🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, intimidating phone calls persisted. At first, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Finally, one resident states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is part of a group opposing a high-value project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be demolished and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," states the resident. "But the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the neighborhood. Residences are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and apartments with proper sanitation is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or sewage systems and there are no spaces for children to play," says A Selvin Nadar, 56, who relocated from his home state in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

However, some, such as Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. But they are concerned that this project – without community input – might transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, relocated individuals who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is valued at between a significant amount and a substantial sum a year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about 1 million residents living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, a minority will be qualified for replacement housing in the development, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, risking fragment a historic community. A portion will be denied residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in Dharavi will be given units in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of residing and operating that has supported this area for generations.

Commercial activities from garment work to pottery and waste processing are expected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" separated from homes.

Survival Challenge

For residents like this protester, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor workshop creates leather coats – sharp blazers, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Relatives lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and tailors – migrants from different regions – reside on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Away from the slum, housing costs are frequently 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project depicts an alternative outlook. Fashionable people mill about on cycles and e-vehicles, purchasing western-style baguettes and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace near Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that supports the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for residents," says the artisan. "It represents a massive property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists concern of the corporate group. Managed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the national leader – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

While administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to actively protest the redevelopment, protesters and community members state they have been faced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including communications, direct threats and implications that criticizing the development was tantamount to speaking against the country – by figures they allege work for 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