Threats, Apprehension and Hope as Mumbai Residents Confront Demolition
For months, intimidating phone calls persisted. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. In the end, one resident claims he was called to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.
Shaikh is one of many resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and transformed by a large business group.
"The unique ecosystem of the slum is exceptional in the planet," states the resident. "But they want to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."
Opposing Environments
The dank gullies of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the neighborhood. Homes are constructed informally and frequently lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.
For certain residents, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream come true.
"There's no sufficient health services, roads or drainage and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from southern India in 1982. "The single option is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."
Community Resistance
Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are resisting the redevelopment.
Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. Yet they fear that this project – without public consultation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since the late 1800s.
This involved these excluded, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is worth between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.
Relocation Worries
Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the packed sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. Others will be moved to wastelands and saline fields on the far outskirts of the city, risking divide a long-established social network. A portion will be denied residences at all.
Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be given units in multi-story structures, a major break from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for many years.
Industries from garment work to clay work and material recovery are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to a specific "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.
Livelihood Crisis
In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to call home the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor facility produces apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in premium stores in south Mumbai and overseas.
His family dwells in the accommodations underneath and employees and sewers – workers from north India – live in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Beyond this community, housing costs are typically 10 times more expensive for a single room.
Pressure and Coercion
In the administrative buildings close by, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing international baguettes and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a patio outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains Dharavi's community.
"This isn't progress for us," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes a huge land development that will price people out for our community to continue."
Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it disputes.
Even as the state government describes it as a partnership, the business group paid $950m for its majority share. A case claiming that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.
Sustained Harassment
From when they initiated to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – including messages, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was equivalent to opposing national interests – by people they allege are associated with the developer.
Among those accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
