🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, intimidating phone calls recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the authorities. Finally, one resident claims he was ordered to the local precinct and told clearly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is among those resisting a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the world," states the protester. "But their intention is to dismantle our way of life and prevent our protests."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of the slum present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the neighborhood. Homes are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the environment is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

For certain residents, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for kids to enjoy," states A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The single option is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

However, some, including the leather artisan, are fighting against the project.

All recognize that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need financial support and improvement. However they worry that this initiative – lacking resident participation – might turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, relocated individuals who established the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, threatening to fragment a historic community. Certain individuals will be denied residences at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in the neighborhood will be given units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the organic, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has maintained the community for generations.

Industries from tailoring to clay work and material recovery are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a specific "industrial sector" far from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like Shaikh, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-floor facility creates apparel – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in high-end shops in south Mumbai and abroad.

Relatives resides in the accommodations downstairs and employees and garment workers – workers from other states – live on-site, enabling him to manage costs. Outside the slum, housing costs are frequently significantly more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows a very different vision for the future. Well-groomed residents mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying international bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no progress for residents," states the protester. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although the state government describes it as a partnership, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the project was unfairly awarded to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising messages, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they claim represent the business conglomerate.

Among those alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c