Mumbai: Residents give gritty Ramabai Nagar an image makeover

MUMBAI: Yojit Turerao (4) found it difficult to get admitted to any school last year. Not because he is naughty or disobedient but because he lives in Ghatkopar’s predominantly Dalit settlement of

Ramabai

Ambedkar

Nagar

. “I wanted to admit my son to junior KG,” says his father, Kunal Turerao. “I applied to several schools but none of them responded. Finally, I asked one of the principals why. He pulled out my form with the address highlighted and told me to my face that my son wouldn’t get admission because of our locality.”

For the two-lakh residents of Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, Turerao’s experience isn’t the exception but the norm. They claim that the colony’s unemployment rate is 35%—10 times higher than the national rate—and one of the many factors is employers’ perception of their locality. But rather than wallow in self-pity, the colony’s youth federation raised funds to give the area’s reputation a boost by revamping two subways leading to their colony. “People used to walk through them with handkerchiefs held over their noses,” says a member of the

Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar Youth Federation

. “The paths to enter our colony were so dirty that they left a bad impression. No wonder people were wary after seeing the state of the subways.”

In 1997, police had opened fire on a rioting mob in Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, killing 10 people and injuring 26. “After that, all taxis and rickshaws would refuse fares to our colony,” says resident Sanghdeep Kedare. Subsequent agitations over the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Powai in 2000 and the Bhima-Koregaon riots earlier this year have only cemented the area’s reputation as a dangerous pocket. So much so that Arun Kedare (59) is struggling to find a good match for his son, despite the fact that the boy has an MBA and a well-paying job at an upholstery firm.

The

subway

project was taken up as part of the colony’s two-month-long Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations, which also includes blood donation drives, medical camps, plays and songs about the life of Ambedkar. For now, the subways’ brightly-painted walls, urging commuters to ‘Save the Girl Child’ and ‘Stop Child Abuse’, are getting rave reviews from commuters. Even the watchman reported a marked decrease in the number of commuters spitting and littering.

Residents like Arun Kedare, president of the colony’s residents’ association, though, have plans for a radical image transformation. They’ve been angling for the plot to be redeveloped for the past 10 years but since some residents live in ownership chawls while others inhabit slums, there are disagreements over whether slum rehabilitation policies should apply. In the meantime, Kedare plans to set up a library and career counselling services to combat the colony’s high unemployment rate. As for the colony’s reputation as a dangerous locality, residents insist it’s a myth. “People think it’s a place full of crocodiles,” says a resident. “But actually it’s a very gentle place.”

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