🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, intimidating messages recurred. Originally, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was called to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is among those opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces demolished and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is exceptional in the world," explains Shaikh. "But they want to dismantle our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

However, some, including the leather artisan, are resisting the plan.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. However they are concerned that this project – without resident participation – might transform valuable urban land into a luxury development, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have been there since generations ago.

It was these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is estimated at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be qualified for new homes in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially break up a long-established community. Some will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in the area will be allocated units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the natural, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for many years.

Commercial activities from clothing production to pottery and recycling are likely to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home the slum, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-storey workshop produces garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Household members lives in the spaces downstairs and laborers and garment workers – laborers from other states – live on-site, enabling him to manage costs. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are frequently tenfold as high for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different perspective. Slickly dressed inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international baked goods and croissants and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for residents," explains the artisan. "It represents an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Headed by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to vocally oppose the project, local opponents state they have been experienced an extended period of coercion and warning – involving messages, direct threats and implications that opposing the development was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

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