🔗 Share this article

Over an extended period, threatening communications recurred. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, later from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, one resident claims he was called to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many fighting a high-value initiative where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," states the protester. "But the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and elite residences that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is filled with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, neat parks, contemporary malls and residences with two toilets is an aspirational dream achieved.

"We don't have proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," states A Selvin Nadar, 56, who moved from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

However, some, such as the leather artisan, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they worry that this project – without community input – might transform valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these excluded, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly a million people living in the crowded 220-hectare area, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Others will be relocated to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the far outskirts of the city, risking divide a historic community. A portion will not get homes at all.

People eligible to remain in the area will be given flats in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, communal way of living and working that has sustained the community for generations.

Commercial activities from tailoring to clay work and recycling are expected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a specific "industrial sector" far from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-floor workshop produces leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and garment workers – laborers from other states – also sleep there, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, housing costs are frequently 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Threats and Warning

In the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the transformation initiative illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed residents gather on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, purchasing continental baguettes and croissants and having coffee on a patio near a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains local residents.

"This isn't improvement for us," explains Shaikh. "It represents a massive real estate deal that will price people out for residents to remain."

There is also concern of the business conglomerate. Run by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities calls it a joint project, the corporation invested nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the business group is pending in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the development, local opponents state they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – including phone calls, direct threats and implications that criticizing the development was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they assert represent the business conglomerate.

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