Pressure, Fear and Aspiration as India's financial capital Residents Face Redevelopment

For months, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is among those opposing a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be razed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," says Shaikh. "Yet their intention is to destroy our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or water management and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Local Protest

But others, including this protester, are opposing the project.

None deny that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they worry that this initiative – lacking resident participation – could potentially convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have resided there since generations ago.

It was these excluded, relocated individuals who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about 1 million people living in the packed sprawling area, less than 50% will be able for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be transferred to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, potentially divide a generations-old neighborhood. Some will be denied housing at all.

People eligible to stay in the area will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained the community for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "industrial sector" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to reside in the slum, the project presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-storey operation produces garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

His family dwells in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and tailors – migrants from different regions – also sleep there, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside this community, accommodation prices are often tenfold as high for a single room.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan shows an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable people move around on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, purchasing international bread and croissants and socializing on a patio near a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't development for us," states Shaikh. "It's a huge property transaction that will price people out for our community to continue."

There is also concern of the corporate group. Headed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as the state government labels it a collaborative effort, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit stating that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents state they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, explicit warnings and suggestions that opposing the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege work for the corporate group.

Among those accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c