Intimidation, Apprehension and Aspiration as Mumbai Inhabitants Await Redevelopment
Across several weeks, threatening communications continued. Originally, allegedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: remain silent or face serious consequences.
The leather artisan is one of many fighting a expensive project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be razed and modernized by a large business group.
"The culture of this area is like nowhere else in the planet," says Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our community and prevent our protests."
Opposing Environments
The narrow alleys of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.
For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream achieved.
"We lack adequate medical facilities, roads or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," states a tea vendor, 56, who moved from his home state in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."
Local Protest
Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are resisting the plan.
None deny that the slum, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this plan – without community input – might transform premium city property into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.
It was these excluded, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is estimated at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it a major unofficial markets.
Relocation Worries
Out of about 1 million residents living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, less than 50% will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, potentially fragment a historic social network. A portion will be denied residences at all.
People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has supported Dharavi for generations.
Businesses from tailoring to pottery and recycling are projected to shrink in number and be relocated to an allocated "business area" far from homes.
Survival Challenge
In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and third generation resident to call home Dharavi, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation makes leather coats – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – sold in high-end shops in south Mumbai and internationally.
Household members dwells in the rooms downstairs and his workers and garment workers – workers from other states – live in the same building, permitting him to manage costs. Beyond the slum, housing costs are often tenfold costlier for minimal space.
Harassment and Intimidation
Within the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a contrasting perspective. Slickly dressed residents move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring continental baked goods and croissants and socializing on a terrace near a restaurant and treat station. This represents a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that maintains local residents.
"This is not progress for residents," says the protester. "It represents an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."
Furthermore, there's distrust of the corporate group. Run by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.
Even as local authorities describes it as a partnership, the developer contributed $950m for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the project was unfairly awarded to the developer is being considered in the top court.
Ongoing Pressure
After they started to actively protest the redevelopment, local opponents state they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – including phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that opposing the project was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they assert work for the developer.
Among those accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
