On my morning commute to the office, I walk through the skywalk at the Bandra Station and get a view of the slums that Anil is organizing in. On one side is a vast field of green “bhaji” or vegetables being grown by who live next to the water pipelines. On the other side is the slum that recently burnt down. The stench is unbearable and the site of men shitting in the dirt field by the station is not something anyone wants to see at anytime of day. Below I can see people relaxing, office workers trying to get to their destinations, the attorneys hanging outside the small courts building, and many people sleeping/drying their clothes/eating on the sidewalk. Since the fire, most of the people displaced from the burnt shelters have set up their “homes” on the sidewalk. High profile politicians with noisy sirens and heavy-duty police protection have come and gone. The most that I have seen done is a few water tankers pull in, a couple of temporary shacks set up as public restrooms, and seen food being handed out. I have heard from residents that they will not let news channels, tourists wanting to take pictures, or developers in. This is because they want to know what they are going to do for shelter for the victims of the fire first. I do not understand why news cameras are not being allowed in, as media could be really helpful to get their demands known—but this is just what I have heard from a few of the residents.

No matter the conditions, I have decided to visit the slums at least twice a week; to keep track of Anil’s organizing drive. I have noticed that the more often I go to the slums, the less the people think of me as an organizer and more as a leader. It is clear that the members of ACORN and the residents, in general, have not have had many NGOs or groups come in with a model that is based around member empowerment. I have come across issues that are so immediate and apparent that I feel that two years of organizing in the states were just a fun game. How many people Anil and his members sign up as dues paying members every day is evidence enough for how much the poor are willing to organize and band together. But the hard task is to make the members realize that they have to lead themselves and that no organizer is going to do that for them.

We have started with a committee made up of 11 people chosen by the rest of the members to start doing intensive leadership training. There are only 2 men and 9 women. Most of the committee members are Muslim women and the males are both Mulsim. Not a surprise since most of the slums are made up of Muslim communities. Three non-members interrupted the meeting; two of them turned out to be the people who take bribes from our members to make ration cards and other forms of identification. The non-members were indirectly told several times that this meeting was for members only but of course, they did not leave and tried to derail the meeting—until I lost my cool (Anil was not happy about that). They are excited, ready to work, and fight to delay or even better, stop the demolition of their illegal “bastis” or slum communities. The deadline given to them by the municipal government is at the end of three months. They have a lot of work to do.