🔗 Share this article

For months, intimidating phone calls persisted. Initially, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, one resident asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is unparalleled in the planet," explains the protester. "But they want to dismantle our community and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and elite residences that overshadow the area. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often without proper sanitation, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with proper sanitation is an optimistic future come true.

"There's no proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in 1982. "The sole solution is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

However, some, like this protester, are fighting against the project.

None deny that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need financial support and improvement. However they worry that this project – absent of public consultation – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have lived there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of community resilience and business activity, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, a minority will be able for alternative accommodation in the project, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of Mumbai, risking break up a generations-old community. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be given flats in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a specific "commercial zone" separated from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor workshop makes apparel – formal jackets, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Household members dwells in the spaces underneath and employees and garment workers – migrants from different regions – reside there, permitting him to manage costs. Away from this community, Mumbai rents are frequently tenfold as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative perspective. Fashionable residents move around on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style baguettes and pastries and having coffee on an outdoor area outside a coffee shop and treat station. It is a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This isn't improvement for us," explains the protester. "It's an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Run by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Even as administrative bodies describes it as a joint project, the corporation invested $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the project, local opponents claim they have been experienced a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – involving communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the initiative was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim represent the business conglomerate.

Among those accused of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c