Intimidation, Fear and Hope as India's financial capital Residents Face Demolition

For months, threatening phone calls persisted. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, later from the authorities. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the police station and warned explicitly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is among those resisting a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be razed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of the slum is exceptional in the globe," states Shaikh. "But the plan aims to eradicate our community and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of this community sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the environment is permeated by the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for children to play," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who moved from his home state in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, including the leather artisan, are resisting the project.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. But they worry that this project – absent of public consultation – might transform valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, displacing the marginalized, immigrant populations who have resided there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who established the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and commercial output, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and a substantial sum a year, making it a major informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, fewer than half will be qualified for new homes in the project, which is projected to take seven years to finish. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to break up a generations-old community. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in Dharavi will be allocated flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of residing and operating that has supported the community for many years.

Commercial activities from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are likely to shrink in number and be moved to a specific "business area" separated from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as the leather artisan, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-floor facility makes garments – tailored coats, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

Household members lives in the spaces downstairs and his workers and tailors – workers from north India – live in the same building, permitting him to manage costs. Away from Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are often significantly more expensive for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

Within the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed inhabitants gather on bicycles and electric vehicles, purchasing western-style baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a world away from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for us," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

While local authorities calls it a joint project, the corporation paid a significant amount for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is pending in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and implications that criticizing the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they assert work for the business conglomerate.

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