Intimidation, Anxiety and Optimism as Mumbai Residents Face Demolition

Across several weeks, threatening communications recurred. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was summoned to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a high-value redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – will be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The culture of the slum is unparalleled in the planet," explains the protester. "Yet they want to dismantle our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are assembled randomly and frequently lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with proper sanitation is an optimistic future realized.

"We don't have proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," explains a tea vendor, 56, who moved from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are resisting the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing investment and development. But they are concerned that this initiative – lacking community input – is one that will transform valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since the late 1800s.

These were these excluded, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is worth between $1m and $2m annually, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about 1 million people living in the dense 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to break up a generations-old community. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has supported this area for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" far from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a workshop owner and third generation resident to live in this community, the plan presents an existential threat. His rickety, three-storey operation creates leather coats – tailored coats, suede trenches, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Household members dwells in the rooms underneath and laborers and tailors – migrants from different regions – live there, enabling him to manage costs. Away from this community, housing costs are frequently 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative shows an alternative perspective. Fashionable people gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing international baguettes and pastries and socializing on a terrace adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that maintains local residents.

"This isn't improvement for residents," says the protester. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will price people out for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Even as the state government labels it a collaborative effort, the developer contributed a significant amount for its majority share. A lawsuit alleging that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced an extended period of pressure and threats – involving communications, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege are associated with the developer.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c