Pressure, Fear and Optimism as India's financial capital Inhabitants Confront the Bulldozers

Over an extended period, intimidating communications persisted. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, later from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a expensive initiative where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the world," says Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of this community present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that loom over the area. Dwellings are assembled randomly and frequently without proper sanitation, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"There's no proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

However, some, including Shaikh, are resisting the redevelopment.

All recognize that the slum, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. Yet they worry that this plan – absent of community input – is one that will turn valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, relocated individuals who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and commercial output, whose production is worth between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million people living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer zone, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the distant periphery of the metropolis, risking divide a generations-old community. Certain individuals will receive no homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained the community for generations.

Businesses from garment work to pottery and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" far from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like Shaikh, a leather artisan and third generation of his family to reside in Dharavi, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level workshop creates leather coats – sharp blazers, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

Relatives lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and tailors – workers from north India – reside on-site, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable residents gather on bicycles and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style baguettes and croissants and socializing on an outdoor area near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not development for our community," explains the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will price people out for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the developer paid $950m for its majority share. A lawsuit claiming that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the development, local opponents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving communications, explicit warnings and implications that speaking against the development was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they assert are associated with the corporate group.

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