“I used to believe that being poor and being a girl was my mistake. After a long process of learning, unlearning, and finding strength in my identity, I represent my basti today with the hope that I can be a role model for other young basti residents who might doubt themselves for who they are and where they come from”, resounds the voice of Mary Naidu, a 23-year old footballer and rapper/songwriter from Matunga.
The air in the auditorium of Dharavi’s Maharashtra Nature Park is palpable with the energy of a young crowd that has gathered for the seventh edition of Making Mumbai. People have made their way from numerous bastis (informal settlements) across Mumbai—Mankhurd, Kandivali, Borivali, Bandra—and beyond—Western Suburban, Eastern Suburban, Navi Mumbai, Panvel, Vasai Virar, and Thane.
Many attendees are first timers. One of them, Ruksana from Panvel, says “I have come here to meet other young residents of various bastis and learn about their challenges.” While others have participated in various editions of Making Mumbai in previous years, such as Sagar from Mankhurd, who shares, “This is my seventh consecutive year attending Making Mumbai and this time I am here not only to learn but also perform a dance and song my friends and I have prepared.”
Next to Mary on the stage are two other young changemakers — Shashank, from an Adivasi Pada (tribal hamlet) in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and Dilshad, from the Ambujwadi basti in Malad. They recount personal stories of struggle and resilience while growing up in their respective environments. From Mary fighting to secure access to education and sports in the face of recurrent forceful evictions, to Shashank negotiating with the state and operating on the frontlines to ensure the provision of basic infrastructure, and Dilshad devising actionable solutions to protect basti residents from the increasing adverse impacts of climate change, each exemplifies resilience in their unique journeys. Despite their unique journeys, what connects them (and the rest of the room) is the demonstrated will and ability to rise in the face of precarity.
Celebrating diversity and collective strength
YUVA celebrates the urban festival Complex City every year with an aim of bridging the gap between marginalized and other groups and expanding the conversation about the city. Making Mumbai is a key component of Complex City, serving as an annual youth convention where participants come together to engage in discussions and deliberations on co-creating a collective vision for the future of the city. Together, they complete the phrase – Making Mumbai Inclusive or Safer or Accessible or More Liveable.
Making Mumbai is an enabling space carefully created for marginalized youth to come together, share their lived experiences, exchange ideas, learn about stories of change in each others’ bastis, find inspiration, deliberate on common pertinent issues, and devise actionable solutions. “Offering youngsters a platform of such a scale is a way of communicating to them that their voices matter and deserve to be heard”, says Sachin Nachnekar, the Programme Lead at YUVA.
“Our recent focus has been on curating more heterogeneous panels, including disabled, non-binary, and gender diverse people”, notes Dulari Parmar, YUVA. This effort echoes YUVA’s larger goal towards shifting the mainstream urban narrative by holding space for diverse identities in the dialogue on citymaking. “Making Mumbai offers a safe space to meet like-minded people, speak and be heard in discussions around forging better futures for our basti, city, and country”, adds Dulari.
Young people’s active participation in co-creating cities has long been a point of neglect. As the world’s most populated and youngest nation (with approximately 248 million people between the ages of 15 and 35), India has immense untapped youth potential to strengthen its core democratic principles by prioritizing their increased engagement. However, the inclusion of young people—especially those oppressed by caste, gender and class-based inequalities—in mainstream policy, urban planning, and governance discussions remains minimal. YUVA’s interventions with youth aim to cultivate an active citizenry within this demographic, ensuring governance accountability, fostering community participation, and facilitating personal transformation.
Speaking the language of youth
Making Mumbai first took place in 2017. Over the years, its format and structure have evolved. To increase opportunities for the youth to engage in deeper discussions and strategy making with one another, the number of participants has been capped at around 250 in recent years. The introduction of breakout sessions with 60 to 70 people in a room has further made possible two-way discussions and greater interaction.
The breakout sessions also enable participants to deep dive into specific thematics, namely, Identity, Governance, and Climate Justice, the chosen themes for 2024. Despite this segregation, the youth are encouraged to adopt an intersectional lens while thinking about any issue. While planning the interactive sessions, YUVA’s teams work in tandem to ensure imparting learnings on the interplay between the three themes. Post the breakout sessions, the three groups reconvene to exchange ideas and chart out a collective action plan for the coming year inclusive of diverse imaginations.
The event is designed with the aim of blending learning with creative methodologies — through play-based learning, reflective sessions, interactive installations, theatre activities, and more. A conscious effort is made to engage youth effectively by mirroring their energy and exploring tools that resonate with them. For instance, this year, in the climate justice room, participants engaged in an interactive card game that sparked discussions and shed light on the unequal impacts of climate change on different groups within a city, considering factors such as location, housing type, livelihood, and identity. This exercise encouraged participants to step into the shoes of individuals oppressed by caste, gender, and class-based inequalities, allowing them to imagine the multiple layers of impact that climate change has on their lives.
In this way, every year, the YUVA team brings more innovation in tools and approaches to delve into topics in creative ways. “The youth might not be interested in discussing their issues directly. After all, you don’t want to talk about your everyday traumas with people you’ve just met. Sharing experiences of evictions, demolitions, resettlement and climate change induced impacts can be extremely emotionally triggering. We need to think about how we can make discussions around heavy topics interesting and playful while keeping their gravity intact”, says Dulari.
Fostering inclusive and responsive governance
India currently lacks dedicated spaces for youth to participate in urban governance and contribute their insights to policy making. In contrast, Brazil has established institutionally mandated city-wide youth councils that empower young people to allocate funds according to their priorities. Inspired by this model, the YUVA team recently proposed the creation of a Yuva Kalyan Mandal in response to the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, advocating for a special fund for youth-focused initiatives where young people would take initiative in gram panchayats to develop youth leadership.
Making Mumbai complements YUVA’s larger and ongoing Anubhav Shiksha Kendra (ASK) youth experiential learning programme. ASK engages with young people from marginalized backgrounds, facilitating their leadership and agency for changemaking. This involves equipping youth with sound knowledge and training to address their own issues, negotiate their rights with decision-making authorities, and advocate for change within the system.
Within this framework, Making Mumbai emerges as a platform for young people from different communities to share their stories of change, inspiring and learning from one another in the process. This collective experience contributes to a broader narrative of youth empowerment and active participation in shaping urban governance and policy decisions.
Initiatives like Making Mumbai showcase the potential that emerges when young people are given platforms to freely think, express themselves, challenge their perspectives, and understand multiple viewpoints. The possibilities such spaces create are limitless, providing a compelling reason to create and sustain more dedicated youth-focused spaces as dynamic as the youth themselves.
Moreover, urgent issues like climate change disproportionately impact vulnerable youth. There is a critical need for more dedicated events and platforms addressing climate justice, a topic that deserves greater attention and discussion.
Through Making Mumbai, YUVA remains committed to advocating for institutionally mandated youth participation in decision-making processes. It underscores the importance of engaging young people for their expertise in shaping India’s political and democratic landscape.
