🔗 Share this article

Across several weeks, coercive messages persisted. Initially, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Finally, one resident claims he was summoned to the police station and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is among those opposing a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be demolished and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The culture of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," explains Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and often without proper sanitation, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the air is filled with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is an aspirational dream come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and there are no spaces for children to play," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who migrated from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

But others, such as the leather artisan, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. But they fear that this initiative – absent of community input – could potentially convert premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, displaced people who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it a major informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly a million residents living in the dense sprawling neighborhood, a minority will be able for new homes in the redevelopment, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to break up a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has maintained this area for many years.

Industries from tailoring to pottery and waste processing are likely to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For residents like Shaikh, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to live in this community, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, multi-level facility makes garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – sold in high-end shops in south Mumbai and overseas.

His family lives in the rooms below and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – also sleep on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Away from this community, accommodation prices are often significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

At the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative shows a very different perspective. Fashionable residents mill about on cycles and e-vehicles, purchasing western-style baked goods and croissants and socializing on a patio outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for residents," explains Shaikh. "It represents an enormous land development that will render it impossible for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's concern of the corporate group. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Although the state government describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group invested $950m for its 80% stake. A lawsuit alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in the top court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to vocally oppose the redevelopment, protesters and community members state they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they claim work for the business conglomerate.

Part of the group suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c