Intimidation, Apprehension and Aspiration as India's financial capital Inhabitants Await the Bulldozers

Across several weeks, threatening phone calls continued. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, later from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is among those resisting a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – faces razed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," states the protester. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of the slum present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often without proper sanitation, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The single option is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

But others, like the leather artisan, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. Yet they are concerned that this project – absent of resident participation – might convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, relocated individuals who built up the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is valued at between $1m and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately one million residents living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer area, a minority will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the far outskirts of Mumbai, risking divide a historic neighborhood. Some will be denied housing at all.

People eligible to remain in the area will be given apartments in tower blocks, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained this area for generations.

Businesses from clothing production to pottery and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a specific "commercial zone" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as this protester, a leather artisan and long-time resident to call home this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor facility produces apparel – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members lives in the rooms below and his workers and tailors – workers from other states – reside there, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically tenfold as high for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different outlook. Fashionable people mill about on cycles and electric vehicles, purchasing western-style bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to a restaurant and dessert parlor. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains local residents.

"This represents no improvement for us," states Shaikh. "This constitutes a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also skepticism of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as local authorities labels it a partnership, the developer contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit stating that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to actively protest the development, protesters and community members assert they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, clear intimidation and suggestions that criticizing the project was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures they allege are associated with the corporate group.

Included in these alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c