Last year I did a post on a poverty tourism experiment happening in Delhi. In both my own assessment and in the comments, opinion on the program was mixed: one the one hand, some people are offended by this concept, as it smacks of voyeurism. Others (like Bong Breaker) pointed out that the people who run these tours put money back into charities that support the community, and perhaps the people who go on these tours could benefit by added awareness and sensitivity. And John Thompson, who founded Salaam Baalak Trust, actually chimed in with his own defense of the program.
Now the Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on another poverty tourism program happening in Dharavi, Mumbai. John Lancaster acknowledges the controvery over Reality Tours and Travel, but also goes beyond it, to tell us what he learned from the tour itself. Some of what he has to say is surprising:
Dharavi stretched before us like a vast junkyard, a hodgepodge of brick and concrete tenements roofed with corrugated metal sheets that gleamed dully in the sunshine. Poojari gave us a moment to take it all in. “We’ll show you the positive side of a slum,” he declared.
In the face of such squalor, his words seemed jarring. But Dharavi’s industriousness is well documented. Its businesses manufacture a variety of products—plastics, pottery, bluejeans, leather goods—and generate an estimated $665 million in annual revenue. In other words, Dharavi is not just a slum, it is also a node on the global economy.
Dharavi’s industries are arranged geographically, like medieval guilds, and the first alley we visited belonged to recyclers. In one small “godown” (as warehouses are known on the subcontinent), men were disassembling old computer keyboards. In another, men smeared from head to toe in blue ink stripped the casings from used ballpoint pens so they could be melted down and recycled. A few doors down, workers used heavy chains to knock the residue from steel drums that had once contained polyester resin. Poojari told us that some of Dharavi’s empty plastic bottles come from as far away as the United Kingdom. “People from a rich family, when they drink from a plastic bottle, they don’t know what happens to it afterwards,” he said. “Here, you see.” (link)
And it continues in that vein: Dharavi as a hive of light industrial activity. He acknowledges the smell, the open sewage, and the crampedness, but he doesn’t dwell on those things so much. And he ends with a telling reflection:
No one gave us a second glance, and I had to wonder about the motives of those in the Indian media and elsewhere who claimed on behalf of the Dharavi residents to be offended by the tours. Surely their ire could have been better targeted at the municipal authorities who had failed to provide the community with basic sanitation. I wondered whether the critics weren’t simply embarrassed by the slum’s glaring poverty—an image at odds with the country’s efforts to rebrand itself as a big software park. In any case, it seemed to me that the purpose of the tour was not to generate pity, but understanding. That’s not to say that it made me an expert—I was only there a few hours, after all. Were the people I saw in Dharavi the victims of globalization, or its beneficiaries? I still don’t know. But at least the question had been raised in my mind.(link)
Does this article change your opinion of “poorism,” as poverty tourism is sometimes called? Or is Lancaster’s account of a few hours spent in Dharavi too “sanitized” to be of value?
I’ve heard of lots of people going on these tours, and I can’t say I see much harm in them. Dharavi is a slum to most of us, but it’s where a lot of people in Bombay live and work, so why should it be of any less interest or any less representative of the city than the gracious and well-preserved 19C buildings in Fort and Kala Ghoda and Colaba? And the kind of person who’d have the stomach for such a tour is likely to be sensitive and respectful, I think. I wince more at the huge tour buses blocking the narrow streets of old Delhi and the rickshaws crammed full of firang tourists taking up most of the road in Dariba next to Chandni Chowk, and the over the top pimping of palaces and handicrafts by Jaipur touts. Now if only Bombay elites would bother to learn a little bit about how the other half (literally – half the population lives in chawls and slums) lives.
(It’s a bit ironic that the tour organiser meets people in Leopold’s Cafe – that’s the place that kicked out some African patrons several years ago in a racist incident, and many of us boycotted it thereafter. But that’s by-the-by).
Seems to me this was inspired by the book Shantaram (an absolute must read). If that’s what it was, then such tours should have people actually living in the slum and doing some community service. They’re clearly there to gawk and probably can’t wait to catch a glimpse of some child laborers so they can go back home and talk about it. Pox and cholera on them all.
In truth, people have a lot to learn from slum life. The level of organization is mind-boggling and unparalleled anywhere else in the world. There is almost no crime, there are no locks on the doors, and people are helpful and dependent on each other like no place else. If people took some time off from being condescending they might notice a few of these things and realize that its not charity they’re showing towards the slum-dwellers but actually seriously underpaying them for lessons that can be derived from them. I’ll be impressed when they organize some tours where people go live in slums to learn some manners, learn how to share things, and to understand how deeply interconnected each life is to the next.
The money from this dreadful charity is probably a pittance and is not the most needed thing in the slum anyway. They need sanitation, schools and other stuff which is all under government control.
I have not spent any time “in” Dharavi, but having seen it from the outside a few times, anyone who spends any time inside of it under any circumstances is advancing the cause of understanding. I just don’t think you could go inside it and come away thinking that it’s some free-trade type economic development center. From that standpoint, anyone that focuses any attention on it is probably doing something positive IMO.
My opinion of these tours has changed. Initially, I had a negative reaction to it as I thought it was simply another example of the well-to-do taking advantage of the poor. I also saw it as intrusive and voyeuristic as Amardeep mentioned in the post. Now I feel that if it opens peoples minds and exposes those of us who are better off to how the poor really live, I think good can come of it. This is especially true if the tours are actually willing to put some money back into the communities economy.
There is a museum of the slum in New York city, only we don’t call it that — it’s the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where you can visit a building that was shuttered in the 1920s, preserved as a time capsule. You can learn about what life was like for the 10,000 Irish, Italian, German, and Russian people who lived in the building between 1880 and 1925. The Lower East Side was New York’s Dharavi, a hub of industrial and entrepreneurial activity among poor migrants, “teeming refuse,” in the words of the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. The LES was vital to the growth of New York, not just by providing sweatshop clothing to a burgeoning fashion retail industry but also as an engine allowing poor people to move up the economic and social ladders. The Lower East Side in the early 20th century played a huge role in creating New York as we know it.
Did the lower east side also have a lot of crack houses and things like that in them too?
Sure, they were called opium dens.
With the advent to the Internet and reality shows, voyeurism seems to be taking off big time and people can actually hit paydirt if they play along. If no one was harmed and it’s generating revenue for the local economy, then I dont see anything wrong with these tours
I understand the arguments for building understanding and visibility/accountability, but I often wonder if this is something slum tenants want. I feel the same way when people take pictures of the Maasai without asking for permission, or take slum tours of Kibera. As if, because people live a separate existence, it is ok to treat them like they are animals in a zoo and invade their private lives. While Dharavi has its own economic hub, it is also people’s homes. Does the money from tours go back into the local economy? Who controls these enterprises, and who benefits? There are a lot of ethical considerations in all of this.
In the 1980s, tourism companies used to run Japanese-language “ghetto bus tours” through Harlem. They were immensely popular.
If, as the article points out, as many as half of Mumbai’s 18 million resident live in squatter settlements, it doesn’t make much sense to think of Dharavi as separate or exceptional. It IS the city of Mumbai. You could easily argue that to visit the city as a tourist and then NOT see Dharavi is morally suspect–how can you dine on bacon and eggs at the Taj Mahal hotel and be oblivious as to where they came from? Slums are a fact of the city. You can’t avoid that any more than you can avoid the big office towers and expensive bungalows in Bandra.
I don’t think slum dwellers should have any more say as to who enters their neighborhood than wealthy people do. You can take tours of homes on Rodeo Drive or Park Avenue, and no one suggests that ogling at the wealthy is wrong. Public space is public space. The world would be a better place if more people were acquainted first-hand with the lives and working conditions of urban slum dwellers, instead of avoiding contact because it is thought to be impolite. If you read Mike Davis’ “Planet of Slums,” you learn that a tipping point has just been reached–the world’s urban population now outnumbers the rural one. A majority of humanity now lives in big cities, with a huge portion in slums.
Camille, that’s a good point. I assume they are walking along public paths and roads in Dharavi rather than peeking in people’s houses, though I’d hope the tour organisers would have spoken to people who lived along the path the tourists were being taken to ask them if it was OK with them.
Some of the worst kind of foreign tourist insensitivity is of the “you look different so you’re animals in a zoo” kind. I remember a bunch of Italians goggle-eyed at the baraat of a cousin’s wedding in front of a hotel in Bombay a few years ago, and one of them was happily snapping pictures of all the dressed-up women and actually focused and started zooming directly at me – and then was very taken aback when I marched up to him and said “this is a private affair and could you please bugger off?” I mean, who the hell wants their picture plastered all over some stranger’s holiday photos site? I can only imagine the “oh they’ll never know” attitude towards taking pictures of the poor.
Wow, I’m not sure how I feel about this poverty tourism. On one hand, it’s insensitive. On another, I can think of a couple of people who would certainly benefit from understanding how some parts of the world live without many material possessions.
I think my problem with these tours is that many foreigners already have an insensitive voyeuristic attitude when it comes to Eastern countries–so I think these tours would only strengthen this type of attitude.
Camille and SP are right. I’ve encountered Europeans living in America (i.e. recent immigrants) who have the same attitude towards Asian/Southasians. They think it’s okay to ogle. And this has to be discouraged.
agreed. and if i know my fellow bombayites, i think they might even enjoy the attention as a welcome break from their gruelling day.
on another note, dharavi also has some pretty posh air-conditioned leather showrooms. in fact, you get some of the best fake name-brand goods in there. furthermore, a large chunk of the these slum dwellings get more cable channels than several of us, here in the us. i know that they used to show hbo shows on regular cable in india.
i am also not sure about the voyeuristic aspect. privacy and solitude are luxuries to most of bombay’s population. this is especially so in a close-knit setting like a slum. so i am not sure if there is any intrusion going on. or, to be precise, whether it is perceived as such.
my two cents…
“Does this article change your opinion of “poorism,†as poverty tourism is sometimes called? “
As a study in contrast, there is Siddhartha’s 2/24/07 post titled “There’s No Place Like Om,” describing the Tiffany extreme of faux culturalism whereas this is the “jhuggi” version. Many of our readers took exception to that form of tourism as well. I wholeheartedly support both ventures, knowing full well that they are both canned presentations, not reality. I noticed a lot of you had a similar opinion.
If you believe in the simple truth that all exposure is ultimately good, whether artificially induced such as these tours are or naturally acquired, then how can you not see the benefit in these tours? Hatred and prejudice arise from a lack of personal exposure to the things we hate or fear. Not all exposure has to evolve to knowledge, or even full understanding in order to be meaningful. Just seeing and touching helps to broaden one’s mind. To put it bluntly, if you have had a few good Muslim friends in your life, you are probably not going to be anti-Islamic regardless of your understanding of the Koran or jihadist terrorism. If you have had a few gay friends, you are not going to be homophobic regardless of the controversy surrounding gay marriages. Just having had the exposure is quite enough.
Divya mentioned the book, “Shantaram,” based on an escaped Australian criminal’s assimilation in the Dharvi society. A good book, and not at all preachy. Divya, I was more appalled by his experiences in a Mumbai prison than his life in Dharavi.
Visuals from a British photog based in India: Adrian Fisk Archive
Floridian – very perceptive of you to connect the Om post with this. At least I’m consistent in my opinion, I hated both forms of exploitation. Most people recoiled against that but don’t seem to have a problem with this.
I don’t think your examples of exposure to religious and sexual diversity are a valid comparison. Those are deep-seated prejudices and people genuinely benefit from that type of education. Everyone knows what poverty is so a tour is not necessary. I am skeptical about the money being used to benefit the slum dwellers. I guess we can easily find that out a year from now so I suppose they can have the benefit of the doubt meanwhile.
Preston, I’m going to disagree outright. People DO argue that people should not take tours/pictures of wealthy people, and further, many wealthy people are able to block off their living spaces with private drives, guarded entrances, gates, etc. Honestly, from this post I have no idea how much of the tour is in “public space” or how that’s defined. This is not like walking down a public walk, through a shopping area, or in a park.
As I said before, an overarching question for me is whether slum dwellers want a bunch of tourists coming through their homes. To be honest, many probably do if it means those tourists will spend money there. A great example of this is the number of tourists endowing schools in Bodhgaya (and the economy of the area shifting to be entirely tourism dependent). Maybe I’m crazy – I don’t think it’s ok to take pictures of any people without their explicit permission or to go tramping around in someone’s living space if they do not welcome it.
Do I think people should be aware of and pay attention to the realities of slum life? Absolutely. Do I think slum-tourism is the way to do it? I’m not decided either way, but I do have concerns.
Hi, Camille. I bump up against this issue a lot and am of the opinion that “the poor†(not every resident of a so-called slum is poor) should not be left to their isolation. The basic challenge is to integrate people into the economic, social, and political systems of the city. Programs that raise awareness are a small step in doing that.
In the growing field of slum tours, poverty-pornography is not the draw. Why would a bunch of rich people pay money for a guided tour of squalor? Rich people go to spas and ski resorts. The draw is historical-cultural tourism. A few years ago, I interviewed Jenny Briscoe, who developed the Soweto tours in Johannesburg and which became a model for others. She trained local guides, established relationships with bed & breakfasts, restaurants, had specific sites to see (homes of Mandela and Tutu, shebeens, the saloons that gave rise to the “township jive†that Paul Simon adapted for “Gracelandâ€), plus expert talks by social historians, economists, etc. The end result was plenty of economic activity, not charity. If you visit South Africa today, and you want to learn about the apartheid era, you can’t miss seeing Soweto—and it would be a great shame if the township (it’s not really a slum anymore) were off limits for some reason.
Dharavi isn’t Soweto, but if you are interested in any of India’s current challenges (globalization, the gap between the rich and poor, environmental degradation, property values, AIDS, communal relations, etc.), you can find a piece of it in Mumbai’s poorer districts. Plus, how much social and cultural history is hidden in those godowns and chawls? As the article makes clear Dharavi has lots going on, much of it dangerous and unpleasant, but there it is. Slum dwellers deserve affordable housing, access to clean water, toilets, education, and the opportunity move on up, and they aren’t going to get any of it unless people decide to care. And it’s hard to care without information.
Hey Preston, it’s “huddled masses,” not “teeming refuse.” Time to bone up on the ol’ Emma Lazarus, hey?
Oops. My bad. The next line is, in fact, “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Funny, I never even thought of that line before.
Though I do think the tone of the poem was meant to be merciful, regardless.
I’m so glad someone mentioned Mike Davis’ excellent book. The slum is a fundamental part of the modern city, and that’s the case all over the world. It’s time to stop pretending it’s some temporary, malignant Other and to start confronting it head on.
So here’s my question: how much do these tours contribute to locals’ economic well-being? Yes, the money spent goes back to charity, but I wonder how much the simple presence of rich tourists hanging out in a slum contributes to the local economy (either through sales or just simple begging). I wonder if this will spin a new class of slum entrepreneurs (adding to the ones that already exist).
I was forwarded this mail of a film on Dharavi that is being currently shown at various US universities by the filmmakers (see http://screenings.cjb.net/ for schedule)
Naata is about Bhau Korde and Waqar Khan, two activists and friends, who have been involved in conflict resolution, working with neighbourhood peace committees in Dharavi, Mumbai, reputedly, the largest ‘slum’ in Asia. This film explores their work, which has included the collective production and use of visual media for ethnic amity. Waqar and Bhau’s work raises several uncomfortable questions for the filmmakers, so-called modern, middle-class, secular, urban beings. Naata juxtaposes the multi-layered narrative on Dharavi and the ‘stories’ of the filmmakers, thereby attempting to foreground a critical and active viewership. Naata is the second in a series on the people and the city of Mumbai. It is a sequel to Saacha (The Loom), 2001
For all of the reasons mentioned above, there is great reason to be critical about these ventures. But I would suggest one thing: if the point is to show “the other side”, it would be important to bring Indians to see it as well. How about making such tours mandatory elements of graduate curriculum in the business schools or in every elite institution of the country? Of course, there is danger in that too. The corporate world is seeking salvation in the idea of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP), and all sorts of ridiculous ideas could evolve. I hear the most simplistic ideas about the BOP: for example, the need to make Dove and Lux (or whatever) available to the poor in small affordable packs. Savvy jeans-clad MBAs could get really turned on by the idea of doing extensive focus groups in Dharavi and come up with more of such ideas. A perfect Bollywood script too, or at least for a telefilm. MBA wants to bring change to Dharavi, but Dharavi girl wants only Rani Mukherjee’s shampoo. Naivete of the elite versus realism of the poor. But is that what the BOP should really be about? How about thinking of how to increase purchasing powers across the board through appropriate technologies and human development, rather than simply segregating the market? How about finding ways to capture the tremendous human potential and energy that poor have, and that they are forced to spend in meting out their daily existence? “Tours” to Dharavi can help immensely in shaping such priorities but they have to come from different commitments. My question: where can such commitments come from? Can we reverse that script? Dharavi girl rejects both shampoo and charity. Wants change, real change. Interesting? or just another hackneyed Shyam Benegal movie from his former life?
Wasn’t too impressed with Kal…in particular his reasoning behind the Playboy interview…was dead set against it; then did it tongue and cheek on the urging of his manager (why?)…was ‘shocked’ at their threesome questions then decided to answer them as Kumar would…..then is worried that his mom will find out LOL…Kal just admit you wanted the publicity we won’t be mad at you…just don’t run circles around your tail.. 🙂
my bad 🙂 …above post belongs in the Kal-penn section
Heads up to those who mentioned Mike Davis’ book- Jeremy Harding reviews two Davis books, one being ‘Planet of Slums’.
GREAT idea!
Thanks for giving such a nice info.
Thanks for giving such a nice info.
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