🔗 Share this article

Across several weeks, threatening phone calls recurred. Initially, allegedly from a retired cop and a retired army general, subsequently from the authorities. Ultimately, a local artisan claims he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is part of a group resisting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be demolished and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," says Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the neighborhood. Homes are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and residences with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," states A Selvin Nadar, 56, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, like this protester, are opposing the project.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. But they fear that this project – without community input – is one that will convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these shunned, relocated individuals who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about a million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling zone, less than 50% will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and saline fields on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially break up a long-established community. A portion will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be allocated apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the evolved, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has sustained the community for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are likely to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "industrial sector" separated from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as this protester, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in the slum, the project presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, multi-level facility produces apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – distributed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Relatives dwells in the spaces below and employees and tailors – workers from north India – reside there, enabling him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are often 10 times as high for a single room.

Threats and Warning

Within the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting outlook. Slickly dressed residents move around on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, purchasing international baked goods and pastries and socializing on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a stark contrast from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and budget beverage that supports the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for residents," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Run by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the business group has faced accusations of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Even as the state government calls it a joint project, the developer contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings stating that the project 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 development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the project was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

Among those accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c