For months, intimidating phone calls recurred. Initially, allegedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, and then from the authorities. Ultimately, one resident states he was ordered to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: remain silent or face serious consequences.
The leather artisan is part of a group resisting a high-value initiative where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces bulldozed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.
"The unique ecosystem of this area is like nowhere else in the world," states the protester. "However they want to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."
The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the air is filled with the suffocating smell of open sewers.
For certain residents, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future realized.
"There's no proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."
Yet certain residents, like this protester, are opposing the project.
None deny that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. Yet they fear that this initiative – lacking community input – is one that will transform valuable urban land into an elite enclave, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have been there since generations ago.
This involved these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.
Among approximately one million people living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, a minority will be able for new homes in the development, which is estimated to take seven years to complete. Others will be moved to barren areas and saline fields on the distant periphery of the metropolis, risking divide a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.
People eligible to continue living in Dharavi will be given flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, collective approach of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for so long.
Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and recycling are projected to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" far from people's residences.
For residents like Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time inhabitant to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey facility produces apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – marketed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.
Relatives resides in the accommodations underneath and employees and garment workers – workers from north India – reside in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are frequently tenfold as high for a single room.
In the official facilities in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed residents gather on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying continental baked goods and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace near Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This depicts a world away from the affordable idli sambar first meal and budget beverage that supports the neighborhood.
"This is not progress for us," explains the artisan. "It represents a massive land development that will price people out for us to survive."
Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Headed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.
While administrative bodies describes it as a partnership, the business group contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. A case alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.
Since they began to vocally oppose the project, protesters and community members claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – comprising messages, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege are associated with the business conglomerate.
Included in these alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
