Pressure, Fear and Hope as Mumbai Residents Await Redevelopment
Over an extended period, coercive messages persisted. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, later from the authorities. Ultimately, one resident states he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.
This third-generation resident is part of a group opposing a high-value initiative where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be razed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.
"The unique ecosystem of this area is unparalleled in the planet," explains Shaikh. "Yet they want to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."
Opposing Environments
The narrow alleys of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.
Among some individuals, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision come true.
"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, 56, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The only way is to demolish everything and build us new homes."
Resident Opposition
But others, including Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.
None deny that Dharavi, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this plan – absent of resident participation – is one that will turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since generations ago.
These were these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is worth between a significant amount and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.
Resettlement Issues
Among approximately 1 million residents living in the packed 220-hectare area, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to divide a generations-old neighborhood. Some will not get housing at all.
People eligible to stay in Dharavi will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has maintained the community for many years.
Industries from garment work to pottery and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be relocated to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from people's residences.
Existential Threat
In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to live in the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor facility makes leather coats – formal jackets, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.
His family lives in the spaces underneath and his workers and garment workers – laborers from north India – also sleep on-site, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside the slum, housing costs are often tenfold as high for basic accommodation.
Harassment and Intimidation
In the government offices nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project depicts a very different outlook. Fashionable inhabitants gather on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying international baguettes and croissants and socializing on a patio outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that maintains the neighborhood.
"This represents no improvement for residents," explains the protester. "It represents a huge land development that will price people out for us to survive."
Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Managed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has faced accusations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.
Even as the state government describes it as a joint project, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.
Continued Intimidation
From when they initiated to actively protest the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – involving communications, explicit warnings and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to speaking against the country – by figures they allege are associated with the business conglomerate.
Part of the group alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
