Over an extended period, intimidating communications persisted. Initially, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the police station and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.
The leather artisan is one of many fighting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be demolished and redeveloped by a large business group.
"The unique ecosystem of the slum is exceptional in the planet," states the resident. "However their intention is to eradicate our community and stop us speaking out."
Contrasting Realities
The cramped lanes of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.
For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision achieved.
"We lack proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and there are no spaces for children to play," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."
Resident Opposition
However, some, such as Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.
Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. Yet they are concerned that this project – without public consultation – might convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.
This involved these shunned, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.
Relocation Worries
Of the roughly 1 million people living in the packed sprawling neighborhood, fewer than half will be able for alternative accommodation in the development, which is expected to take a significant period to finish. Others will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially divide a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.
People eligible to continue living in the neighborhood will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a major break from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained the community for generations.
Industries from garment work to ceramic crafts and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" far from homes.
Livelihood Crisis
For residents like Shaikh, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home this community, the project presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-floor operation makes garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, decorated jackets – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and overseas.
His family dwells in the rooms downstairs and his workers and tailors – workers from different regions – live there, allowing him to sustain operations. Outside Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically significantly as high for basic accommodation.
Threats and Warning
At the official facilities close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates a very different perspective. Fashionable inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, acquiring western-style baked goods and pastries and socializing on a terrace near a restaurant and dessert parlor. This depicts a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains local residents.
"This represents no improvement for us," states Shaikh. "It represents an enormous land development that will price people out for residents to remain."
Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.
Although administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the developer contributed a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case stating that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is being considered in India's supreme court.
Sustained Harassment
From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege represent the corporate group.
Included in these alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
