Moeka AKUTSU

GEO260 S_2020 Sig LANGEGGER

Webinar Paper
June 23, 2020

Analysis of chapter 11 from a story, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope
in a Mumbai undercity

These days, police’s corruption seems to be problematic. In chapter 11 of Behind the

Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity, written by Kathrine Boo
(2012), the power relationship between police and citizen in Annawadi and fear toward police
is described. On the beginning of this chapter, Kalu’s death was told to Abdul by constable
who was looking for Kalu’s relatives. Although Kalu was murdered, his death was recorded
as tuberculosis without any investigation. At the same time, police regarded Kalu’s death as
an opportunity to clear the airport ground. After Kalu’s death, five of the road boys were
picked up and taken to the Sahar Police Station’s unofficial cell. Sanjay Shetty, one of them,
was struggling what he saw about Kalu’s death and scared of having been beaten by police.
As he struggles with fear, finally he committed suicide by drinking rat poison. Ironically, his
death was recorded as a heroin addict who had decided to kill himself because he could not
afford his next fix. On this chapter, I would like to analyze how the police at the Sahar Station
weaponize fear in Annawadi through the aspect of territoriality. In this essay, territory is
defined as a behavior to regulate locality and affects resource and human by controlling area.
It is socially accepted by mean of establishing borders and establishing location-specific rules
regulating behavior within a locality. There are two points to discuss. One is territoriality in
Airport. The second is territoriality in the slums Annawadi and Dharavi.
To begin with, the territory of the airport is controlled to hide poverty by threatening
the scavengers. In this story, the police of the Sahar Police Station wanted to keep the airport
clean not to show poverty. For them, Kalu’s death was a good opportunity to clean the area.
Five of the road boys were beaten by police to stay away from airport. Otherwise, they might
find themselves charged with Kalu’s murder. This implies that police utilized fear of being
arrested to regulate the territory clean. Violence interrogation functioned to control their
territory. Furthermore, Mirch mentioned as this; “Yeah, he stole garbage, but it was their
garbage (Boo, 2012).” This quote indicates airport have rules on what they have on their
territory and right to regulate. His thought represents breaking rules within the territory and
unofficial entry to divided territory causes bad results. Airport have own regulation about
garbage. Thus, the police overwhelmed forcible entry which makes poverty remarkable by
using fear of interrogation.
What is more, Annawadi and Dharavi are regulated by false data of death and
appeared to be safe place. It is also one territory regulated by the police. According to the
chapter, “Officially, the Sahar police precinct was among the safest places in Greater Munbai
(Boo, 2012)” Only two murders had been recorded in two years. This successful data,
however, seems not to be accurate. They do not detect the murders of inconsequential people.
The example are Kalu’s death and Sanjay’s suicide. In case of Kalu, although he was
murdered, the cause of death is recorded as tuberculosis. In case of Sanjay, he recorded as
heroin addict who had decided to kill himself though he actually drank rat poison. Such
wrong information drives the “safe” territory. This is the way how the slums are ruled to hide
poverty. So to speak, local government created sham of safe territory. Information about
crime is disappeared or not revealed no matter how people want to know the truth. To
illustrate, Kalu’s father could not know what had really happened. Thus, in Annawadi and
Dharavi, the authorities regulate each place by false data. And the focus is not protection of
citizens but showing the territory safe.
In conclusion, two concepts of territory were mentioned above. In the airport, the
police utilized forcible entry which makes poverty remarkable by using violent interrogation.
The police threatened road boys to arrest as attackers of Kalu. Overwhelming of fear enabled
police to regulate airport area. In Annawadi and Dharavi, the territories were regulated by
lying the number of murder and show there safe. Authorities worked for territory’s poverty
invisible both physically and numerally. In the chapter, threat and manipulation of
information occurred to utilize fear of citizen and keep the territory much safe. The death of
inconsequential people is not investigated and registered as illness. In my view, such
inequality should not happen to assure citizens’ rights no matter how the authorities want to
clean the slum.