🔗 Share this article

For months, coercive communications continued. Initially, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, subsequently from law enforcement directly. In the end, a local artisan states he was called to the police station and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," states the protester. "But their intention is to eradicate our social fabric and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the environment is filled with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The single option is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, such as this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need financial support and improvement. But they worry that this initiative – lacking community input – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these excluded, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is estimated at between $1m and a substantial sum a year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling zone, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. Others will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of Mumbai, threatening to fragment a generations-old community. Certain individuals will not get homes at all.

People eligible to continue living in Dharavi will be provided units in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of residing and operating that has supported this area for generations.

Industries from clothing production to pottery and waste processing are projected to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from homes.

Existential Threat

For those such as this protester, a workshop owner and third generation resident to reside in the slum, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey workshop produces leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

His family lives in the rooms underneath and his workers and tailors – workers from different regions – live on-site, allowing him to manage costs. Away from this community, accommodation prices are typically tenfold more expensive for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different vision for the future. Fashionable people move around on cycles and e-vehicles, buying international baked goods and pastries and socializing on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for our community," explains the artisan. "It's an enormous property transaction that will price people out for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the government head – the conglomerate has faced accusations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Even as the state government calls it a joint project, the corporation contributed nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the development, local opponents claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – comprising messages, direct threats and implications that criticizing the development was tantamount to speaking against the country – by figures they claim represent the developer.

Among those suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c