🔗 Share this article

For months, coercive messages continued. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and a retired army general, and then from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is among those fighting a expensive project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be bulldozed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," says the resident. "But the plan aims to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the neighborhood. Homes are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of high-end towers, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with proper sanitation is an optimistic future realized.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," explains a tea vendor, 56, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are fighting against the project.

All recognize that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. But they are concerned that this project – absent of community input – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these excluded, migrant workers who built up the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about a million people living in the dense sprawling area, less than 50% will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be moved to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of the city, risking divide a historic community. Some will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be given flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained this area for so long.

Industries from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are likely to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" distant from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like this protester, a leather artisan and long-time of his family to call home this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-storey operation creates leather coats – tailored coats, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – sold in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives dwells in the accommodations below and laborers and tailors – laborers from different regions – also sleep on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the transformation initiative depicts a contrasting outlook. Slickly dressed inhabitants move around on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, buying international baguettes and croissants and socializing on a terrace outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that supports Dharavi's community.

"This is not development for us," states the protester. "This constitutes an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Managed by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and an associate of the government head – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Although local authorities labels it a partnership, the business group invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case stating that the project was unfairly awarded to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been faced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and insinuations that speaking against the initiative was equivalent to speaking against the country – by people they allege represent the corporate group.

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