Mumbai toxic hell residents being "punished": State govt "erasing" protesters from voter list

Counterview Desk
Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan (GBGBA), Mumbai-based civil rights organization, has alleged that the Maharashtra government is "erasing" names of protesters of Mumbai's toxic hell, Mahul, from the voters' list. Forcibly shifted to Mahul, their protests have entered 43rd day.
Calling it government response to Mahul residents’ protest, GBGBA said this is being done with an eye of forthcoming elections.

GBGBA statement:

The Mumbai High Court had ruled that Mahul (the extremely polluted industrial area of Mumbai where 5,500 poor families were forcibly rehabilitated after their homes were demolished) was unfit for human living, ordering the Government of Maharashtra to find alternative accommodation for them.
The state government has not just declined to obey the orders of the High Court, forcing the Mahul residents to occupy a pavement at Vidyavihar near their old slums to protest against the government ignoring pollution related deaths and health hazard. The Devendra Fadnavis government has "communicated" a strange response to Mahul residents’ protest against the state government’s inaction.
It has decided to "solve" the problem by taking all dissenters and protestors off the voting list, and make 30,000 Indian citizens disappear from the Indian electorate during the 2019 elections -- as punishment for protesting against human rights abuse and being dumped in #MumbaisToxicHell.
On December 12 morning, Anita Dhole, petitioner in the High Court case, whose orders the government is ignoring, received a ‘punishment notice’ that her name had been taken off the voters’ list of Vidhyavihar, Mumbai, where she was born and raised nearly 40 years ago, at an address which is on her voter ID card, Aadhar card, electricity bills, etc. It argued in this notice that since she had been ‘rehabilitated’ elsewhere (Mahul), she couldn’t be counted as a voter in Vidyavihar.
Now here’s where it gets even more interesting – Dhole, like majority of Mahul ‘rehabilitation’ cases, have not even received allotment papers for the tenements that she has been allotted in Mahul, meaning, she will not even be counted as a voter in Mahul. Once she is scrapped off the Vidhyavihar list, she will cease to be on any voter’s list, and she will cease to exist as an Indian citizen eligible to vote!
More so, since the High Court Order states that she, like 30,000 others like her, cannot be allowed to remain in unacceptably polluted Mahul. Instead of obeying High Court orders, the state government is actually using the High Court orders to take poor people and victims of their atrocities off the voting list, fearing these people could vote against the ruling party.
Dhole is not the only one knocked off the voter list today. All the victims of the ‘government eraser’ are protesters of Mahul issue. And majority of them have not been given allotment papers for Mahul either. All these people will ‘disappear’ overnight from the voters’ listaltogether.
Dhole, along with 80 other victims of the ‘citizen-deleting’ move ahead of the 2019 elections, went to the election office on December 12 at Ghatkopar west to complain peacefully. The office’s response was to call the police, who sent five police vans full of policemen, who were then instructed to escort five of the Mahul representatives to the district collector’s office in Mulund, where they were asked to present their grievance, flanked by policemen, as if they were the ones guilty of a crime.
They met Surendra Navle, tehsildar, who assured them that if they could produce a copy of the High Court order instructing the government to move them out of Mahul along with a written appeal/ complaint letter, he would correct the problem and reinstate their names in the Vidyavihar list. Ome has to see what will happen.
The very same drama was played out a few months earlier as well, when similar ‘erasing’ notices were served, and deputy collector Tejas Samil responded to the Mahul residents’ written complaint by committing that such a removal of names from the voter list would not happen in future.
Apparently, this was a lie, and it has happened again. Whenever there is voice of protest vfrom Mahul dissent, the Fadnavis’ government’s response is to erase these citizens, and take away their vote – the only power available to poorer sections in a democracy to remove criminals and oppressors in their constituency from positions of power.

Comments

Uma said…

Fadnavis continues to disappoint me--I do not know how far he will go to "trod on the downtrodden"

December 14, 2018

Uma said…

IIT-B report has just come out and the government can no longer delay shifting the unfortunate residents of Mahul

December 14, 2018

Academics urge Azim Premji University to drop FIR against Student Reading Circle

By A Representative A group of academics and civil society members has issued an open letter to the leadership of Azim Premji University expressing concern over the filing of a police complaint that led to an FIR against a student-run reading circle following a recent incident of violence on campus. The signatories state that they hold the university in high regard for its commitment to constitutional values, critical inquiry and ethical public engagement, and argue that it is precisely because of this reputation that the present development is troubling.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

UAPA action against Telangana activist: Criminalising legitimate democratic activity?

By A Representative The National Investigation Agency's Hyderabad branch has issued notices to more than ten individuals in Telangana in connection with FIR No. RC-04/2025. Those served include activists, former student leaders, civil rights advocates, poets, writers, retired schoolteachers, and local leaders associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Indian National Congress.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Aligning too closely with U.S., allies, India’s silence on IRIS Dena raises troubling questions

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The reported sinking of the Iranian ship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka raises troubling questions about international norms and the credibility of the so-called rule-based order. If indeed the vessel was attacked by the American Navy while returning from a joint exercise in Visakhapatnam, it would represent a serious breach of trust and a violation of the principles that govern such cooperative engagements. Warships participating in these exercises are generally not armed for combat; they are meant to symbolize solidarity and friendship. The incident, therefore, is not only shocking but also deeply ironic.

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

India’s foreign policy at crossroads: Cost of silence in the face of aggression

By Venkatesh Narayanan, Sandeep Pandey The widely anticipated yet unprovoked attack on Iran on March 1 by the United States and Israel has drawn sharp criticism from several quarters around the world. Reports indicate that the strikes have resulted in significant civilian casualties, including 165 elementary school girls, 20 female volleyball players, and many other civilians.

India’s green energy push faces talent crunch amidst record growth at 16% CAGR

By Jag Jivan* A new study by a top consulting firm has found that India’s cleantech sector is entering a decisive growth phase, with strong policy backing, record capacity additions and surging investor interest, but facing mounting pressure on talent supply and rising compensation costs .

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Search This Blog