🔗 Share this article

For months, threatening phone calls continued. Originally, allegedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, one resident claims he was ordered to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is one of many resisting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – faces demolished and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of Dharavi is unparalleled in the globe," explains the protester. "But the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and elite residences that dominate the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently missing basic amenities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

For certain residents, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," states a tea vendor, 56, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

But others, like this protester, are resisting the project.

All recognize that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. Yet they fear that this initiative – without public consultation – could potentially convert valuable urban land into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have been there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, migrant workers who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is valued at between $1m and two million dollars per year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly a million inhabitants living in the dense sprawling neighborhood, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the development, which is estimated to take a significant period to finish. Others will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to divide a long-established social network. A portion will receive no housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in the area will be provided flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the evolved, communal way of residing and operating that has maintained Dharavi for generations.

Commercial activities from garment work to pottery and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a workshop owner and third generation inhabitant to reside in this community, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-storey facility produces garments – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

His family lives in the rooms underneath and employees and sewers – laborers from north India – also sleep on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond this community, Mumbai rents are typically significantly as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts a very different vision for the future. Fashionable residents mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying continental bread and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that supports local residents.

"This isn't progress for residents," says the artisan. "It's a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has faced accusations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Although the state government calls it a collaborative effort, the developer paid a significant amount for its 80% stake. A case stating that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the business group is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to actively protest the development, local opponents state they have been faced an extended period of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and implications that opposing the project was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures they claim are associated with the corporate group.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c