Intimidation, Apprehension and Aspiration as Mumbai Residents Confront Redevelopment

Across several weeks, coercive messages continued. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – faces demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," says the protester. "However their intention is to eradicate our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and elite residences that loom over the neighborhood. Residences are assembled randomly and often without proper sanitation, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of premium apartments, neat parks, modern retail complexes and residences with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," explains a tea vendor, 56, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The sole solution is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

But others, like the leather artisan, are resisting the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is in stark need economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this project – without resident participation – is one that will convert premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly one million residents living in the crowded sprawling zone, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. The remainder will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of the city, threatening to fragment a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be allocated units in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has sustained this area for many years.

Industries from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to an allocated "industrial sector" distant from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of this protester, a leather artisan and multi-generational of his family to live in the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey workshop creates apparel – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and employees and sewers – workers from different regions – also sleep there, allowing him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed people move around on cycles and e-vehicles, buying western-style baguettes and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This depicts a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This represents no improvement for residents," says the artisan. "It's a huge property transaction that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Managed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the government head – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities describes it as a joint project, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the developer is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the redevelopment, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – including phone calls, explicit warnings and insinuations that speaking against the project was tantamount to speaking against the country – by individuals they claim represent the corporate group.

Among those suspected of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c