Is slum tourism a mere profession of parasitic entrepreneurs feeding off the spectacles of poverty or is it compassion in an unconventional form
Like a good draught, everybody loves a good slum! And Christopher Way has no impregnable immunity.
After a short trip to Mumbai that he took after graduating
from Birmingham University he decided to prolong his stay.
Today, it’s been more than half a decade; Chris frequents the streets of Mumbai, undistinguished from the inhabitants, the Mumbaikers. In 2005, along with his Indian partner Krishna Poojari, he started the first slum tourism agency in India called Reality Tours and Travel. It takes foreign tourists through the labyrinthine alleys of Dharavi to places replete with visible plight of the underprivileged.
Dharavi is the largest slum in Mumbai and by most estimates the largest in Asia. As per a 2001 Harvard Business School (HBS) research, Mumbai had 5.82 million (49%) of its population living in 2,000 slum pockets, the largest absolute number and the largest proportion of slum dwellers in the world. Currently, it is speculated to be somewhere close to a billion.
Unfortunately, makeshift houses, gaping sewers, rat-infested lanes and hungry children make for a redeemable sight. Tourists readily pay for a heart-wrenching tour around a slum to gratify their inflated appetite for voyeuristic pleasures. However, the liking for the same by flamboyant foreign travelers isn't new found.
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Photo: Stephen Chao |
Tourism or poorism, as is alternatively known, began in 1992 in the shantytowns, locally known as favelas, of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. There are 750-odd slums spread across Rio's hillside, accommodating more than a quarter of the city's six million residents. However, it is not the abject poverty or the unhygienic living conditions that attract the voyeurs but the thrill of meeting the infamous drug peddlers and gangsters, and interacting with them without the fear of being shot down. The tour operators functional in those areas help fulfill these dreams of the adventure-starved tourists.
Poorism is a burgeoning business in Kenya, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Jakarta, Mexico City, etc. The operators there are constantly stretching their resources to cater to the increased business. They are in fact giving traditional tour operators a run for money with tourists increasingly opting for unconventional packages.
Famous tour operators like Favela Tours and Exotica Tours in Rio and Jakarta Hidden Tours in Jakarta charge between the range of $29 to $129 for tours to slums. The rates prevalent in India are not far behind the international rates. A two-and-a-half hour long tour from the house of Reality Tours, covering parts of Dharavi showcasing the industrious slum dwellers recycling garbage, making clay pots, baking, soap factory, leather tanning, papad-making, etc, costs as much as $10 per head. While other tours (half-day, full-day, two-days) range between $10 and $100.
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Dharavi at a glace |
Chris Way and Krishna Poojari of Reality Tours and Travel |
Go Heritage India Journeys charges $20 for showing the slums around Trans-Yamuna in Delhi. While Salaam Baalak Trust, an NGO working for street children, charges Rs 200 only for an enlightening tour of one-and-a-half hours tracing the lives of street children starting from Nizamuddin Railway Station through the by-lanes of Paharganj to New Delhi Railway Station.
The credit for such parity in rates is attributable to the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire by Hollywood director Danny Boyle, who recreated the exaggerated plight of the poor in India thereby putting it on the international chart.
"After watching Dharavi in Slumdog Millionaire, many Europeans flock to India to differentiate reel life from real life," says Subrata Mukherjee, MD of Go Heritage India Journeys. The increasing interest amongst foreign travelers in the 'real India', presumably fraught with poverty, hunger and the mafia, has boosted the business. In the past five years, since the first slum tourism agency was established in India, the number of operators has risen to five.
This definitely is a sign that the industry is growing at a considerable speed. Authenticating the growth in unconventional slum tourism, Chris says, "We generated an annual income of approximately Rs 33 lakh in the last financial year (2008-09), which is tremendous considering the fact that we incurred a loss of Rs 111,166 in the first year of operation, which was just four years back."
A triumphant Poojari further adds, "Today, on an average we serve about 20-30 tourists daily, while we could barely manage any back in 2005." The travel agency organizes four to five tours a day now as against one or two tours a week in their early days.
The critics, however, find such triumph cruel and the jubilating slum tour entrepreneurs parasitic. They particularly detest the practice of encashing the pitiful sights that constitute the sightseeing tour. "Slum tourism is as good as red-light tourism," says Mukesh Mehta, chairman of MM Project Consultants Pvt Ltd and consultant to Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). "I am saddened by the fact that people get a thrill by marketing poverty," he opines.
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| Life in a slum |
Slum tour agencies expose poverty and squalor hidden between the shiny walls of corporate India and trades off the dignity of the poor for a tinkle of the nickel. The practice of taking tourists around the rickety corners of the city displaying the plight of the poor is highly unethical and exploitative. Gautam Chatterjee, Chief Executive Officer, Dharavi Redevelopment Authority (DRA) believes, "Slum tourism is a failure of tourism agencies." He stresses on the fact that slums aren’t articles of exhibition.
However, the players argue that through the tours they provide a valuable window into the lives of the slum dwellers. They show the foreigners that Dharavi, which is believed to be the breeding ground of poverty, has 11,000 commercial and industrial units that generate a turnover between $665 million and a billion annually. In fact, the average family income in Dharavi is Rs 13,500 as per the socio-economic survey conducted by Maharashtra Social Housing and Action League (MASHAL), clearing the slum of any sign of abject poverty.
They claim that besides providing employment to the local guides and opportunity to sell souvenirs to tourists, they alter the skewed perception of the phirangs about India. However, charging for showing the spectacle of poverty isn't acceptable to critics. Scott Clark, an international photographer who has worked in the claustrophobic lanes of Dharavi says, "It can be seen akin to paying to watch lions tear apart
a prisoner."
However, there are a few who think that slum tourism, if done right, can bring changes, even if it only means marginal upliftment. The intention has to be right so has to be the action. Gerry Pinto, former UNICEF program officer and president of MASHAL, says, "Slum tourism helps nullify the negativity that the media cast on slums. It encourages survival." And it is important, as slums are the solution to the have-nots when the government fails.
He believes that dollars that swiftly make way to the pockets of the tour operators need to trickle down in the slum. "The operators must put back a significant proportion of their profits in the slum as that’s where they reap profits from," he emphasizes. In fact, responsible tourism agencies are already doing it.
Reality Tours and Travel puts 80 percent of its earnings back in the slums. This year it donated Rs 200,227 to Reality Gives, an NGO established by Reality Tours. The organization currently runs a kindergarten and community center in Dharavi. The NGO imparts education to children for a mere fee of Rs 60 a month. They also provide computer classes for Rs 500, which they refund after three months. "We change people's lives," says a contented Chris.
Similarly, Salaam Baalak Trust also gives back to the society. It uses the revenues generated from city tours to educate children. It provides different kinds of courses to suit the needs of various kids. It has courses on formal education, non-formal education, bridge education and open education provided under the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) scheme. "Our student Brijesh Pandey after studying here, worked with us for sometime time. And now he has gone to the US for studying tourism," proudly says AK Tiwari from Salaam Baalak Trust.
Most of the tour operators do contribute to the society and therefore, in fact, advocate that their "incomes should be tax free," says Mukherjee of Go Heritage India Journeys.
However, the contribution by slum tour operators wouldn't transform these slums. Despite various promises over the years, the government hasn't even been remotely efficient in eliminating poverty and unemployment. In fact, it's Rs 15,000 crore Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), which entails rehabilitation of 57,000 families, is yet to take off six years since it was first cleared.
Nonetheless, such failures ensure success for the slum tourism industry. And even if the government ever achieves its target, which is quite unlikely, "We will move to other slums. Slum tourism will stay. And stay profitable!" says an enthusiastic Krishna Poojari.
Shinjini Ganguli
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