🔗 Share this article

Across several weeks, threatening messages recurred. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, and then from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces demolished and transformed by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "However their intention is to dismantle our social fabric and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the settlement. Residences are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.

None deny that this community, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this plan – absent of public consultation – could potentially convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, working-class residents who have been there since the late 1800s.

It was these shunned, displaced people who established the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of community resilience and business activity, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the dense sprawling area, less than 50% will be qualified for new homes in the project, which is projected to take a significant period to finish. Additional residents will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of the metropolis, risking break up a long-established neighborhood. Some will be denied homes at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be allocated flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Industries from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from homes.

Existential Threat

For those such as Shaikh, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home this community, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, multi-level workshop makes garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family dwells in the rooms below and employees and sewers – laborers from north India – also sleep there, allowing him to afford their labour. Beyond this community, accommodation prices are typically 10 times as high for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

In the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan shows a contrasting vision for the future. Slickly dressed inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style bread and croissants and enlisting beverages on a patio outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. It is a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that supports local residents.

"This isn't improvement for residents," says Shaikh. "It represents a huge land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the business conglomerate. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

While local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the project was unfairly awarded to the corporation is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to actively protest the project, local opponents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the project was comparable with opposing national interests – by people they claim represent the developer.

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