This story is pretty much too depressing to report on, but here we go. Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, the young boy who starred in Slumdog Millionaire as the young Dev Patel, has just had his family “home” destroyed by the Indian government. The home consisted of a miniscule shack in the slums of Mumbai, and it was one of dozens of homes demolished by the government.

As Mumbai builds up and becomes a more economically progressive city, the local and national government is taking back a lot of land that many slum dwellers are, in effect, squatting on. The slum dwellers don’t own the land, and it hasn’t been given to them by the government, they simply lived on the land for so many years because no one really wanted to develop it commercially. That’s not the case anymore, as urban sprawl expands Mumbai’s city lines. I’m not saying it’s right or that I understand, I’m just saying this is what has happened.

Perhaps the worst part of the systematic destruction of the slums is that the slum dwellers are often given little to no notice. Such was the case for Azhar’s family. The Associated Press/Huffington Post is reporting that police officers began removing the slum dwellers from their shanties while little Azhar was still asleep. His family was simply told to pick up and leave, and his home was destroyed within hours:

MUMBAI, India — City workers bulldozed the home of a “Slumdog Millionaire” child star Thursday as part of the demolition of dozens of shanties in a Mumbai slum.

Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail was asleep when a police officer woke him up and told him to leave his family’s home, he said. Shortly after that, the shack and about 30 more were destroyed.

“A police officer took a bamboo stick to hit me, and I was frightened,” said 10-year-old Azhar.

Authorities say his family will be given a new home elsewhere.

Eight Oscars and $326 million in box office receipts have so far done little to improve the lives of the film’s two impoverished child stars, Azhar and Rubina Ali – who were plucked from the slum to star in the blockbuster.

They have been showered with gifts and brief bursts of fame, but their day-to-day lives are little changed. Thursday morning, city workers flanked by policemen arrived as part of a slum demolition drive – common in India’s chaotic cities, where officials struggle to keep crowding under control.

“They didn’t give prior notice. We didn’t even get a chance to take out our belongings,” said Shameem Ismail, Azhar’s mother, who has lived in the shanty town for more than 15 years. She has no legal right to the land.

“I don’t know what I am going to do,” she said, sitting on a bed she had dragged from the wreckage. Next to her was a plastic bag stuffed with belongings.

U.D. Mistry, an official with the city’s Bombay Municipal Corporation, said the razing was part of a “pre-monsoon demolition drive. He said only illegally built shanties – not homes that were legally owned – were bulldozed.

“They were removed. That is the principle,” he said, adding he was not aware that the child star lived in that slum.

“Slumdog” filmmakers say they’ve done their best to help the young stars. They set up a trust, called Jai Ho, after the hit song from the film, to ensure the children get proper homes, a good education and a nest egg when they finish high school. They also donated $747,500 to a charity to help slum kids in Mumbai.

Producer Christian Colson has described the trust as substantial, but won’t tell anyone how much it contains – not even the parents – for fear of making the children vulnerable to exploitation.

[From Huffington Post]

Hopefully Azhar and his family will get to move into their new home sometime soon. If not, there’s not going to be a point in having these Jai Ho trusts set up for their education, because Azhar’s family will either be in the wind or dead.

In 2007, National Geographic did an extensive issue on the changing face of India, and they included a really great article about the issues surrounding the Mumbai slums. The destruction of the slums isn’t something that has just happened this year, the Indian government (under Prime Minister Singh) has been “removing” slum dwellers and slums for years. What the NatGeo article points out is that the slum residents are a political bloc – many of them vote, and they are a demographic worth winning.

Photo credit: BARM/Fame Pictures