Threats, Anxiety and Optimism as Mumbai Slum Dwellers Await Redevelopment

For months, threatening messages persisted. At first, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to the local precinct and told clearly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many resisting a high-value initiative where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be razed and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is unparalleled in the planet," explains Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is permeated by the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have proper healthcare, roads or water management and there's nowhere for children to play," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Local Protest

But others, such as the leather artisan, are resisting the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they worry that this initiative – lacking public consultation – is one that will convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, migrant workers who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is valued at between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately 1 million residents living in the packed 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to divide a generations-old community. Some will be denied homes at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a major break from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for generations.

Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a specific "business area" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational of his family to reside in this community, the plan presents an existential threat. His rickety, three-floor facility makes leather coats – tailored coats, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family dwells in the spaces downstairs and employees and tailors – migrants from other states – live there, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, accommodation prices are typically tenfold costlier for a single room.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan shows a contrasting perspective. Fashionable inhabitants mill about on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing continental bread and croissants and having coffee on a terrace outside a coffee shop and treat station. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This isn't development for residents," explains the protester. "It represents a huge property transaction that will price people out for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the business conglomerate. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a supporter of the national leader – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Although administrative bodies calls it a joint project, the corporation invested $950m for its 80% stake. A lawsuit stating that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to actively protest the project, local opponents claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – including phone calls, explicit warnings and implications that criticizing the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they assert represent the corporate group.

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