Threats, Apprehension and Aspiration as India's financial capital Slum Dwellers Confront Redevelopment

For months, threatening messages recurred. Initially, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, subsequently from the police themselves. In the end, a local artisan claims he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is among those resisting a expensive initiative where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of this area is exceptional in the planet," explains Shaikh. "But the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Residences are assembled randomly and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream achieved.

"We lack sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for children to play," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

But others, such as Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. Yet they worry that this project – without community input – might transform valuable urban land into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have lived there since generations ago.

These were these marginalized, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately one million people living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, risking fragment a generations-old community. Some will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has sustained this area for many years.

Commercial activities from garment work to clay work and recycling are projected to reduce in scale and be moved to a specific "industrial sector" distant from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to live in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level operation creates leather coats – tailored coats, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – distributed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the rooms downstairs and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – live on-site, allowing him to sustain operations. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Threats and Warning

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different vision for the future. Fashionable people move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying western-style baked goods and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This depicts a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports local residents.

"This isn't improvement for us," says the protester. "It's a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Headed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Although the state government calls it a joint project, the developer contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. A case claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to actively protest the project, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – comprising communications, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the development was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures 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