🔗 Share this article

Across several weeks, threatening phone calls recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – faces razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," states the resident. "Yet they want to destroy our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the settlement. Residences are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the environment is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, 56, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The only way is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like the leather artisan, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. Yet they fear that this project – absent of public consultation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, migrant communities who have been there since the late 1800s.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who established the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose economic value is worth between $1m and two million dollars a year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about one million people living in the crowded sprawling neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be transferred to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the remote edges of Mumbai, risking fragment a generations-old community. A portion will not get residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the area will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for so long.

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

Existential Threat

For those such as this protester, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to reside in this community, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level facility produces apparel – formal jackets, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in south Mumbai and abroad.

His family dwells in the accommodations underneath and his workers and tailors – migrants from north India – also sleep there, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly as high for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the transformation initiative depicts a contrasting vision for the future. Slickly dressed residents gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing international baked goods and croissants and enlisting beverages on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for residents," explains the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the development company. Managed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a close ally of the national leader – the corporation has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

While local authorities calls it a joint project, the business group invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case stating that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the development, local opponents state they have been faced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – comprising communications, direct threats and suggestions that opposing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by individuals they allege are associated with the corporate group.

Included in these suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c