Intimidation, Fear and Hope as India's financial capital Residents Await the Bulldozers

Over an extended period, coercive communications recurred. Initially, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. In the end, one resident claims he was called to the police station and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many fighting a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the planet," says the protester. "Yet their intention is to destroy our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently without proper sanitation, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, proper streets or water management and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

However, some, such as Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.

All recognize that this community, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. However they are concerned that this initiative – without resident participation – is one that will convert premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose output is estimated at between a significant amount and a substantial sum per year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately a million residents living in the packed sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the development, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to fragment a long-established neighborhood. A portion will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be provided flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has maintained the community for many years.

Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a workshop owner and third generation inhabitant to reside in the slum, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, three-storey facility creates leather coats – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Household members lives in the spaces below and his workers and garment workers – workers from different regions – reside on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically tenfold costlier for a single room.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates a very different perspective. Fashionable residents move around on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, buying international baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. It is a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This isn't progress for our community," says Shaikh. "It represents a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Although the state government describes it as a partnership, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the business group is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to publicly resist the development, local opponents claim they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including messages, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by individuals they claim represent the business conglomerate.

Among those suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c