Threats, Anxiety and Hope as India's financial capital Inhabitants Face the Bulldozers

Over an extended period, threatening phone calls persisted. At first, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is among those opposing a expensive project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – faces demolished and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the planet," explains the resident. "However the plan aims to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that dominate the neighborhood. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently without proper sanitation, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"There's no sufficient health services, paved pathways or water management and we have no places for children to play," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, like the leather artisan, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this project – lacking resident participation – is one that will transform premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

These were these excluded, relocated individuals who developed the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum annually, making it a major informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to fragment a historic neighborhood. A portion will receive no housing at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be given flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of living and working that has maintained this area for so long.

Businesses from garment work to pottery and waste processing are likely to shrink in number and be moved to a designated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a workshop owner and long-time inhabitant to live in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-floor workshop makes apparel – sharp blazers, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives resides in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and garment workers – migrants from north India – also sleep on-site, allowing him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, Mumbai rents are typically significantly as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

At the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows a very different outlook. Fashionable people gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring continental bread and breakfast items and having coffee on a terrace near a restaurant and treat station. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that supports Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for our community," says Shaikh. "This constitutes an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the national leader – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

While local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the corporation contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. A case claiming that the project was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving communications, clear intimidation and suggestions that criticizing the development was equivalent to opposing national interests – by individuals they allege work for the corporate group.

Part of the group accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c