Threats, Anxiety and Optimism as India's financial capital Slum Dwellers Confront Demolition

Across several weeks, intimidating communications persisted. Originally, allegedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, later from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is among those fighting a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be demolished and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the globe," states the protester. "However the plan aims to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of the slum sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Dwellings are assembled randomly and typically missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future realized.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or drainage and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

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

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, historically ignored as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this plan – without resident participation – might turn premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the marginalized, working-class residents who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who established the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and business activity, whose production is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Out of about a million people 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 a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to break up a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will be denied housing at all.

People eligible to continue living in Dharavi will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, communal way of living and working that has sustained the community for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and material recovery are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" separated from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to call home this community, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, three-floor workshop makes apparel – tailored coats, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – distributed in premium stores in south Mumbai and internationally.

Household members resides in the spaces below and employees and tailors – migrants from different regions – also sleep on-site, enabling him to afford their labour. Beyond the slum, Mumbai rents are typically tenfold as high for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying western-style bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on a patio adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This depicts a world away from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for residents," states Shaikh. "This constitutes a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the corporation has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

While the state government calls it a collaborative effort, the business group contributed $950m for its 80% stake. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to publicly resist the project, local opponents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – including messages, clear intimidation and implications that opposing the initiative was equivalent to speaking against the country – by people they allege work for the business conglomerate.

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