🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, intimidating phone calls continued. Originally, allegedly from a retired cop and a retired army general, and then from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those fighting a expensive initiative where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is like nowhere else in the globe," states the resident. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Residences are constructed informally and typically without proper sanitation, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, 56, who migrated from southern India in that period. "The single option is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, like this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they worry that this project – lacking community input – might turn valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, migrant communities who have been there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and business activity, whose production is worth between $1m and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer area, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the development, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a historic neighborhood. A portion will receive no homes at all.

People eligible to remain in the area will be allocated flats in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has supported the community for so long.

Industries from clothing production to pottery and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to an allocated "business area" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and third generation resident to call home Dharavi, the project presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey operation makes garments – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

His family lives in the rooms underneath and laborers and sewers – migrants from other states – live there, allowing him to manage costs. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are typically significantly more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed people move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international baguettes and pastries and having coffee on an outdoor area near a restaurant and treat station. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not improvement for residents," explains the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Headed by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as the state government calls it a joint project, the corporation invested $950m for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – comprising phone calls, direct threats and suggestions that opposing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by figures they assert represent the corporate group.

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