Examining slow and spectacular forms of violence through the politics of redevelopment in Kamathipura

This paper analyses the contested nature of the redevelopment of historic red-light neighbourhoods and their impact on social–moral–economic relations, using the case study of Kamathipura in Mumbai, India. Specifically, this article highlights the contested nature of the attempted redevelopment of a historic, inner-city ‘red light’ neighbourhood showcasing two kinds of interconnected violence—slow (such as deterioration of infrastructure and dilapidated neighbourhoods due to state neglect) and spectacular (such as massive and planned urban restructurings and spatial transformations)—both founded on a moral argument for sanitising and commodifying space. While redevelopment plans remain largely on paper, the speculation seizes the neighbourhood and restructures social–moral–economic relations causing great harm to vulnerable groups, while leaving several others in a debilitating limbo. We argue that the moral stigma attached to historically marginalised red-light neighbourhoods creates a paradoxical situation where it both prevents sustained municipal intervention and catalyses large-scale redevelopment proposals that mask the insidious violence of neglect by the state. We develop this argument through an in-depth field study drawing from interviews, focus group discussions and life histories conducted between 2014 and 2019 with a range of groups working and living in Kamathipura, one of Asia’s largest and oldest red-light areas located in the island city of Mumbai. This paper traces the complex interlinkages between different forms of violence(s) and the moral regimes that enable and facilitate them through contested claims to the neighbourhood and its uncertain future.