Bandra Demolition Has Connection With Bollywood Legend Sunil Dutt — Here's What Nobody Is Talking About

Last Updated:May 23, 2026, 10:08 IST

A resident of 44 years had one thing to say when Bandra's bulldozers arrived: "If Sunil Dutt were here, none of this would have happened."

When bulldozers moved into Garib Nagar near Bandra East this week, one resident did not call out a politician’s name. He called out a film star’s. Sunil Dutt — actor, MP, and Bandra’s most beloved protector of the poor — has been gone since 2005. Twenty years later, his absence is being felt all over again.

For decades, Sunil Dutt was the one man slum dwellers of Bandra trusted above all others. This week’s demolition drive has made many wonder — loudly — what he would have done had he been alive today.

Who Was Sunil Dutt To Bandra’s Poor?

To most Indians, Sunil Dutt is the actor who carried his burning co-star Nargis out of a fire on the sets of Mother India in 1957 — and then married her. To Bandra’s slum dwellers, he was something else entirely: a Congress MP who spent five terms in Parliament and consistently put his weight behind the city’s most vulnerable residents, often at a political cost to himself.

He joined Congress in 1984 and won the Mumbai North-West seat repeatedly. But his loyalty to slum dwellers was not merely electoral. He is credited with lobbying hard to push the government’s slum protection cut-off date — first to 1985 and later further — which meant lakhs of slum residents gained legal protection they would otherwise have lost, according to multiple reports including OpIndia‘s detailed account.

He reportedly personally persuaded Congress president Sonia Gandhi to intervene with then-Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to stop bulldozer action in Mumbai’s slums.

When airport authorities wanted huts surrounding the Mumbai airport removed on security grounds, it was Dutt who led a protest march to the collector’s office in Bandra, demanding that photo passes be issued to eligible residents before any demolition, The Times of India reported.

His critics were many. But to the people of Garib Nagar, he was simply the man who showed up.

What Did He Name After Nargis — And Why Did It Become Controversial?

After his wife Nargis passed away in 1981, Dutt named a slum settlement near Bandra after her — Nargis Dutt Nagar. The gesture was deeply personal for a grieving husband. But over the years, the settlement grew far beyond what anyone had anticipated, and it became one of Mumbai’s most politically sensitive flashpoints.

A 2013 Times of India report noted that around 300 illegal shanties near Bandra Reclamation — behind Nargis Dutt Nagar — were demolished on the chief minister’s orders, only to be fully rebuilt within two weeks.

The plot belonged to MHADA and was leased to MSRDC for flyover construction work, yet the slum had expanded dramatically over the years.

Residents told TOI that in 1994, Nargis Dutt Nagar began with just 40 shanties. By 2013, it stretched from the Bandra fire station all the way to Rangsharda Hotel near Lilavati Hospital. Some constructions had even gone multi-storeyed.

In 2006, a mysterious fire gutted parts of the slum — and pucca houses were promptly built in the gutted area under a government housing scheme.

Local association chairperson Anil Joseph did not mince words: “Migrants are pouring into the city almost daily. The truth of this slum is simple. Elections are near and the slum’s occupants will serve as a vote bank. 100% of the slum’s vote will be for politicians who shut their eyes to the building of illegal shanties," he told TOI.

Did Dutt’s Bandra legacy Cost Him Politically?

Yes — and significantly. Despite winning the Mumbai North-West seat for the fifth consecutive time in 2004, Dutt’s victory margin was cut in half — from 85,500 votes in 1999 to just 47,000 in 2004, as TOI reported.

A growing and vocal section of residents in the Bandra-Khar-Juhu belt felt he had simply stopped listening to them.

Vidya Vaidya of Cityspace said Dutt had taken the tax-paying citizen for granted. Activist Trupti Patel of Agni pointed out that he had rarely acted to protect public spaces across Bandra, Khar, Santacruz and Vile Parle.

Edwin Britto from Khar told TOI: “There are illegal structures coming up in Bandra and Khar which his party workers know about and are doing nothing to prevent. Local people are suffering. Just look at the pavements on Linking Road, there is no space to walk."

Keith D’Souza of the H-West Ward Citizens’ Trust said they had even written Dutt a formal letter about civic problems in the area — and received complete silence in return.

Dutt passed away in May 2005, just a year after that election. The debates around his legacy — protector of the poor or enabler of encroachment — have never fully settled.

So What Is Happening In Garib Nagar This Week?

On Tuesday, Western Railway launched a court-ordered demolition drive in Garib Nagar, the slum adjoining Bandra East railway station. The Bombay High Court had directed railway authorities to clear unauthorised structures from railway land, noting they were affecting track safety.

Heavy machinery, police deployment, and debris removal teams have been on site, with the drive expected to continue over four days, Mid-day reported.

The land is needed for expanding the fifth and sixth railway lines on the Santacruz–Mumbai Central corridor — a long-pending project that will add nearly 50 new trains originating from Mumbai and connect Bandra suburban station with Bandra Terminus.

The court also made clear that eligible residents identified in official surveys cannot be evicted without alternative accommodation. Officials say around 100 qualifying families have been given homes. The remaining residents are being treated as unauthorised.

What Are Residents Saying?

The anger is sharp and personal. One resident who has lived in Garib Nagar since 1981 said: “Today if Sunil Dutt was here, no one would have been able to touch or move us from here."

Another questioned Bandra MLA Varun Sardesai directly: “During elections, he told us that if residents of Garib Nagar faced any problem, we should come to him. We have Aadhaar cards, PAN cards and voter IDs, yet the demolition happened without any survey. Who are we supposed to go to now?"

A teacher working in the slum put it most plainly: “When they come to us for votes, we the ‘unauthorised’ people become authorised. Every politician used to come here seeking votes, but now that we are being pushed out, no one is here," Mid-day reported.

A woman resident added that while the government is housing around 100 families, nearly 300 others have been left without shelter — out of roughly 400 residents in the area.

Twenty years after Sunil Dutt’s death, the people of Garib Nagar are finding out what his absence really means.

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