India, July 5 -- "Garbage came to Govandi first," says Simpreet Singh, a researcher associated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), referring to the Deonar dumping ground, set up here in 1927. "In the same spirit, the state has kept dumping people here every time it clears slums in other parts of the city." The latest will be thousands of slum residents from Dharavi, one of Mumbai's largest slum redevelopment projects.

Govandi-Mankhurd, which largely makes up M/East ward, has been shaped by a history of neglect and dispossession, a place where people have long been discarded. Life here is a daily struggle in a region defined by overflowing landfills, toxic air, and decades of forced displacement.

Twenty years after the las...