🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, coercive phone calls continued. Initially, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. In the end, one resident claims he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be demolished and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," explains Shaikh. "However their intention is to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically without proper sanitation, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or drainage and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

However, some, including this protester, are resisting the project.

None deny that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they worry that this plan – without community input – could potentially convert valuable urban land into a luxury development, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these shunned, migrant workers who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum annually, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly a million residents living in the packed 220-hectare zone, a minority will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the project, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be moved to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to break up a generations-old neighborhood. Some will not get housing at all.

People eligible to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated apartments in tower blocks, a major break from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has supported Dharavi for so long.

Commercial activities from garment work to pottery and recycling are expected to shrink in number and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as Shaikh, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to reside in this community, the plan presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level facility creates apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – sold in high-end shops in south Mumbai and overseas.

His family dwells in the rooms downstairs and laborers and tailors – migrants from north India – reside in the same building, permitting him to manage costs. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically 10 times costlier for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the government offices close by, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative depicts an alternative outlook. Slickly dressed residents move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring western-style baguettes and breakfast items and having coffee on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that supports local residents.

"This represents no progress for our community," states the protester. "It's a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also concern of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents claim they have been experienced an extended period of pressure and threats – including messages, direct threats and implications that speaking against the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they allege are associated with the corporate group.

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