Across several weeks, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.
Shaikh is part of a group opposing a multimillion-dollar project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be razed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.
"The distinctive community of this area is exceptional in the planet," states the protester. "Yet their intention is to eradicate our community and silence our voices."
Dual Worlds
The dank gullies of the slum sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that overshadow the neighborhood. Residences are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the suffocating smell of open sewers.
For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and apartments with two toilets is an optimistic future come true.
"There's no adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," says a tea vendor, 56, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."
Local Protest
However, some, including Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.
None deny that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they worry that this initiative – absent of resident participation – is one that will convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.
These were these marginalized, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and a substantial sum annually, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.
Displacement Concerns
Out of about one million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, potentially divide a long-established neighborhood. Some will receive no homes at all.
Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has supported this area for many years.
Businesses from clothing production to ceramic crafts and recycling are expected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "business area" separated from people's residences.
Existential Threat
For residents like the leather artisan, a workshop owner and long-time inhabitant to call home this community, the project presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey workshop makes apparel – tailored coats, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.
His family resides in the spaces underneath and laborers and sewers – migrants from north India – reside on-site, permitting him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, housing costs are typically tenfold costlier for a single room.
Harassment and Intimidation
In the government offices close by, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan shows a contrasting perspective. Fashionable residents gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing international baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside a restaurant and treat station. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that maintains local residents.
"This is not progress for us," states the protester. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."
There is also distrust of the development company. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a supporter of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it disputes.
While administrative bodies labels it a joint project, the corporation paid a significant amount for its controlling interest. A lawsuit stating that the project was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in India's supreme court.
Ongoing Pressure
Since they began to vocally oppose the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving messages, direct threats and insinuations that speaking against the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim work for the developer.
Among those suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c