Neera Adarkar deconstructs a way of life to give a clear view on why chawls need to be protected
Chawls are a quintessentially Mumbai phenomenon, whose rise is inseparably linked to the rise of the textile mills. The textile mills were the next big industrial step that Mumbai took after the spurt in cotton trading and the shifting of the ports.
The mills flourished in the mid-19th century and the people who worked there were labourers mainly from the Konkan coast and ghats. Often one of the workers was sent back to the villages to recruit more people. These workers were known as ‘jobbers’ and they usually got back people who were from the same family or same village or caste. Once in Mumbai, they lived together.
Some chawls were built by the government called the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls and the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) chawls. The mill owners built other chawls to lure people to come and work for them, or by private landlords. Many private landlords who built chawls were Muslims, as according to their religion they couldn’t collect interest from money. So this was a way of investing the money.
Originally, the migrants came alone to work and left their families in the villages. So often the
rooms were occupied by a different set of workers at different times of the day. When one shift ended, one set of people came to the rooms while the other set of people went to work. When the workers brought their families, the entire family and often more than one family stayed in one room.
A model for future cities
The chawl areas make an interesting study because they contain within themselves, a complete sustainable township. The infrastructure that developed next to the chawls was very good.
The area has the best government hospitals, arterial roads and a number of railway stations. Shops and bazaars and many sources of entertainment, like theatres came up in the area and because the shop owners also lived in the same chawls, residents found it easier to take credit, which was a big part of lower middle class life. 90% of the population lived within 15 minutes walking distance from the chawls. This enabled the women from the chawls to participate in all spheres of life. Thus playing an important role in all movements.
This sort of sustainable township is what we need to move towards in Mumbai today. This mobility is crucial in a society for women to feel empowered. They don’t have to worry about their kids and house, as the home is just 15 minutes away. The mill areas were also safe at any time of the night due to the interactive nature of the chawl structure and due to different shifts, there were people in the open spaces at all times.
The space between us
The space constraint and the fact the people were forced to have close interaction with each other resulted in a very rich sub culture. The chawls were a breeding ground for mill labour unions. A lot of other social and political groups like Bhajan mandals, chawl committees, community halls, gymnasium, theatre groups and ‘gavkari mandals’, which comprised people who were from the same village were formed. The ‘khanawals’ were community kitchens, which were run entirely by women.
Structured living
The chawls fall under a building typology that is not found anywhere else. They are usually a row of rooms of about 200 sq ft with a common corridor and common toilets at both ends. As many rooms as possible were crammed into a building as the landlord got paid for per room.
They are typically urban because they are multi storied. Yet they incorporate features of village life. A typical feature of the chawl building was the fact that they always had an open space incorporated into the design. Either as ‘wadis’, which are internal courtyards or a chowk or a long length of open space in between the buildings.
The chawls could appear to be just a straight set of buildings, but often when you enter them, they are more complex than they appear from the outside. One of the features was that the space between the private domain and the public domain was blurred.
Often the residents slept in the open spaces. The common corridor was a semi private space where a number of activities were regularly carried out. The nature of the space in the chawls was highly responsible for the interactive nature of the social fabric of the chawls.
The Rolodex
Well-known faces from the chawls
Vinod Kambli (cricketer)
The aggressive batsman started his career from a single room in a chawl in Bhendi Bazaar
Jackie Shroff (actor)
The actor lived at 175 Walkeshwar Road, a chawl with 20 families, for 25 years of his life
Atul Dodiya (painter)
He lived in a chawl in Ghatkopar and was accustomed to painting in an open verandah surrounded by people
