🔗 Share this article

For months, coercive phone calls persisted. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is among those opposing a high-value initiative where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces razed and transformed by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is unparalleled in the planet," states the resident. "However the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of the slum present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and frequently without proper sanitation, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future come true.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who moved from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that the slum, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. However they worry that this initiative – without public consultation – is one that will turn premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, relocated individuals who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is valued at between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly a million people living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, potentially fragment a generations-old social network. Some will receive no homes at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be given units in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has supported this area for so long.

Industries from garment work to pottery and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "business area" far from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to live in the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor facility creates leather coats – tailored coats, suede trenches, fashionable garments – distributed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and overseas.

His family dwells in the rooms below and employees and garment workers – migrants from north India – reside in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Outside this community, housing costs are frequently 10 times costlier for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project shows a very different outlook. Fashionable inhabitants gather on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, acquiring international bread and breakfast items and socializing on a patio adjacent to a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This isn't progress for us," states the artisan. "It represents a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a supporter of the government head – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Although local authorities describes it as a partnership, the developer invested nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A case claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including messages, direct threats and implications that speaking against the project was tantamount to speaking against the country – by people they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

Part of the group accused of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c