Pressure, Apprehension and Aspiration as India's financial capital Residents Confront Redevelopment

Over an extended period, intimidating phone calls persisted. Initially, reportedly from a retired cop and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those resisting a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be demolished and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of Dharavi is unparalleled in the planet," explains the resident. "But the plan aims to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of this community sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Homes are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

To some, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who moved from southern India in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

However, some, like the leather artisan, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. But they are concerned that this plan – without resident participation – is one that will transform valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and business activity, whose output is valued at between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it a major informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately one million people living in the crowded 220-hectare area, a minority will be able for new homes in the development, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the city, potentially divide a generations-old community. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be provided units in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the evolved, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has maintained the community for so long.

Commercial activities from tailoring to ceramic crafts and recycling are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "business area" separated from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to reside in Dharavi, the project presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-storey operation makes garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, decorated jackets – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives resides in the rooms below and laborers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – reside on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are frequently 10 times as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project shows a very different perspective. Fashionable people move around on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, buying western-style bread and breakfast items and socializing on a patio adjacent to a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that sustains local residents.

"This is not progress for us," states the protester. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also concern of the development company. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Even as the state government calls it a joint project, the corporation paid a significant amount for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is under review in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including messages, direct threats and suggestions that speaking against the project was tantamount to speaking against the country – by individuals they allege are associated with the developer.

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