🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, threatening communications persisted. At first, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was called to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," says Shaikh. "However the plan aims to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, roads or water management and we have no places for children to play," says A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need economic input and modernization. However they worry that this plan – lacking community input – might turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have been there since the late 1800s.

This involved these marginalized, migrant workers who built up the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, a minority will be able for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially divide a generations-old community. A portion will receive no residences at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be allocated units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported this area for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For residents like this protester, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to call home this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-storey operation makes apparel – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – distributed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Relatives dwells in the spaces downstairs and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – reside in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Beyond the slum, accommodation prices are often 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different outlook. Well-groomed inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baguettes and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This depicts a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains local residents.

"This is not improvement for residents," says the artisan. "It's an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the development company. Headed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the conglomerate has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

While the state government calls it a collaborative effort, the business group invested $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the project was improperly granted to the developer is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the development, local opponents state they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – including messages, direct threats and insinuations that opposing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege are associated with the business conglomerate.

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