🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, threatening phone calls recurred. At first, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was called to the police station and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is part of a group resisting a multimillion-dollar project where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be razed and transformed by a large business group.

"The culture of the slum is exceptional in the planet," explains the protester. "But the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that overshadow the area. Homes are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of premium apartments, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream realized.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, roads or water management and we have no places for kids to enjoy," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

However, some, such as this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

None deny that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is in stark need financial support and improvement. However they worry that this plan – without resident participation – might convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, working-class residents who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, displaced people who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum annually, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly one million inhabitants living in the packed sprawling area, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to wastelands and saline fields on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to divide a historic social network. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be given apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained Dharavi for so long.

Industries from garment work to ceramic crafts and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a specific "business area" separated from homes.

Existential Threat

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and third generation resident to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His informal, multi-level workshop creates apparel – tailored coats, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members dwells in the rooms below and his workers and tailors – laborers from different regions – live in the same building, enabling him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically tenfold as high for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different vision for the future. Fashionable people mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, acquiring western-style baguettes and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains local residents.

"This is not improvement for our community," states Shaikh. "It represents a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also concern of the business conglomerate. Managed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the business group has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as local authorities describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer paid $950m for its majority share. A case alleging that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to actively protest the project, local opponents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of pressure and threats – involving messages, clear intimidation and implications that opposing the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

Included in these alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c