sustains life and the other the economy of this center of commerce and human migration. Given the vitality of the interface with the aqueous ecologies, the relentless desire to tame it appears to be redundant. But this has never seemed a logical deduction when it comes to strategizing for the future.

One must go back to 1760 to chart the lineage of imposing a desired singular character on a terrain and system which perpetually tends towards flux. The obsession with physically realizing the separation between land and water, I would say was the origin of today’s Mumbai.

Contemporary Mumbai—a city which relies on the transportation of water from hundreds of kilometers away13 while the rain which falls within its geographic boundaries resides in the sewers which in turn pollute the natural water bodies, a city where devastation caused as a direct result of unnatural interventions inspires ‘improved’ implementations of similar ‘solutions’, a city where ecology seems to lose its battle against the everincreasing hard edge of land.

As water constantly attempts to find its balance in this ever-expanding construct, so do those living on the edges of the recognized city. It is at these very edges that the interests of the two intersect.

Marked by fatal floods which uproot communities on one hand and a constant struggle to validate their urban citizenships through their access to water infrastructures which never seem to reach them on the other.14 I would say that pivoting focus on working in conjunction with riparian qualities detailed in SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary by Mathur and

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Cunha, the neglected edge mechanisms of Mumbai could be revitalized in an environmental, economic and social paradigm.

Consideration of water as a driving force in the urban revitalization of these edges prompts one to be cognizant of the “temporal dimension,” in response to our current pedagogy which, “forces us to think in terms of absolutes.”15

Research Motivations and Approach Ignoring this fog of generalization in most traditional media, I see immense intricacy.

Drawing from the context of the ‘edges’ of Mumbai which are often overlooked in the process of city planning and a seemingly assumed homogeneity of these spaces which in reality are constantly shaped by extremely complex socialcultural and ecological processes, I question if I could devise a tool to address this ambiguity.

Going forward, the epicenter of my exploration of this position I have taken will be the study and imagination of scenarios through which the historic practice of mapping can be reconfigured to effectively record and advocate for the increasingly layered cities of the world such as Mumbai.

To achieve this I will first begin by identifying and elaborating the actors and forces which have shaped these ‘edges’ of concern as well as the mapping practices of the past and present which have attempted to capture aspects of this urban-rural-ecological landscape. Learning from these research endeavors and studies, as well as case studies where there has been some success in recording complexity and diversity at various scales, I will work on developing a mapping strategy of my own. The geographical focus of this will lie on the edge of the hyper-urbanized city and less populated coastal lands which face forced upheaval and transformation as Mumbai continues to grow along with its demand for land to build on.

Going forward, the epice of this position I have tak study and imagination o which the historic practic be reconfigured to effec advocate for the increas the world such as Mumb

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enter of my exploration ken will be the of scenarios through ce of mapping can ctively record and singly layered cities of bai.

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SHAPING THE ‘EDGE’ “In all sectors of housing, transportation, recreation, ownership of land, health or education, segmentation got pronounced leading to a visible dualism in the social and economic space of the metropolis.”

Swapna Banerjee-Guha, 200019

A multitude of theorists and practitioners have proposed their take on these new sets of parameters. Although these vary in scope and proposal, what they do agree on is the importance of critical consideration of environmental and social issues which prevail in the city, especially that on the urban peripheries.

Lack of planning to accommodate the urban poor and the critical infrastructures they need has created conditions where they are “directly invading vital ecological sanctuaries and protected watersheds.”16 Ironically, on the other hand, local institutions fail to realize that “cities need an alliance with Nature in order to recycle

20 | Peripheral Mechanisms

their waste products into usable inputs,”17 which could allow economic efficiencies in the provision of resources for the marginalized communities.

With instances of the authorities of Mumbai uprooting residents of informal settlements as well as mangroves to make space for development for the privileged, while simultaneously exposing them to the toxicity of unregulated urban industries, the fates of the two seem inarguably intertwined.18

Open waters Koliwada (Fishing Village) The original islands of Mumbai

Mahim Creek, circa 1600

With an increasing realization of the culmination of the planning practices of reclamation and displacement which strengthen the duality of the city, not only at the local level of Mumbai but on a global scale, redefining the parameters which dictate the urban form has gained traction.

Mahim Creek

Taking into account the immense range of influences and their contemporary manifestations, defining the focus of this inquiry— the marginalized urban edge, in terms of how the major players in these spaces have shaped, will continue to shape and could potentially influence the evolution of current practices becomes the focus of this section.

The Mithi ‘River’ Quite like the city which it situates itself in, the Mithi, or historically Mahim river exists in a duality— a part of the undefined aqueous terrain that it wants to be and one of the sewer delineated by the planned hard edges of Mumbai’s urban fabric.20

Mouth of historic Mahim creek and Mithi river

Another layer of concern which I would like to note is the effects of the European sense of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which was seen to be exclusive from and superior to the indigeneity of the colonies where the western ideas were implemented.

Arabian Sea

Thane Creek

Historic Mahim Creek

To understand the issues surrounding the Mithi, its history becomes vital. The origins of this river or channel can be traced back to the early 1800s, when it was a wider thoroughfare called the Mahim Creek and a small outlet with bunds and sills called the Gopar Nullah, connecting the east and west.“Creeks typically make a tenuous

Mithi River formed through land reclamation

Image from the https://frontline.thehindu.com/environment/article25555078.ece (2018)

Mithi River

Base data from https://cadmapper.com/, https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/dp2034/#, https://www.google.com/maps/@19.1065475,72.7906743,11.38z

21 | Shaping the Edge

temporal edge that shifts landward and seaward with changing fluvial and marine flows.”21 As the population and with it, the divisive lines of settlement mapping grew northward the creek began its evolution towards what it is today.

implemented. This particular project halved the mouth of the river, trapping in the solid and chemical wastes in the water, in turn destroying ecosystems and affecting the health of the residents of the informal settlements on its banks.23

As the population and with it, the divisive lines of settlement mapping grew northward the creek began its evolution towards what it is today.

Causeways, bridges and landfills were constructed which demanded a strict definition of land and water. Replicating the practices on the coast the colonial authorities reduced the creek to a line imagined on a map. To instill apparent permanence in this ambiguous terrain, Captain William Brookes built the Sion-Kurla Causeway despite the warnings from the Marine Board of the East India Company. The flow of the Gopar Nullah inspired the creation of the Vehar and Powai Reservoirs, while the nullah came to be known as the Vehar outlet. By 1845, the Mahim creek was completely cut off from the sea except for a small opening in the new Mahim Causeway. This was the end of the Mahim creek which collected water runoff through nullahs and wetlands, playing a vital part in the drainage of the islands.

Authorities such as the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) have denied any involvement with reclamation or sewage disposal while the Disaster Risk Management Master Plan (DRMMP) of 2011 admits that the water edges, due to the current pattern of land do become “disaster-prone”, but these are precisely the places where “informal settlements mushroom, living in temporary and unsafe structures with little or no facilities for sanitation, drinking water, electricity and solid waste disposal.”24

Subsequent reclamation projects, most recently the Bandra-Kurla complex reclamation, have claimed to have taken positive steps towards the control of the unpredictable Mithi. The falseness of these claims unraveled most famously in the devastating flood of July 26, 2005, where the river imposed its natural instinct to blur the separation between water and land. As noted by Mathur and Da Cunha— “More than the failure of a drainage system or a failure of planning and administration, this disaster is a failure to visualize a terrain that just beneath a surface, which maps show as starkly divided, is today as it was in John Fryer’s time, fluid and dynamic.”22 Despite the very visible discrepancies in the relationship with the Mithi, larger invasive projects such as the Bandra-Worli Sea Link have been

22 | Peripheral Mechanisms

The denial and duplicity of the political forces is a major factor in an almost non-existent plan for the recovery of the river, especially when the people who have the least suffer the most as a result of poor sanitation and floods, through capitalist endeavors of their affluent counterparts and seemingly biased process of planning infrastructure.

Mithi has become a symbol for the disregard for water, be it the rain, the sea, the rivers, or the wells, and their limited understanding of the fallout of evidently shortsighted decision making and a need for rethinking the visualization of these spaces.

Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) Slums or Informal Settlements and the image of Mumbai in the Anthropocene are deeply intertwined. One of the wicked problems in the city today is the contentious relationship between the capitalist developmental intent of the city, and the spatial extents in terms of

access to critical infrastructures for the citizens whose physical and entrepreneurial input has have built this pucca city. A relationship based on “exploitation and dependency” is what bridges the gap between the two.25 This applies not only to the migrant populations in these settlements, but also the rooted indigenous communities.

The separation of the planned and the unplanned city can be traced back to the influx of migrants in the late 1800s, with the industries being established outside the then consolidated core of the southern part of then Bombay. From that point in time, the dualities between the two worlds have persisted. The establishment of the Bombay Municipal Corporation (now the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) in 1888 and the Improvement Trust in 1898 to manage the rapid population growth and the essential services of the city marked an institutional acceptance of the conflicting treatment of the two worlds of the city.26 The Improvement Trust’s role was the For profit developer construction Sub-par SRA construction

https://mumbai.citizenmatters.in/the-sad-story-of-mumbais-first-slum-self-development-project-21373

https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-slum-dwellers-may-soon-turn-their-shanties-intohomes-2394805

23 | Shaping the Edge

planning of chawls (defined in the Introduction as informal settlements) near the northern extents of Bombay and spaces for upper-class housing to consolidate the urban core. More importantly, though, the true aim of the institution was to harness private enterprises.

This structured approach changed with the onset of the 1900s, but the twoness remained. What changed was the willingness of the privileged inhabitants of the core to venture out of the planned city to develop the island. The property values throughout the city rose and there was a boom in the scale of informal settlements. Since then the growth of the city has been defined by planned interventions in the name of economic growth and incremental informality which grows around it in a steady northward direction. For all the growth, the city has failed to accommodate socio-economic realities.

The expansion of Mumbai continued, with increased density because of economic growth, with the formal (transition to a service economy) and the informal (migration and closing of mills) expanding exponentially. The Maharashtra Slum Area Act of 1971followed by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority in 1995 under the Slum Rehabilitation Act. The SRA was to study, redevelop and rehabilitate the slums and their population. This was to be done in tandem with private developers who would buy the lands, clear the slums, redevelop the land into public housing for the prior inhabitants of the area as well as marketable spaces to make a profit.27 The undertaking of the SRA hasn’t gone to plan with shortcomings prevalent on topics of society, economy and environment. The amendment of the policy of clearance appears to be in name only, where policymakers seem to freely deny “basic rights to shelter” and “vital linkage of livelihood and housing.”28 As noted

by Manecksha, “in the course of 15 years, only 70,000 shanty houses have been redeveloped into multi-storied single apartments instead of the

promised figure of 10 lakh homes,” while the transit camps devoid of any basic amenities become the permanent solution.29 When it comes to the upliftment of recognized slums, that is those that existed before 2006 (which is inherently unfair), there lacks critical infrastructure such as water and sanitation. Instead water is used as a leveraging tool for political pursuits, as a sign of legitimacy as a citizen.30 In the public hearing of the slum dwellers affected by the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRS) in 2010 there were certain observations made— • The scheme benefited the profit margins of the builders rather than the slum dwellers.

• Initiatives to build, permissible under SRS were never approved.

• Due to the top-down approach, innumerable slum dwellers have been denied fundamental human rights or livelihood and shelter.

• The houses being given to the slum dwellers post-redevelopment weren’t ‘free’. Their value comes from the large profits that the developers make from selling market-value apartments.

• There shouldn’t be a cutoff date for the recognition of these communities.

Recommendations were made by deposed individuals included— • Consultation of the dwellers before implementation of initiatives.

• Consideration of Self Re-development schemes, which would economically benefit the government as well.

• Implementation of a mandate for public open spaces in developer lead projects.

• Considerations of international norms of space planning.

• Abolition of Special Builder Zones (SBZ) • Recognition of the value of the migrant workers based on their undeniable input in the building of projects which profit developers.

Similar concerns and recommendations have been brought to other SRA hearings as well.

An utter failure in meeting the infrastructural needs of the urban poor is a cry out for a critical reassessment of their quality of life. The 2010 DRMMP identifies that there must be a strategy with provisions to “include reducing vulnerability at the level of the city, recognizing informal settlements in land use planning, reducing vulnerability at the level of the settlements within a city through mitigation measures: monitoring local land use changes, and directing effort to prevent mushrooming of new settlements in environmentally sensitive lands through putting available land to suitable alternate use.”31 “Through the city-making process, globalization and its par­ticular transgressions in the urban landscape are realized, but that process is also how the Kinetic City can resist or participate in globalization as well as reconfigure itself socially, culturally, and spatially.”32 With this in mind, a keen understanding of these spaces and the people who occupy them becomes critical.

Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (CZMA) The pre-colonial relationship between land and sea was a symbiotic one, allowing porosity through their fragmented forms. As Mathur and Da Cunha point out, “topography depended not only upon the season, but also upon the time of day, since the areas between the islands were constantly under tidal influence.”33 The soft coastal transitions were made possible by the mangroves, wetlands and creeks which play a major role in the accommodation of tidal fluctuations and rainwater drainage.

Colonial occupancy saw the relationship between land and sea, one of porosity and integration

24 | Peripheral Mechanisms

mutate into European determinism and economy.

Through incremental processes of reclamation, causeways and deforestation of coastal forests “Mumbai evolved from disputable spots of ground to precious stone.”34 This land-centric ideology and the economic gains from it have allowed the normalization of an illusion of growth only through dominating nature. Reclamations have persisted post-independence.

Reclamations, have persisted post-independence.

Banerjee-Guha notes how business and commercial interests have become “the most important aspects in urban planning that would augment privatization of infrastructure.”35 She attributes this shift to the obsession of the authorities in the city to establish Mumbai as an incontestable ‘global city’ while ignoring local socio-economic and environmental issues. This has allowed lenient land-use policies and even weaker legislative action in circumstances when these were breached. Also promoting zoning in favor of big money developers when what was

needed was housing and critical infrastructure for the middle and poor class. This attentive policy making hasn’t transferred over to environmental policies where there is no “consideration (of) the individual nature of the coast, nor does it allow for the coastal processes and anthropogenic intervention.”36 Following the UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972, the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) was enacted in 1986. The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 1991 under the provisions of the EPA which inspired the establishment of the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) in 1998 for “the purposes of protecting and improving the quality of the coastal environment and preventing, abating and controlling environmental pollution in the coastal regulation zone areas in the state of Maharashtra.”37 The MCZMA under the 2011 CRZ amendments identified four different coastal zones under their jurisdiction— • CRZ 1: Ecologically sensitive areas.

• CRZ 2: Built up areas.

• CRZ 3: Rural areas • CRZ 4: Territorial waters and tidal influenced water bodies.38 The most sensitive coastal spaces, such as CRZ 1 and CRZ 3 have been affected adversely in favor of expansion of the built urban environment. CRZ 1 in simpler terms comprises native coastal forests and other such coastal ecologies which also host CRZ 1A CRZ 1A 50 m Mangrove Buffer zone CRZ 1B CRZ 2 CRZ 3 No Development Zone CRZ 3 200 to 500 m from High Tide Line CRZ 4A CRZ 4B

Coastal Zone Management Plan. Sheet E 43 A 15 / SW. Prepared by the Institute of Remote Sensing , Anna University , Chennai. Published by State Government of Maharashtra. Mapped 2017-2018.

25 | Shaping the Edge

Koliwadas

The most recent high-profile lapse of the MCZMA’s responsibility has been the construction of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, which choked the mouth of the Mithi River, while still allowing waste to be dumped into the river. 70 acres of land was reclaimed, destroying mangroves and indigenous fishing grounds.39 These practices can be directly linked to the consistent threat of floods, especially due to the overflowing of the Mithi. The biggest violation of the tenets of coastal preservation can be attributed to the reclamation for Bandra-Kurla Complex, an action which the MMRDA had ruled to be off-limits. Despite the ruling, 27 hectares had been reclaimed by 2001. This also played and continues to play a major role in choking the Mithi River (more under the Mithi River subheading) Impetus is given to illegal reclamation and building through the refusal to classify sensitive mangrove areas such as Bandra-Kurla Complex as CRZ-1 zones. This leaves these areas open to future development instead of careful conservation.

Construction of slum dwellings and illegal buildings were also allowed in the coastal zones for the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRC). This also eventually benefited the private parties involved in these projects. MCZMA has also normalized the dumping of industrial and solid waste into coastal waters while providing reclamation clearances for large transportation, commercial and industrial expansion while demonizing those against these decisions as anti-development.40 In the wake of the failure of MCZMA, in meeting its goals as well as coordinating with the other institutions of the state, “the danger of ‘myopic’ and ‘singular’ egocentric thinking resulting in superficial correction in the city”41 is evident.

The Kolis are thought to be the original inhabitants of the geographical area which is now referred to as Mumbai.42 Due to globalization and capitalistic urbanization, these communities are increasingly marginalized in terms of access to housing and infrastructure as well as the threat to their livelihood through the destruction of native ecologies.43 Before the 17th century, the relationship between the human occupants of these lands and the marine ecosystem was based on accommodation and stewardship. This changed at an exponential pace with the implementations of “land-use divisions, zoning regulations and enforced boundaries” in a space that wasn’t meant to be master-planned.44 The inherent link between the Koliwadas or the home of the Kolis and the coastal environment is indisputable, but as Watson explains, “intellectuals of European Enlightenment constructed a

Arabian Sea

Koliwadas in contemporary Mumbai

a variety of animals throughout the year. CRZ 3 usually refers to the traditional Koli fishing villages (see Koliwada subheading).

Bandra Kurla Complex Thane Creek

Base data from https://cadmapper.com/, https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/dp2034/#, https://www. google.com/maps/@19.1065475,72.7906743,11.38z

26 | Peripheral Mechanisms

mythology of technology. Influenced by a confluence of humanism, colonialism, and racism, the mythology ignored local wisdom and indigenous innovation, deeming it primitive.”45 This detachment from the indigenous ideologies of connection with nature can be witnessed manifesting itself in several ways in the Mumbai of today.

Areas like the mangroves, forests, coastal zones and water bodies have either been privatized or are under government control. These are communized through the often-illegal agency of the urban poor who depend on ‘informal livelihoods’ which are only possible in these spaces.46 Koli communities are at the forefront of the freeing of these lands for universal access and “commons-based resource management and livelihood systems” which preserve coastal ecology and diminish the urban carbon footprint.47 “Exclusionary tendencies and the takeover of common facilities and sites by the middle classes and the elites”48 are exemplified in the heavyhanded implementation of development against desperate Koli protests. These instances also very clearly demonstrate the evident failure of CRZ through “unplanned and non-integrated coastal Koliwada (Fishing Village) The original islands of Mumbai

Some of the major projects with large scale effects of the coastal ecosystem and Koli livelihood are— • The Thermal Plant at Dahanu where1000 acres of wetland traditionally used for fishing was reclaimed, affecting the 1000 fisherfolk. The dumping of ash from the plant has resulted in the disappearance of indigenous fish species.

• The Bandra-Worli Sea Link project, where 70 acres of the estuary was reclaimed. This has displaced fisherman who used to use and live in that area, while also choking the Mithi river, thereby increasing the concentration of pollution and devastating the ecosystem.

The access for fishing boats has also been damaged.50 • The CRZ also allows the development of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in CRZ 1 areas.

The most destructive example of this was the reclamation of 134 acres of dense mangroves on Thane Creek. Due to activities like these Thane and Mahim creeks are two of the most polluted locations where fish have almost completely disappeared and coastal forests almost dead due to the low dissolved oxygen levels.51 CRZ violations and the normalization of the marginalization of indigenous populations have resulted in social, economic and ecological problems plaguing these communities. Greater Mumbai has 27 Koliwadas of which 16 are CRZ affected. Each Koliwada has a unique identity but shares its problems of pollution from the city, poor critical infrastructure, sub-par housing, migrant encroachment, rising costs and a lack of space to perform entrepreneurial activities.

Expansion of Mumbai land through reclamation

Growing settlement adjacent to Koliwada Koliwada

https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/dp2034/#

27 | Shaping the Edge

development activities over the years.”49 The fishermen, to whom the access to the coast is priceless aren’t at the very least consulted during the formulation of the coastal zoning laws.

Economy of Mangroves If one were to make an argument for the preservation of Mangroves (wetlands and mudflats as well), the coastal ecosystems and the livelihoods connected to them within the frame of a capitalist society, the opportunity cost of doing so must be outweighed by the proposed intervention. This makes an insight into the relationships that exist or could develop between the economy of the city and its natural edges.

To fairly evaluate the value of the coastal forests and their ecological network it becomes evident that these complex systems should be viewed in terms of the various layers that constitute them and how these layers intersect with aspects of the urban economy. Since the impact of the coastal forests isn’t merely inward but influences a chain of activities far beyond their spatial presence, one must also be diligent of the direct and indirect economic input. Lastly, it also becomes abundantly crucial to address the ideological foil to the conservation of the natural counterparts of the urban fabric.

In a service-based capitalist economy that Mumbai identifies with, framing the value of mangroves in terms of services that it provides emerges as a path to economically incentivize them. Broadly the services that can be categorized are Ecological, Cultural and Market services. I will further break these down into the various layers at which these services exist.

Ecological • Air quality regulation: The vegetation contributes significantly to the absorption of air pollutants, while also producing oxygen. In this sense, the economic input is the management of air toxicity levels, without the need for the development of top-down mechanized systems to do so.

• • Climate regulation: Through the sequestration of greenhouse gases, especially carbon, they are an important tool in

28 | Peripheral Mechanisms

•

•

•

countering global warming which would submerge the valuable edges of Mumbai.

The destruction of mangroves, on the other hand, leads to the release of the sequestered carbon, expediting climate change and putting the economic as well as social interests of the city at risk.

Water regulation and Natural hazard protection: Mangroves can be seen as an intersection between multiple systems of hydrology, allowing drainage and flow of storm and tidal waters. This becomes especially important in an aqueous terrain such as Mumbai’s. This becomes important in controlling natural calamities such as floods; by allowing drainage, tidal surges; by physically retarding the power and size of waves, allowing for protection from damages which lead to massive economic losses which could see the breakdown of critical infrastructure if left unchecked.

Erosion regulation: Mangroves, with their complex network of roots, not only hold existing land in place but also are vital in the process of creating nutrient-rich, occupiable land by trapping silt. The idea of these soil surfaces in the mangroves rising with the rising sea levels, to maintain the integrity of the city through a natural process has been explored.

This becomes a vital boost to economies and land value in Mumbai since much of the city is built on erosion-prone reclaimed land.

Water quality control: Mumbai, although now a service economy, has a high density of industrial and commercial activities as well as an ever-increasing population that overloads the sewage treatment systems. With the ability to deal with toxic compounds such as nitrates and heavy metals, mangroves can be the much-needed natural counterpart to the sewage treatment systems. This would economically benefit the city by curbing health risks, protecting the seafood sector and promoting other non-quantifiable benefits to offshore water quality.

•

Provision of habitat: The coastal forests support a wide range of flora and fauna, some permanently and some temporarily. They act as breeding grounds for fish and birds while acting as a migratory home for species such as Flamingo. Preservation of these could open opportunities for new economic dimensions of ecotourism while maintaining the natural balance of the ecology.

Cultural • Cultural heritage: Being one of the few remnant aspects of the geographical region before it was transformed into the Mumbai of today, these forests hold great cultural significance to the Koli communities and could become a symbol of change in Mumbai, playing a vital role in empowering the fishing economy while creating new avenues for tourism.

• Recreation and tourism: Given the extensive biodiversity and little exposure to these coastal ecologies at a global scale, mangroves could become an increasingly enticing destination for travelers and while making Mumbai a market leader in redefining what a global city can be.

• Preservation of indigeneity: Given the intrinsic relationship that the Koli communities have with the preservation of these mangroves and the realization that this relationship and understanding of these natural systems could be pivotal in preserving Mumbai, it makes economic sense to preserve the cultural interests of this community.

Market • Fishing: This service is by far the most quantifiable reason to preserve mangroves.

The fish that breed in the mangroves leads to about 23% of India’s total catch, roughly translating to Rs. 68 billion. Warrier explains, in a 2017 article for Nature India, “Marine fish breed and nurse young ones in the mangroves. Young fish grow in the secure maze of breathing roots before venturing

29 | Shaping the Edge

•

•

into the sea.” While considering 45-55% inefficiencies, it has still been calculated that each square kilometer of mangrove produces 185.84 tonnes of fish. Given that Mumbai and Navi Mumbai currently have approximately 75 sq km of mangroves as a part of India’s 4,740 sq km.52 TThrough this information, it can be deduced that the current value of the fishing sector in Mumbai is Rs.1.1billion or $ 15 million (as per the exchange rate on Oct 8, 2020).

Preserving and restoring the mangrove cover would lead to a boom in the fish production economy.

Fresh water: Mangroves filter toxins out of water that they come in contact with. This could lead to a market for passive systems with a very low maintenance cost as a support system to the mechanized treatment systems in cities like Mumbai.

Natural raw materials: Resources such as wood, natural medicines, fiber, among others.

These, if extracted and managed sustainably could lead to the creation of a market for indigenous products allowing the position of these communities to be consolidated in the city as well.53

These economic benefits merely listed couldn’t make a difference. As Jha and Everard propose, using “innovative ‘payment for ecosystem services’ (PES) markets offer an emerging means.”

They say that the best avenues in this sense could come for the protection of built infrastructure.

These can be the marketable aspect which can also be bundled with other services, as well as responsibilities for the management of these forests. They also note that in this process “economic assessments should not be taken as of absolute, but rather as indicators of the scale of likely impacts.” 54 I imagine a new method of graphically mapping these ecologies as systems that are inherently tied to the city than separate might be the catalyst to generate much-needed action in the coming decades.

To imagine the potentials of no Mumbai going forward, studyi in the past and the role that it was viewed and developed b in my process, especially in th between the natural and the b Through this, I hope to reconne the land to the ecology.

30 | Peripheral Mechanisms

ovel forms of mapping in ing the practice of mapping played in the way the city becomes an important step he way that the relationship built was and is illustrated. ect the city to the citizen and

31 | Shaping the Edge

MAPPING “This Mumbai,however, cannot be easily clarified in maps for it is less about a web of commerce, a bazaar, where geography is blurred by relations of economy, by movement of goods that are often mysterious and unknown in a competitive and opportunistic world.

Anuradha Mathur & Dilip da Cunha, 200860

City planners and architects, in the post-industrial world, have consolidated the role of traditional mapping in the practice. This trend is evident in the way much of the citizens of today’s global cities continue to perceive the context within which they situate themselves.

The importance of creating maps has been present throughout documented human history and can be cited as one of the main tools used to shape not only the physical environment but also the political, social and cultural identities of the spaces we inhabit today. Tracing the evolution in human lifestyle and mapping, I begin to extrapolate how the priorities of civilization shaped the curation of the information presented within the maps. They also usually differed based on geographic location.

While acknowledging the immense variety and practices of mapping, I would summarize one major shift that has presented itself in the recent

32 | Peripheral Mechanisms

past of human history is the increasing prejudice of the man-made environments over their natural counterparts and processes.

As the daily life and growth of settlements mutated from purely mercantile to one which had to focus on internal economics and politics, simultaneously working to sustain exponential growths in population, the synchronicity with the greater connections to indigeneity and ecologies became more alien.

The focus on making space for the developments for monetary gain and in turn, global relevance has defined an era where the scope of the explorative charge in mapping has narrowed to almost non-existent. The lines on a map are now based on a notion of permanence rather than adaptability, separation rather than unification.

This realization then begs the question of what the limitation of our contemporary workflows of documentation and action is, how can

urban spaces going forward manifest the accommodation of dynamism through an evolution in the practice of mapping the more marginalized spaces in our cities.

The visualization of Mumbai today persists by being “grounded in the belief that land and water are separable,” since the 1600s when the colonial practices began to physically separate the two.55 The European practice of implementing firm lines undermined the vast ecological and social complexities of the islands in the Arabian sea.

Early maps of Mumbai made mostly by seafarers did not portray the land-sea separation, which quickly changed with the vested economic and political interests of the imperialists. In this vein, it became exponentially important to demarcate an area of permanence by distinguishing between land and sea through reclamation and construction. Mapping under this pedagogy advantaged the ‘clarity’ of land over a symbiotic relationship with the aqueous terrain.

This manifested itself in two ways—the division of land from water (the monsoon and the sea), and the division between the planned and the unplanned city. The contemporary product of this is the existence of the multiplicity of dualities in the city.

This meant alienating the built environment from the ecologies of water and the biosphere in general in favor of the physical expression of the city. One could connect this to the normalization of practices of land reclamation to meet the growing needs of the city and the delineation (and consolidation) of the creeks and rivers, exemplified by the Mahim (now Mithi) river and the consolidated landmass of Mumbai56 These practices continue to dictate the form of the city like in the case of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link project.

On the other hand, the physical construct of the city itself suffered delineation in light of the imperialist divisive governance. Mehrotra

33 | Mapping

highlights this in One Place, Two Worlds, where he speaks of “the pukka versus the kutcha city.”57 What this translates to is the permanent and the impermanent city. The rise of this dichotomy can be traced back to the city in the late 1800s, where on one hand there was the planned core city and then there were the informal outer settlements that served the core. The manifestation of this marginalization is unsurprisingly what the global image of Mumbai has come to be, with a “duality between planned interventions and kinetic or incremental development,”58 where one constantly disenfranchises the other.

With the antiquated portrayal of the city failing, I look towards mapping as described by Corner— “mapping as a collective enterprise, a project that both reveals and realizes hidden potential.”59 This is an extremely optimistic lens to view the Anthropocene through, but having seen the shortcomings of colonial mapping and a city demanding a new narrative, critical explorations of the subconscious potential of the city through unconventional intersections of the human and non-human inhabitants of the ‘edges’ is of great value.

To imagine the potentials of novel forms of mapping in Mumbai going forward, studying the practice of mapping in the past and the role that it played in the way the city was viewed and developed becomes an important step in my process, especially in the way that the relationship between the natural and the built was and is illustrated. Through this, I hope to reconnect the city to the citizen and the land to the ecology.

This section looks at Mapping as a historic practice in Mumbai, charting its evolution from the colonial to the contemporary at the scale of the city.

Through this process, I will critique shortcomings and extrapolate successes in these examples.

Map of the Mumbai Harbour Maritime map of the

by William Nichelson, 1763. Mumbai Harbour by James Drafted by Captain William Nichelson of the Horsburgh, 1803/1804.

Royal Navy in Bombay whose maritime influence is evident in the westward perspective and extensive use of Rhumb lines.

The map shows Bombay as “the headquarters of the East India Company’s operations in Western India, as well as being India’s busiest harbour”61 through vivid nautical charting information, stressing its importance as a port.

The creator of the map did make an effort to portray a cross-section of the landmasses which formed Bombay in an attempt to understand the safest routes into the harbour and was its “first generally accurate navigational chart”62, but that is all that it served. Its was static, precise and utilitarian, while falling short of capturing the changes that constantly persist through the natural processes at the mapped coastal edges.

This observation leads me to speculate that the strict edges of land did in fact hint at deliberate biased mapping practices to maximize land.

34 | Peripheral Mechanisms

A detailed map of the entrance to the Bombay harbor showing not only the built settlement on land but also a detailed study of the relief of the land, extending out to the depths of the bodies of water which existed amongst the mainland and the islands of Bombay.

Not only is the traditional plan view a “fantastically detailed and accurate sea chart”63, the sampled cross-section profile of the land and sea in relation to each other as well as the practice of a subtlety in the demarcation of land’s edge can also be appreciated.

Although this map does accurately record the natural features of the harbor in great detail, it fails in two ways when it comes to the representation of the terrain that the city finds itself— it does not cover the constant change in sea levels and secondly, nowhere does it take into account the dense coastal forests lining the shores of Mumbai.

William Nichelson Map (top) and James Horsburgh map (bottom)

35 | Mapping

Maps of the evolution of the Mumbai landform, SOAK, Mumbai In SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha draw attention to the relationship between the land which is considered Mumbai and the water that temporally defines this land.

This series of drawings illustrates the change in the relationship between land and water, giving rise to what Mumbai is today. What I think it is very successful at representing is the sharp contrast between land and water, the relief of the land, and the story of reclamation of land as a gradual but steady and intentional process.

In this regard, I find the man-made nature of the city as something that I want to make evident in the process of mapping that I intend to develop.

What I think the series of images lacks is the representation of the flux of water in relation to land as well as the interstitial spaces between land and water. Given that these maps do not seem to have had the intention of drawing those connections, I believe a successful map of the ‘edge’ conditions of the city needs to be immensely layered, acknowledging history while capturing the essence of temporality and gradients between land and water.

36 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Evolution of Mumbai from seven islands to its contemporary form. SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary. P.32,33

37 | Mapping

Slum Reservation Map of Mumbai by P.K. Das & Associates, 2011 Drafted and published as a piece to be exhibited at the Open Mumbai Exhibition which was aimed at reinvigorating conversations between largely varying cross-sections of people, with the hope as to arrive at opportunities to tackle the larger issues of Mumbai through a community-centered approach.

This particular map, in my opinion, unearths/ reveals an aspect of the built city that isn’t generally expanded upon. The land reservation system through which vacant government land is deemed an appropriate future use happens to be the very lands where the informal settlements root themselves. As the city grows in terms of population and density, the governing bodies, edit development plans which in turn displace the settlers through the authorization of urban development of reserved sites. The comparison between the extent of slums and the map of the applicable reservations shows that it is not only the newer settlements that face this precarious position but also indigenous communities like the Versova Koliwada.

P.K. Das and Associates did manage to concretely correlate the geospatial data, however, a truly detailed understanding of the context of these settlements and their built form would be necessary for an investigation of opportunities within or outside the current system to achieve the needs of the formal city and the informal settlements. Where the mapping by these authors could explore more are the spatial relationships between informal settlements and natural spaces since the latter is another focus of their contribution to the exhibition.

38 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Slum Land Reservation map by P.K. Das & Associates (2011)

Land Area Reserved for Housing | 102.17 sq.km | 21.2% Slums on Housing Reservation | 6.07 sq.km | 14.36% Slums on Residential Reservation | 14.02 sq.km | 33.16% Slums on Commercial Reservation | 0.72 sq.km | 1.70% Slums on Industries Reservation | 2.55 sq.km | 6.03% Slums on Amenity Reservation | 2.37 sq.km | 5.61% Slums on Open Space Reservation (RG,PG,G,P) | 7.47 sq.km | 17.67% Slums on Natural Assets (beaches, mangroves, etc.) | 0.32 sq.km | 0.76% Slums on Railways, Airports and Ports | 0.44 sq.km | 1.04% Slums on Services Reservation | 1.02 sq.km | 2.41% Slums on DP Road Reservation | 3.08 sq.km | 7.28%

39 | Mapping

A layered city With an understanding of the presence of a pointed focus in most mapping practices, this set of quick city-scale maps that I produced attempt to consolidate drawn records for various forces that have shaped and continue to shape the city, especially those on the ‘edges’, whose vitality I had stated while contextualizing this research.

The representation of the city then begins to emerge as one that is a composite of innumerable complex layers rather than explicit entities within a space. The final iteration of this particular mapping exploration expresses the interconnectedness between the past, present and future processes of the city, and the resulting physical fabric.

Mumbai, circa 1600

The original islands v/s the extents of land post reclamation projects

Correlation between slum locations and high flood risk zones which lie within reclaimed areas

These maps superimpose the physical forms of the city from a couple of centuries ago and what it is today. Through a similar process, relationships that the ecological features and indigenous settlements have with the infrastructure and urban settlement are graphically expressed.

Arabian Sea

40 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Thane Creek

Arabian Sea

Thane Creek

Creeks, Rivers, Lakes Mangroves High Flood Risk Zone Forests The original islands of Mumbai Rail lines (yellow)/ Roads (grey) Koliwada (Fishing Village) Informal settlements (slums) Existing coastal road (purple) Proposed coastal roads (green) Expansion of Mumbai land through reclamation

The negotiation between settlement, infrastructure and natural ecologies existing on a boundless terrain

Open waters

Arabian Sea

Thane Creek

Base data from https://cadmapper.com/, https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/dp2034/#, https://www.google.com/maps/@19.1065475,72.7906743,11.38z

41 | Mapping

Aerial Imaging by Airbus Maxar Technologies, 2020 Unfiltered access, indisputable resolution and extremely intuitive. GPS maps have become an integral aspect of our daily urban lives with good reason. While it is a tool that mainly gets millions of individuals from one place to another, this technology is much more significant than that. It could be considered the pinnacle of the practice of mapping for our generation, and yet I would say it is majorly flawed.

While the high resolution and the interactive nature does provide detailed images on demand, the mapping service is only proficient to an extent to where it pertains to the more planned and strictly built spaces of the city, while the dense informal settlements, as well as the natural spaces, seem to be generalized.

The issue that I see with this practice is that the settlements which already have their well-established issues with sanitation, water supply and other essential services, are further marginalized by a lack of accurate spatial data. If extrapolated this could lead to larger ramifications such as lack of data to study and rehabilitate the built environment within these settlements and at a more general level for the public to have a grounded conversation with their governing bodies.

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Thane Creek

Mumbai

In the following pages, under the current subheading, I have zoomed into the three settlements that have varying levels of formal urbanization and relation to informality to allow readers to look through these and reflect on the lack of the representation of complexity. These gaps in the mapping when it comes to satellite imagery within the reach of common people hold true despite a change in scale. I took the opportunity to diagrammatically break down the images into various components of the urban fabric.

Arabian Sea

Versova

Coastal ecologies Major roads

1

Informal settlements SRA / Developer construction

1

2

3 2 3

4

5

4

5 https://www.google.com/maps/@19.1433086,72.7990577,2512m/data=!3m1!1e3

43 | Mapping

The Versova Koliwada and adjoining informal settlement with direct access to the Malad creek and interface with vehicular, residential and urban infrastructure.

Street front store settlement typology.

Indigenous boat dock for access to the coastal waters to support Koli livelihood.

Visible dichotomy of existent creek waters and the hard handed reclamation project.

The interface between the informal settlement and capitalist commercial development with polarizing scales.

Dharavi / Mahim

Coastal ecologies

1

Major roads

2

Informal settlements SRA / Developer construction

1

2

3

4 3 4

5

6

5

6 https://www.google.com/maps/@19.0497026,72.8470481,4226m/data=!3m1!1e3

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Interface between informal settlement with vehicle infrastructure and mangroves on either side.

Interface of informal settlement with vehicular and commercial infrastructure, and the sea.

Street front store settlement typology.

Major road causing disjointed settlement fabric.

Dammed Koli fishery lagoon for protection from the contaminated coastal waters.

Settlement pattern following coastal contour and open access to the Mahim bay at the mouth of the Mahim Creek.

Mahul

Coastal ecologies Major roads

1

Informal settlements SRA / Developer construction

1

2

3 2

3

4

5

4

5 https://www.google.com/maps/@19.0116723,72.8773221,2989m/data=!3m1!1e3

45 | Mapping

Small scale informal and alienating redevelopment settlement existing in conjunction with invasive industrial developments.

Suffocating and overplanned project by the Slum Redevelopment Authority.

Tight knit fabric of traditional informal settlements, through incremental built form.

Visible dichotomy of informal humane and alienating industrial scales.

Isolated access to the mangrove and coastal waters.

Versova

Dharavi

Mahul

46 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Following the production of maps of the current context at a city-scale I realized that although these maps did portray the spatial extents of occupation, ecological areas and a comparison between the original geographical state of the area and the contemporary, it failed to represent the fine grain of interactions within these spaces in the city. Learning from this, I believe that more locally-focused attempts might allow a better understanding of the intricacies of the city and its ‘edges’. For this more localized exploration, I have selected three edge conditions at different levels of imposed urbanization— varying levels of formal and informal urbanization. I will further proceed with a more detailed investigation.

Versova Based around one of the largest Koliwadas, this informal settlement is not yet engulfed by the formally built city. However, there are signs of additional informal settlements developing surrounding this area due to projected future construction projects and ongoing reclamation work. This space although relatively undisturbed currently, could be viewed as an opportunity to redefine the conservation of mangroves through their relationship with the dynamism of the informal settlements.

Dharavi One of, if not the largest informal settlements in the heart of the city. Known for its highly developed internal economy through various industries and adjacency to Dharavi, Sion and Mahim Koliwadas, the future re-imagination of informal settlements in other parts of the city.

What one can also learn from are some of the failures in terms of loss of livelihood and social structure through displacement due to large-scale infrastructural and commercial development.

Mahul A small Koliwada and housing from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) adjacent to a large expressway, polluting industrial complexes and deteriorating mangroves illustrate the results of poorly planned efforts to uplift the living conditions of the residents of the informal settlements. The fallout of this is primarily the loss of livelihood due to lack of access to jobs and education as well as contaminated and marginalized mangroves and the breakdown of community through the lack of gathering spaces and a mode to interface with the city.

Open waters

High Flood Risk Zone

Rail lines (yellow)/ Roads (grey)

Creeks, Rivers, Lakes

Forests

Koliwada (Fishing Village)

Mangroves

The original islands of Mumbai

Informal settlements (slums)

47 | Mapping

Following the pattern of invest in this document, through histo through the progression of my understanding I will begin this selected geographic area thro

48 | Peripheral Mechanisms

tigating the topic of mapping oric examples first and then y personal contemporary localized look into the ough a similar methodology.

49 | Mapping

VERSOVA KOLIWADA & MALAD CREEK Taking root in Rahul Mehrotra’s understanding of Mumbai as a space where “physical and visual contradictions coalesce in a landscape of incredible pluralism,” and one which has “critical sites of negotiation between elite and subaltern cultures,”64 I find value in investigating the city not just as a static object but as a system which is “dynamic, mobile and temporal.”65 The dynamic doesn’t solely refer to the informal “bazaar-like urbanism”66 of adaptive fragmented incremental growth but also the dynamism of the landscape that Mumbai situates itself in.

This would, however, require a canvas to be created to situate the actions towards a more synergetic approach to sustainable urban restructuring. The recording of the pluralities of the city at the juncture becomes vital while revealing where the limitations of the established modes of map-making rooted in determinism fall short.

On the topic of structuring the maps themselves, I posit that finding a common ground amongst the innumerable pluralities could serve as a base for widespread understanding and application.

In this context, I propose the common thread of interconnectivity, since it affects and influences

50 | Peripheral Mechanisms

the change and evolution of every aspect of the urban realm.

Having explored historical practices of mapping Mumbai and personally worked through a process of constructing highly layered representations of Mumbai, I have found a deep interest in speculating on potential modalities to represent not the static frame of the city but a dynamic one.

From the preceding inquisition into maps and the production of city-scale and more localized maps what was made evident was the density and complexity each area in the city held.

It was guided by this very realization that this investigation is trending towards one which would be very localized.

Using this understanding and weaving it into the fragmented data on the city, I hope to better use the incrementality, resiliency and efficiency of informal settlements and coastal forest ecologies alike. Successful pursuit of this understanding will yield an adaptive mapping tool which will be used to question how the two edges to the city (the informal settlements and the mangroves) could be more rooted by embracing the inherent qualities which allow them to survive in the face of adversity such as internal socio-economic

networks and their relation to the systems of the city at large.

The main focus going forward will be at the scale of the mouth of the Malad creek or smaller, and the surrounding mangroves. This area takes significance in redefining the pedagogy of evolution and innovation in the city. The occupation of informal and formal settlements has exponentially increased in the last twenty years, resulting in demand for land which is met through reclamation. Meanwhile, the informal occupation is increasing due to the displacement of these demographies from the southern extents of the city which is getting increasingly urbanized.

This was cemented by the historical tendency of Mumbai’s northward expansion historically.

The growth of Versova and Madh themselves has resulted in propositions of a coastal road that would again displace these populations as well as obliterate large areas of mangroves. This would result in an even greater population boom, endangering the already precarious position of Versova koliwada and surrounding informal settlements which fall under residential reservation.

The ecologies which escape obliteration will deteriorate due to the impact of surrounding future development and sea-level changes.

51 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

In this geographic space of contention, recording the physical and ephemeral changes in a dynamic and continuous process is what I would propose as the first step to an equitable acknowledgment of all the inhabitants of the contemporary city and the unavoidable connectedness that the naturally occurring, as well as fabricated systems of this environment exhibit, from the span of a day to that of decades.

Following the pattern of investigating the topic of mapping in this document, through historic examples first and then through the progression of my contemporary understanding I will begin this localized look into the selected geographic area through a similar methodology. It is an unfortunate predicament, that due to the current state of the world, I will not be able to personally experience the spatial qualities of the area that I am investigating, but hope to highlight a position that can serve as a measuring stick as I strive to delve into these topics further in my research career.

Sanjay Gandhi National park

17th century

Malad Creek/ Versova

19th-20th century textile mill lands Post-independence back bay reclamation Early 20th century colonial suburbs Post-independence suburbs Post-70s Greater Mumbai suburbs 19th-20th century Mill and Dock lands Post-independence Industrial suburbs Post-70s Industrial expansion 18th-19th century fort Defense and Military Koliwadas Existing coastal road (purple) Proposed coastal roads (green)

52 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Urban expansion of Mumbai since the 17th century

18th century European settlements

Arabian Sea

Thane Creek

Coastal ecologies Informal settlements Koliwada Low-tide water levels High-tide water levels Hazard lines drawn by CZMA to demarcate storm surge levels or affects of water levels as a result of environmental degradation

Composing settlement patterns and time determined water levels within a single map allowing one to speculate on how this might guide future urban development

Malad Creek

53 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

Arabian Sea

Map of Bombay by the Surveyor General of India, 1898 This 1898 map of Mumbai is one that at first glance shows its difference in focus from the seacentered maps referred to in the previous section of the document.

Instead what graphically dominates the map, is the attention paid to the land over water through comparatively more vivid detailing and differentiation of various geographic and economic zones as well as built areas, with the sea and the backwaters are seen with non-discerning eyes as a simple white mass fixed in place using strict lines demarcating the edge of land. The tidal changes and relationships of water with the land at various points on the map aren’t sufficiently represented. To a smaller degree, so are the coastal forests. Whereas the coconut groves can be seen to be understood and detailed, the mangroves lining the Malad Creek and its canals are seen merely as an ambiguous gray texture.

What is made clear however are the extents of the original islands and their separation from the sea and coastal forests, a narrative which dominates Mumbai today.

54 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Map of Bombay by the Survey of India Offices, 1934 Made thirty-six years after the previous map, the use of color is the greatest noticeable difference.

The two maps have various similarities such as the mapping of land features, scattered vegetation, strict lines dictating the extents of water, a representation of terrain through topographical lines, recognized built structures such as fortifications, roads, railroads, mills and living quarters. Those are aspects where the map achieves some degree of success, but on the other hand fails to situate any indigenous settlements, generalizes representations of coastal ecologies and fails to accommodate flux into the map.

It is quite evident to me that the rigidity of the map itself benefited the implementation of roads and larger construction projects which depend on predictability and permanence. In the short term, this assumed homogeneity might have been conducive to the rise of the city, but almost a century later, the fallout of these assumptions is widespread as the city fails to cope with ever-changing natural phenomena and demographics.

Map of Bombay by the Surveyor General of India, 1898 Map of Bombay by the Survey of India Offices, 1934

http://digitool.is.cuni.cz:1801/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=1171982.xml&dvs=1610658304438~586&locale=en_GB&search_terms=&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=3&divType=

http://digitool.is.cuni.cz:1801/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=1171884.xml&dvs=1610658815112~735&locale=en_GB&search_terms=&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=3&divType=

55 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

Mapping of Mumbai’s Terrain by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, 2008 Mathur and Cunha, in SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary represent Mumbai’s terrain as one which is intrinsically connected to the temporal territoriality of water, as well as the constructed fabric that contends with it. The graphic representation of this emerges as an assemblage of geographic, photographic, hydrological and ecological observations and speculations.

I infer that the intentions of the authors in doing so were to connect the reader or the viewer to the underlying processes in a city, as well as the historic and contemporary built spaces which are experienced by the general public daily.

By using illustrative lines to connect various elements within these layers the subject of the mapping goes from static to dynamic, revealing concrete ways in which historic decisions on the shaping of the land to consolidate the city have lasting ramifications on the flow of natural processes and the species can lie within them.

The examples here show such a representational strategy in the context of the Sewri Fort and the Mahul creek (location reference marked on map legend), which has been “separated from Mahim by siltation and landfill.”67

56 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Section in progress

SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary. P. 126.

SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary. P. 124, 125.

57 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

As much as the intentions of the maps lie in allowing the readers of this text to develop their understanding of the Malad creek area, I intend to state some of the spatial relationships that exist and the forms that they exist in.

The first map starts with representation at a physical level with the distilled visualization of the

58 | Peripheral Mechanisms

re C al ad M al

ad

C

re

ek

Settlement pattern + Major roads + Low and high tide lines

Arabian Sea

M

Hoping to take a more proactive approach than a more explicitly observation based one, the following graphic representations of the area of Versova Koliwada, Madh island and the Malad Creek are an attempt to use my training in architecture to find connected aspects of this space and allow an incremental understanding of the systems at play at this scale. They are purposefully constructed in a manner that tends towards diagrammatic to simplify and condense information as compared to a map created through satellite imagery (see Aerial Imaging by Airbus Maxar Technologies).

Low and High tide lines + Hazard line + Inter-tidal zones + Mangroves

Through a historical lens, certain biases in map making in the scope of Mumbai reveal themselves. After much reflection the main observations that I made were— • Mapping seems to get more detailed in areas where there are opportunities for economic gain.

• Access to maps that provided truly detailed insight into the city was scarce.

• The maps were biased in the sense that they were generally authored by a singular person or body, who could inscribe their implicit bias into these documents.

• In most cases, there seems to be a gap in the understanding and representation of the dynamism of the environment in which the city situates itself as well as the indigenous settlements which predated the maps.

ek

A contemporary breakdown

Arabian Sea

ek

High-tide line + Massing of informal and formal settlements

M

al ad

C

re

ek re C al ad M

Major roads + Mangorves + Government structures + Inter-tidal zones + Hazard lines + Mangroves

Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea

Major roads Minor roads and alleys demarcating extents of plots

Low tide line

ad al M

Major roads + Mangorves + Government structures + Sea levels + Hazard lines + Mangroves

C

re

ek

Arabian Sea and Malad Creek

High tide line Intertidal Zones (Mudflats and continental shelf) Hazard line Beaches Mangroves Government sites Low-tide water levels High-tide water levels Hazard lines drawn by CZMA to demarcate storm surge levels or affects of water levels as a result of environmental degradation Formal settlements

Arabian Sea

59 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

Informal settlements Koliwadas (fishing villages) Pollutant discharge from the urban edge with increasing density Planned future coastal road

ek

The second set of maps within this collection of drawings aim to investigate the relationship between formal and informal densities, their relation to the projected lines of water and bordering mangroves and then imagining how these physical spaces play roles in the greater systems of the natural world and the built city.

The map on the fishing network attempts to mark out another hidden element of Mumbai— the indigenous community and their modality of livelihood, through a symbiotic relationship

60 | Peripheral Mechanisms

ek re C ad al M

Major roads and future coastal road overlaid on the Koli fishing network

density of the urban fabric and the sea levels demarcating a sharp stop to its growth. The set of drawings moved forward to illustrate the line based division between land and water, followed by the government developments in the area in relation to the sea, the creek and the mangroves, with the first set of four drawings ending with the display of the layered intersection of the urban fabric with its adjacency to the mangroves and marked levels of water.

Representation of the Koli fishing network based around there position between mangrove and sea

re C al ad M

Mangroves + Low-tide line + Massing of informal and formal settlements + Pollution discharge

Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea

Daravali Village C

Protected mangroves

Malad Creek

C

Inter-mangrove canal

Newer mix of informal and formalized settlements Sewage treatment plant B

Future coastal road

Madh Koliwada

B

Informal settlement built at the edge extremities of the city Versova Koliwada

Formally gridded urban fabric

A

Inlet from the Arabian Sea Madh Fort

61 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

A

Arabian Sea

with the natural world. The map on pollution is a demonstrative drawing of the impact that human habitation has but is largely oblivious to, such as the hidden systems of sewage and waste disposal. The last map looks ahead at the addition of the coastal road invasively planned within the mangroves and the Koliwada, and its effect on systems at play by layering it with the map of the Koli fishing network.

Going in, this exercise was aimed at constructing simplified graphic representations of the Malad creek/Versova Koliwada area. Having produced the maps what I believe is that this task not only records reality but also distills reality to allow a more clarified view of the complex layering of the city. This process of deconstruction, however proficient in understanding urban relationships as individual frames falls short when it comes to representing the diverse assemblage of the experiences of the city at various scales, instead falling prey to generalization.

Having become aware of the limitations of the scale and detail of mapping, two things became vital— • The exploration of a novel system of mapping and speculating on it would require a scope of a much smaller scale given the multitude of forces and systems which shape the built and natural fabric.

• Recognition of the actors and actor networks of locations in question.

An initial application of these principles is shown in the section drawings on this spread. The drawings go from a form of representation similar to that of the preceding maps to a style of representation that tries to be graphically digestible while accommodating the presence of various types and scales of details.

Selecting three locations and extents for the sections in spaces that I believed varied from one another in terms of habitation and relation

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Section A

Section B

Section C

80’

Forests and roads above flood zones

Small scale dock and fish processing

Arabian Sea

30’

Low-tide line

45’

High-tide line

Hazard Line

60’

15’ 0’ -15’ -30’ -45’

Section A

80’

Newer informal settlement

Transportation infrastructure

Primary coastal inlet

Fishing boat docking

Hazard Line

30’

High-tide line

45’

Low-tide line

60’

Versova Koliwada

15’ 0’ -15’ -30’ -45’

Section B

80’

Inter-mangrove canal

Coastal backwaters

Koli created lagoons to create non-polluted fishing grounds

Raised silt islands formed by mangrove roots trapping soil and sea levels change

Hazard Line

30’

Mangroves / Coastal forests

High-tide line

45’

Low-tide line

60’

15’ 0’ -15’ -30’ -45’

Section C 1/32” = 1’

63 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

Oxygen Productio

The density and resiliency of mangroves can substantially diminish the impact of storm surges on land

Carbon Sequestration

Habitat to indigenous species which are vital to the preservation of a habitable environment Root systems to allow access to oxygen through tidal changes while forming a protected space for marine breeding

Sediment trapping to raise land level as sea levels rise. Initially emerge as mudflats

Deep and long roots hold existing soil against unnatural erosion

64 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Transition from amphibious vegetation to coastal land vegetation

on

Fast cheaply built structures in the marine floodzone but equally important to the local economy

Fishing and activities related to coastal ecologies are central to indigenous economies

Rock embankments as a primary step to physically control the dynamism of the fluid terrain

Root system absorbs toxins such as nitrates and heavy metals Breeding to migration of fish to the world’s seas and oceans

65 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

to the sea and creek, the sections mainly show the details of habitation and its relation to the ecological and geological counterpart to the city.

The detailed section serves well to highlight the adjacencies of urban and natural elements, as well as their modes of integration and existence.

They are representations of the built and natural while neglecting the dynamism and influence brought to shaping these spaces by those who inhabit them. Without understanding the relationship that people and creatures have to the land, it becomes hard to understand the value of the long-established processes and traditions in the local context.

Following the chain of thought on local demographics and ecologies I wonder whether the values of an extremely local scale in addition to an acknowledgment of those who have and will occupy these scales and how they influence one another can be implemented in a system of intricate local mapping in spaces such as informal settlements and mangroves.

I imagine a network that is decentralized, dynamic and robust, through which the marginalized city can become a proactive component in the efforts for their equitable rehabilitation and empowerment. In the case of the Versova Koliwada and its residents, this system could benefit them by graphically representing the space that these demographics situate themselves in, but also the adjacent mangroves which the Kolis depend on for livelihood by creating a platform for the dissemination of knowledge on these ecologies.

To elaborate on what this could be I will first chart the actor-network that I refer to. Using this I will further illustrate what the relationships might look like and how they form the built spaces in the city at multiple scales. An easily teachable graphic modality of mapping which deviates from the widely consolidated practice of pristine lines and systematic configurations will be a speculative production.

66 | Peripheral Mechanisms

67 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

To elaborate on what this coul actor network that I refer to. U what the relationships might lo the built spaces in the city at m teachable graphic modality o from widely consolidated prac systematic biased configuratio production.

68 | Peripheral Mechanisms

ld be I will first chart the Using this I will further illustrate ook like and how they form multiple scales. A easily of mapping which deviates ctice of pristine lines and ons will be a speculative

69 | Versova Koliwada & Malad Creek

GRAPHIC SPECULATION

Pursuing my intentions to devise a system of mapping that finds its roots in not a selective view of the Versova Koliwada and the Malad Creek but in the relationships and adjacencies within the urban ‘edges’ at multiple scales, this chapter aims to highlight a speculative technique of mapping.

I began with a diagrammatic representation of the actor-network within this space. I do concede that my interpretation of these spaces might not be completely accurate but rather a speculation mainly produced from my experiences and the understanding of such urban conditions which I have developed through the course of this investigation. With this in mind, the diagram and the following mapping technique is an attempt based on certain parameters that I set for myself and what I wanted to achieve.

The experimental technique of hand drawing the mapping of the area in question is meant to be something teachable and repeatable

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amongst various demographies who want to be more involved in the re-imagination of the spaces that they live and work in. The fluidity of a physical process allows for the representation of a multiplicity of viewpoints and narratives which I believe would provide a holistic view of the spaces in question, as well as the evolving relationships amongst them.

Before the execution of my map, I will look into ways that similarly complex spaces have been mapped before as case studies to serve as examples and influences on the scale and level of detail that I aspire to achieve or surpass. My produced drawing will not replicate these case studies but rather use them as reference points in execution and ideology.

Mapping networks

71 | Graphic Speculation

Bheri Wastewater Aquaculture The literature for this case study is mainly derived from Julia Watson’s Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism. An example of an adaptive, symbiotic system in the bheris or lagoons of Kolkata— one of the most populous cities in India. Although this example isn’t based in the city that this thesis wants to focus on, what it does is that it shows a nexus formed between the indigenous communities, the government and the environment, one which is fair and sustainable.

Watson explains that the “system is synonymously a fishery, waste management, agricultural field, rice paddy network, community hub, grazing land, and heritage site.”68 The total area of this system of canals and wetlands is estimated to be twelve thousand, five hundred hectares, making it “the largest wastewater-fed aquaculture system in the world.”69

produce thirteen thousand tons of fish every year, providing sixteen percent of the city’s fish, and utilizing five hundred and fifty thousand cubic meters of untreated wastewater per day as fish food.”71 Indian carp and tilapia are the staple fish produced, although the wetlands support at least fifty different varieties of fish.

Organic waste is removed through a process between algae and bacteria. Shallow bheris allow sunlight to reach their depths while winds oxygenate the waters. This creates an ideal condition for the growth of aqueous plants such as the water hyacinth, which are integral to the ecosystem, breaking surface waves, countering soil erosion and when they are removed due to

Fish production in the bheris began with a singular operation that used city sewage as fish food. Soon, “other local farmers followed suit, recognizing the profitability of using a constant supply of free waste to produce fish and vegetables.”70 Since then this practice has become one which is indigenous to the region and an integral part of the wetland ecosystem.

Six hundred and eighty million liters of raw sewage enter the wetlands every day. The sewage flows through the city’s sewer network and then an open canal system, going through pretreatment and oxidation ponds before arriving are the bheris where the fish are cultivated. “These fish farms

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Process of wastewater treatment

This practice of wastewater aquaculture began somewhere around the 1920s but expanded rapidly once the sewage system in the city changed in the 1940s due to the primary sewage canal of the city— the Bidhyadhari River, drying up due to over siltation. It was then that a new system of canals through the wetlands of East Kolkata was developed.

their abundance, they act as fish food or raw materials for furniture and art. Algae on the other hand break down sewage waste and are food for fish as well.

“The bheri aquaculture process involves several steps; the preparation of ponds, primary fertilization, fish stocking, then secondary fertilization and ongoing fish harvesting.”73 The pond is prepared byways of draining, tilling and drying them followed by the addition of lime to sewage water let in to balance the pH value of soil and neutralize pathogens. The sewage water is left to settle for about twenty days. The shallow depth of the bheris allows for sunlight penetration which is vital for the growth of phytoplankton.

Bheri aquaculture location in Kolkata

The purification process involves “multiple steps of pretreatment; sedimentation, dilution, storage, and waste stabilization.”72 Sedimentation: Used to remove suspended solids from sewage. Water from narrow canals flows into large ponds causing siltation, followed by the addition of freshwater to maintain non-toxic levels of CO2, H2S and NH3.

Oxygen in freshwater facilitates a reaction for the breakdown of fecal matter. This is followed by the breakdown of sewage by micro-organisms through a combination of anaerobic and aerobic

processes for approximately 25-30 days, at which time most of the organic matter is dissolved. The water is finally released into the bheris.

Lo-Tek by Julia Watson

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These play a vital role in the development of the fish by neutralizing toxins and pathogens, managing water temperature and acting as food for fish. The levels of the phytoplankton are monitored closely because it is the green color that the water appears to be when it is the optimal time for the bheris to be stocked with fish.

This practice is not merely environmentally and socially conscious, it also provides a great financial boost to the city. The city saves $22 million on sewage treatment costs and another $500,000 on water and fertilizer. The local production of fish and vegetables also saves the city a significant amount in transportation costs. The bheris also

Productive system of wetlands

A secondary round of fertilization occurs after the fish have been stocked as pretreated sewage is fed into the bheris. A nursery pond is managed, separate from the pond with mature fish to ensure a year-round supply of fish to sell in the wet markets of Kolkata.

Another level of interconnectivity between the processes of the wetlands comes through the integration of agriculture and livestock. The aqueous plants are fed to the livestock, whose excretion, in turn, is used as manure for plankton and in the soil for growing vegetables. This makes this system extremely resilient, through the interdependence of its various processes.

Lo-Tek by Julia Watson

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Despite the immensely positive input of the bheris and the communities that live within them, there is a lack of funding resulting in improper practice and loss of traditional livelihoods. The primary culprit is encroachment, much like Mumbai and its mangroves.

The research in this context, done by Julia Watson then brings to light the integral service to the city that the indigenous Bheri population provides through a mapping of the complex symbiotic relation of sewage treatment and fish production in the canals of Kolkata. The strategies of recording these layered processes by Julia Watson is something I intend to employ in my mapping strategy.

A member of the Bheri community fishing

play a vital role in stormwater management.

The system also allows preservation of economic equity and indigenous heritage through fishing cooperatives, which have serious barriers against entry for outsiders.

Lo-Tek by Julia Watson

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Kumbh Mela “A Hindu festival that situates itself every twelve years as the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers in the state of Uttarakhand, since its inception early in the first millenium CE, the Kumbh Mela has become the largest public gathering in the world.”74 The first written account of this gathering can be traced back to the 634 CE writings of “the Chinese, Buddhist monk Tsuan Hsuang,”75 but is thought have taken its current formalized form during the British occupation of India around 1870.

This mass gathering every twelve years is not just one of spirituality, which is deeply ingrained through the deep religious connections of the Ganga, but also one of “commerce and entertainment.”76 However, in the context of my exploration of the practice of mapping what demands careful attention are the physical and systemic frameworks that accommodate this cultural, social, economic microcosm of India. An ephemeral framework which not only accommodates an immense population but also successfully makes critical infrastructures more accessible than most more permanent urban informal settlements. Diana Eck and Kalpesh Bhatt very eloquently state that “the Kumbh Mela pragmatically promotes pluralism inherent in Indian civilization by creating spatial and psychological conditions in which followers of disparate traditions live together, reflecting the spirit.”77

Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

“Approximately five million people gather for fiftyfive days, with an additional flux of ten to twenty million people coming for twenty-four-hour cycles on the six main bathing dates.”78 These numbers might not seem overwhelming in comparison to some of India’s most populated cities but they are when one considers the fact that the location of this immense festival is submerged for four months annually and that the physical construct to house the festival’s population is built in a mere eightweek span. “The ephemeral city of the Kumbh Mela is not only framed by a strong cultural Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

76 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

ecology, but also located in a highly dynamic physical geography.”79 In this ecology of flux what makes this ephemeral megacity possible is not just an understanding of the context but a “choreographic process of temporal urbanization.”80 In simple terms, there is a large-scale collaboration between the government, religious and social orders or akharas, contractors of various expertise and scales to address issues of health, sanitation, accommodation, religious rituals, security, transportation. The repeated successful synchronization amongst these various public and private interests on a temporal landscape while preserving the expression of identity serves as a point of linkage to the evolving physical spaces of negotiation between informal settlement and ecologies which find themselves within similarly temporal ecologies, like in the case of the Versova Koliwada and the Malad Creek. The opportunities to learn from the Kumbh Mela extend out

77 | Graphic Speculation

to “distribution of risk among infrastructural subcomponents,” or “spatial substructures” through “self-organized camps that form an interconnected network”81 to allow for resiliency in the unpredictable context.

There also exists a sense of incrementality in each version of the Kumbh Mela, whereby learning from its previous iterations, the organizing bodies develop highly efficient solutions to exist within “conditions that a more permanent settlement could collapse and become dysfunctional.”82 The consideration of this fleeting event’s potential to be a rich repository of knowledge highly relevant to issues that need to addressed in cities of today lead to questions such as, “How can we more flexibly accommodate things while providing the space for rapid transitions, frugality, and the increasing fluidity that cities require?” or “How can we move toward a more adjustable urbanism that is capable of anticipating and hosting the

impermanent?”83 The questions can be seen to have critical relevance in the spatial planning and future urbanism of Mumbai.

I believe that a major step in understanding propagating the practices of a phenomenon such as the Kumbh Mela is understanding not only the spatial structures and the systems at play during the festival, but the actor networks and ecological understanding that comes into play from planning to deployment to execution to deconstruction. One method in doing that I find particularly successful in the Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity is the graphic mapping of these systems from the scale of the district to that of a singular bridge or tent, always in the context of the shifting ecology to represent “overlapping social and material flows that generate open metabolic processes.”84 In my exploration to understand similar processes and ways to represent them building on the practice could provide a detailed, scalar understanding.

Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

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Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral MegaCity

79 | Graphic Speculation

80 | Peripheral Mechanisms

81 | Graphic Speculation

82 | Peripheral Mechanisms

THE WET SEASON (top left) Increased water levels and decreased boating activity and the mangroves enjoy a period of seclusion. They meanwhile protect the coastline from storm surges.

THE DRY SEASON (top right) Receded water levels with more fishing and boating activity in the due to calmer waters.

Sewage treatment plant water reservoir at the bottom right shows a source of pollution seeping into the mangroves.

Intersection between Koli fishing practices, coastal ecology and urban sewage outlets. (bottom left) Coastal ecology of mangrove roots, leaves that serve as a origin off the local food chain and dependents animals. (bottom right)

83 | Graphic Speculation

84 | Peripheral Mechanisms

THE DRY SEASON (top left) Receded water levels with more fishing and boating activity in the due to calmer waters.

The shoreline is dotted by clusters of informal housing or racks for drying fish, which is used as food during the wet season.

More permanent concrete buildings lie further away from the water.

THE WET SEASON (top right) Increased water levels and decreased boating activity.

The rise in water level changes the boundary of land and sea.

Informal edge of Koli settlement which is adapted to contend with the constantly changing creek water levels. (bottom left) Formalized dock for larger fishing vessels.

Accommodates a Koli fish market and serves as the connection to the city-wide fishing industry. (bottom right)

85 | Graphic Speculation

“Now that it was visible, it was no longer acceptable.”

David Attenborough, 202185

Observing that the root of the current ideologies of exclusionary and overt systems of mapping are in the historic hand-drawn mappings of Mumbai, I decided that any attempts to redefine these foundations of the practice must start there.

The hand-drawn nature of the map not only depicts a personal take on the observed area on a human level but also subverts the computerized nature of economized mapping practices of the day. The argument is not that digitally produced maps are inherently evil, but an attempt to establish personal connections to the representation of spaces with the citizen and ecologies.

Through the process of its construction, the drawing has not only been created but it has also taught me a great deal on how to read into these often-generalized segments of urbanity.

It became a canvas for incremental thoughts and accompanied drawing. Through this, the importance of layering and individual voice in the pursuit of a more equitable representation of the city made themselves paramount.

The various scales reveal micro and macro conditions which are vital to address some of the issues that I have brought up through the

86 | Peripheral Mechanisms

course of this investigation. I have combined my architectural and artistic training in representation to show these scales and the complexities within them. The main intention of the drawing is to reveal what in the general discourse of the city today doesn’t receive explicit attention, as well as their inherent complexities.

The produced piece isn’t an end to my investigation in this vein but rather an exercise that I see a possibility to build on. This analog method of mapping and the produced artifacts could be studied and compiled into the more common methods of representing the city. Ultimately, the hope is that the visibility or the ephemeral and physical qualities of the ‘edges’ shifts the narrative of otherness in Mumbai and similar cities of today.

A new form of detailed representation could arise from the compilation of various representations of his particular space in the city. On the other hand, the drawbacks of the alienation of the creator of the map from the spaces being mapped are evident. This in turn makes me believe in my approach of questioning the strict conventionality of mapping and the biases we hold towards the urban ‘edges’ of the city with their complex Peripheral Mechanisms.

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS Informal Settlements

Wetlands / Mangroves

Unplanned, incremental living spaces which balance themselves between permanence and impermanence.

Ecologies between land amd water. Wetlands are marshy fields, while mangroves are coastal forests.

Both are a vital component of a sustainable aqueous ecosystem.

Riparian

Anthropocene

Relating to wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams. It allows for an understanding of the relations between various systems of water.

Referring to the current geological age, it marks the period when mankind is having a telling influence on the systems and physical form of the Earth.

Coastal Regulation Zones

Slum Rehabilitation Scheme

Demarcated coastal zones in Mumbai, especially the coastal ecologies to encourage planned development in these areas as well as preservation of indigenous activities and corresponding geographies.

An attempt by the governing bodies to relocate and uplift the quality of living of the inhabitants of the informal settlements in Mumbai. This has resulted in a northward push of these demographies away from the commercial and social fabrics of the existing city.

88 | Peripheral Mechanisms

Koliwada

Critical Infrastructure

Traditional settlement of indigenous fisherfolk who were the original inhabitants of Mumbai.

Their way of life is based on the stewardship of nature. They mostly inhabited coastal villages and their livelihoods mainly depend on the coastal ecologies.

The structures which are a part of the built fabric that bring essential services such as electricity, water and sanitation to the inhabitants, which allow for safe and healthy living conditions.

Hazard Line

Pucca City

A recent addition to CZMA maps to illustrate projected water levels due to natural disasters, impacts of natural processes as well as affects of climate change.

The formal, more permanent aspects of the built environment, usually large scale developer oriented construction. This are evolve or change less often due to the high cost of construction.

Kuccha City

Actors and actor networks

Informal settlements and related entrepreneurial ventures which situate themselves in the vacant spaces of the city. Usually having no claim to the land that they settle on this demographic in the city have to be more malleable and resilient.

Words used to talk about a system which has various participants contributing to it. The form and success of the system/network is dependent on each of their contributions.

Monsoon

Actors and actor networks

A three to four month period between June and September where Mumbai faces torrential rain as moisture laden winds from the west head landward. The rainfall is characterized by heavy prolonged rainfall on a daily basis accompanied by tidal surges.

Words used to talk about a system which has various participants contributing to it. The form and success of the system/network is dependent on each of their contributions.

89 | Glossary of terms

ENDNOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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NAPM, “Truth &amp; Lies Of Slum Rehabilitation in Mumbai,” Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, (September 12, 2010), http://gbgb.in/docs/reports/Report%20of%20Public%20 Hearing%20on%20Slum%20Rehabilitation%20in%20Mumbai.pdf.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 398.

Nikhil Anand, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).

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Andreas Huyssen and Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 205-218.

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Nikhil Anand, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).

Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Disaster Risk Management Master Plan in Collaboration with Earthquakes & Megacities Initiative . MCGM. (Mumbai: MCGM, 2010),98.

Andreas Huyssen and Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 215.

Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009, 14.

Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009, 20.

Swapna Banerjee-Guha, “Ideology of Urban Restructuring in Mumbai : Serving the International Capitalist Agenda,” (Mumbai, 2000),7.

Swapna Banerjee-Guha, “Ideology of Urban Restructuring in Mumbai : Serving the International Capitalist Agenda,” (Mumbai, 2000),9.

“About Us: Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority,” Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority, Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra,Mumbai (Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra), accessed October 1, 2020, https:// mczma.gov.in/content/about-us.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 974.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 975.

91 | Endnotes

40 41 42

43

44 45 46 47

48 49

50

51

52 53 54 55 56

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Rahul Meghrotra “One Space, Two worlds,” in Architecture + Design, 12-19 (Mumbai: Nov-Dec 1991),18.

Bose, Shibaji, Ghosh, Upasona, Chauhan, Hemant, Kumar,Narayanan, N.C., and Parthasarathy,D, “Uncertainties and Vulnerabilities among the Koli Fishers in Mumbai: A Photo Voice Study.”Indian Anthropologist 48, no. 2 (2018: 65-80. Accessed September 23, 2020. doi:10.2307/26757766), 4.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web. Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009), 7.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 17.

D Parthasarathy, “Hunters, Gatherers and Foragers in a Metropolis: Commonising the Private and Public in Mumbai,” Economic and Political Weekly, June 5, 2015, https://www.epw. in/author/d-parthasarathy, 2.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 971.

D Parthasarathy, “Hunters, Gatherers and Foragers in a Metropolis: Commonising the Private and Public in Mumbai,” Economic and Political Weekly, June 5, 2015, https://www.epw. in/author/d-parthasarathy, 2.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 972.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 975.

Hemantkumar A Chouhan, D Parthasarathy and Sarmistha Pattanaik. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 ((2017): 971-85.) Web, 979.

S. Gopikrishna Warrier, “Mangroves: Do They Make Economic Sense?,” Nature India, March 27, 2017, https://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2017.44.

Mark Everard and Rohit Jha, “The Benefits of Fringing Mangrove Systems to Mumbai,” Research Gate, April 2014, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264405208_The_benefits_of_ fringing_mangrove_systems_to_Mumbai.

Mark Everard and Rohit Jha, “The Benefits of Fringing Mangrove Systems to Mumbai,” Research Gate, April 2014, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264405208_The_benefits_of_ fringing_mangrove_systems_to_Mumbai, 18.

Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009), 4.

Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak:

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Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009), 30.

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James Corner, “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention,” in Mappings, ed.

Denis E. Cosgrove (London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2002), pp. 213-252, 213.

Swapna Banerjee-Guha, “Ideology of Urban Restructuring in Mumbai : Serving the International Capitalist Agenda,” (Mumbai, 2000), 5.

William Nichelson, Google Arts &amp; Culture (Kalakriti Archives, 1763), https://artsandculture. google.com/asset/mumbai-harbour-maharashtra-william-nichelson/nAHfrqbQBhPZHQ. William Nichelson, Google Arts &amp; Culture (Kalakriti Archives, 1763), https://artsandculture. google.com/asset/mumbai-harbour-maharashtra-william-nichelson/nAHfrqbQBhPZHQ. James Horsburgh, Google Arts &amp; Culture (Kalakriti Archives), accessed January 4, 2021, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mumbai-maharashtra/GQFiBvR3O-a4kA. Andreas Huyssen and Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 205.

Andreas Huyssen and Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 215.

Andreas Huyssen and Rahul Mehrotra, “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai,” in Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 206.

Anuradha Mathur, Dilip da. Cunha, and Rajiv Lochan, “Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary,” in Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa &amp; Co., 2009), 122.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 323.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 323.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 326.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 326.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 327.

Julia Watson, Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism (Cologne: Taschen, 2020), 334.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 11.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 37.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 38.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 56.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 67.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 67.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz,

93 | Endnotes

81 82 83 84 85

2015), 68.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 77.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 76.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 85.

Rahul Mehrotra et al., Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), 88.

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, 2020, https://www.netflix.com/title/80216393.

94 | Peripheral Mechanisms

95 | Endnotes

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Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2007.

Anand, Nikhil. Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.

Huyssen, Andreas, and Rahul Mehrotra. “Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai.” Essay. In Other Cities, Other Worlds Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age, 205–18. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Mehrotra, Rahul “One Space, Two worlds.” Architecture + Design, 12-19. Mumbai: Nov-Dec 1991.

UNDESA. “World Population Projected to Reach 9.8 Billion in 2050, and 11.2 Billion in 2100 | UN DESA Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” United Nations. United Nations, 2017. https://www. un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html.

Mehrotra, Rahul “Bombay: A Factitious City.” The Taj Magazine, 56-71. Mumbai: Nov-Dec 1991.

Mehta, Suketu. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

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Manecksha, Freny. “Pushing the Poor to the Periphery in Mumbai.” Economic and Political Weekly 46, no. 51 (2011): 26-28. Accessed September 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23065542.

Corner, James. “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention.” Essay. In Mappings, edited by Denis E. Cosgrove, 213–52. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2002.

Pathak, Sushmita. “Mangroves Help Fight The Effects Of Climate Change. So Why Is Mumbai Destroying Them?” NPR. NPR, November 25, 2019. https://www.npr.org/sections/ goatsandsoda/2019/11/25/781990792/mangroves-help-fight-the-effects-of-climate-change-so- why-is-mumbai-destroying-t.

NAPM. “Truth & Lies Of Slum Rehabilitation in Mumbai.” Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, September 12, 2010. http://gbgb.in/docs/reports/Report%20of%20Public%20Hearing%20 on%20Slum%20Rehabilitation%20in%20Mumbai.pdf.

Banerjee-Guha, Swapna. “Ideology of Urban Restructuring in Mumbai : Serving the International Capitalist Agenda,” Mumbai, 2000.

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Voiland, Adam. “Landsat Image Gallery - Monitoring Mumbai’s Mangroves.” NASA. NASA, November 28, 2017. https://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=91333.

Bose, Shibaji, Upasona Ghosh, Hemant Kumar Chauhan, N.C. Narayanan, and D. Parthasarathy.

“Uncertainties and Vulnerabilities among the Koli Fishers in Mumbai: A Photo Voice Study.” Indian Anthropologist 48, no. 2 (2018): 65-80. Accessed September 23, 2020. doi:10.2307/26757766.

Kale, Owi. “Environmental Problems of Mumbai.” Bartelby. St. Xavier’s College, August 2, 2012. https:// www.bartleby.com/essay/Environmental-Problems-of-Mumbai-PK6ATZ4KRYYS. Rademacher, Anne. “Rectifying Failure: Imagining the New City and the Power to Create It.” In Building Green: Environmental Architects and the Struggle for Sustainability in Mumbai, 65-90. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Accessed September 27, 2020. http://www.jstor. org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt2204r4v.8.

Watson, Julia. Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism. Cologne: Taschen, 2020.

“Absolute Hell: the Toxic Outpost Where Mumbai’s Poorest Are ‘Sent to Die’.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 26, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/26/mumbai- poor-mahul-gentrification-polluted.

Hosagrahar, Jyoti. Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005.

Warrier, S. Gopikrishna. “Mangroves: Do They Make Economic Sense?” Nature India, March 27, 2017. https://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2017.44.

“About Us: Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority.” Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority, Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai.

Department of Environment Government of Maharashtra. Accessed October 1, 2020. https:// mczma.gov.in/content/about-us.

Chouhan, Hemantkumar A, Parthasarathy, D, and Pattanaik, Sarmistha. “Urban Development, Environmental Vulnerability and CRZ Violations in India: Impacts on Fishing Communities and Sustainability Implications in Mumbai Coast.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 19.3 (2017): 971-85. Web. Everard, Mark, and Jha, Rohit. “The Benefits of Fringing Mangrove Systems to Mumbai.” Research Gate, April 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264405208_The_benefits_of_fringing_ mangrove_systems_to_Mumbai.

Aravena, Alejandro. “Transcript of ‘My Architectural Philosophy? Bring the Community into the Process.’”

TED, 2014. https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_ the_community_into_the_process/transcript.

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Century City, 28–43. Berlin: Jovis, 2018.

Kozlowski, Gabriel. Gabriel Kozlowski. Accessed September 19, 2020. http://gabrielkozlowski.com/.

Miller, Johnny. “Mumbai.” Accessed August 31, 2020. https://unequalscenes.com/mumbai.

Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. “2034 Development Plan,” 2020. https://dpremarks.mcgm. gov.in/dp2034/.

Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020.

Mehrotra, Rahul, Felipe Vera, Diana L. Eck, Dinesh Mehta, and Dipti Mehta. Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015.

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99 | Bibliography