Intimidation, Anxiety and Hope as India's financial capital Inhabitants Confront Redevelopment

For months, intimidating messages recurred. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. In the end, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a expensive redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the world," explains the protester. "However their intention is to eradicate our way of life and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and elite residences that dominate the area. Homes are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with two toilets is an optimistic future come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

But others, like Shaikh, are resisting the project.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they fear that this initiative – lacking public consultation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

These were these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is valued at between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the dense sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially break up a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has sustained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from tailoring to pottery and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a specific "commercial zone" distant from residential areas.

Existential Threat

In the case of Shaikh, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to reside in Dharavi, the project presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level facility makes leather coats – formal jackets, suede trenches, fashionable garments – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and his workers and sewers – laborers from different regions – reside on-site, permitting him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, accommodation prices are often significantly more expensive for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts an alternative outlook. Slickly dressed people gather on bicycles and electric vehicles, purchasing continental baguettes and pastries and enlisting beverages on a patio outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not development for residents," says the artisan. "It represents an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also skepticism of the corporate group. Headed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a supporter of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although local authorities describes it as a joint project, the business group paid $950m for its controlling interest. A case claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the corporation is pending in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the project, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that speaking against the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege represent the developer.

Among those alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c