Threats, Anxiety and Aspiration as India's financial capital Slum Dwellers Face Demolition

Over an extended period, coercive phone calls continued. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to the local precinct and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be razed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of this area is unparalleled in the planet," says the resident. "Yet their intention is to destroy our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with two toilets is an optimistic future come true.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," explains a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

None deny that Dharavi, historically ignored as informal housing, is in stark need investment and development. However they fear that this plan – lacking resident participation – might turn premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have been there since the nineteenth century.

These were these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and business activity, whose output is estimated at between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately one million residents living in the dense sprawling area, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take a significant period to finish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and saline fields on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a long-established neighborhood. Certain individuals will be denied residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be allocated units in tower blocks, a major break from the evolved, communal way of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from tailoring to clay work and recycling are likely to shrink in number and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" distant from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

For residents like this protester, a craftsman and third generation resident to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-storey workshop makes apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Household members lives in the accommodations downstairs and his workers and tailors – workers from different regions – reside on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Away from the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts an alternative outlook. Fashionable people move around on cycles and e-vehicles, buying continental bread and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This depicts a stark contrast from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and budget beverage that supports local residents.

"This represents no progress for us," states the artisan. "It's a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also concern of the business conglomerate. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the corporation has faced accusations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Although administrative bodies labels it a joint project, the developer paid $950m for its 80% stake. A case alleging that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the developer is being considered in the top court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising messages, direct threats and insinuations that opposing the project was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they claim are associated with the developer.

Part of the group alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c