Threats, Fear and Optimism as Mumbai Residents Confront the Bulldozers

Across several weeks, threatening phone calls persisted. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a high-value project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be demolished and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of the slum is exceptional in the planet," states Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future come true.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in that period. "The single option is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are opposing the project.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. Yet they worry that this initiative – lacking community input – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, evicting the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since the late 1800s.

This involved these shunned, displaced people who established the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is valued at between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly 1 million people living in the crowded sprawling neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the development, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be transferred to wastelands and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to break up a long-established social network. Some will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be provided units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has supported Dharavi for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and material recovery are likely to shrink in number and be moved to a designated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For those such as Shaikh, a leather artisan and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in the slum, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His rickety, multi-level operation makes leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in south Mumbai and internationally.

Relatives dwells in the rooms below and his workers and sewers – laborers from other states – also sleep there, permitting him to manage costs. Outside this community, housing costs are often 10 times more expensive for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project depicts an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed people gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international bread and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside Dharavi Cafe and treat station. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that supports local residents.

"This represents no improvement for our community," explains the protester. "This constitutes a massive property transaction that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

There is also concern of the business conglomerate. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the government head – the conglomerate has faced accusations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as the state government describes it as a joint project, the corporation paid a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case alleging that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to vocally oppose the project, protesters and community members claim they have been experienced ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – including messages, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the initiative was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

Among those accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c