Description

Photo: Jacob Carlsen

Makeshift slums in Mumbai where Untouchables from the countryside come to stay when they arrive without anything. They build shacks wherever it is possible. Next to the sewage canal, on top of water pipes, near the dump. Often they have to pay rent or bribe to officials not to have their homes demolished. “It is painful to live here. Where do we go? We face problems everywhere”, says Sehto, 55. Sehto os the leader of the Bagri community who live next to the railway tracks. The “rent” for the huts is paid to the railway company employees as a bribe. The Bagri community came from an area close to the Indian border 40 years ago, but still cannot own the land they inhabit. There is no electricity, no education or health facilities and no water. Water is fetched from a mosque nearby, but again a bribe has to be paid.