Intimidation, Anxiety and Hope as Mumbai Inhabitants Face Demolition

For months, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those fighting a expensive initiative where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces razed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the planet," states Shaikh. "However the plan aims to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Homes are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the suffocating smell of open sewers.

To some, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The single option is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, including the leather artisan, are fighting against the project.

All recognize that Dharavi, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. Yet they are concerned that this project – without community input – might turn premium city property into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since generations ago.

These were these marginalized, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and commercial output, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million residents living in the dense 220-hectare zone, a minority will be qualified for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of the city, potentially divide a historic social network. Some will not get residences at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be provided units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, collective approach of living and working that has maintained the community for many years.

Commercial activities from garment work to ceramic crafts and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational resident to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-storey workshop makes garments – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – distributed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Household members dwells in the rooms underneath and his workers and garment workers – migrants from other states – live in the same building, permitting him to afford their labour. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are typically tenfold as high for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities close by, a visual representation of the Dharavi project depicts a very different perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on cycles and e-vehicles, purchasing international bread and croissants and having coffee on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not development for us," explains the protester. "It represents a massive real estate deal that will price people out for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Managed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a partnership, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving messages, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the development was equivalent to opposing national interests – by people they claim are associated with the corporate group.

Part of the group alleged to have issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c