Over an extended period, coercive phone calls recurred. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the police station and warned explicitly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.
Shaikh is among those opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be demolished and modernized by a corporate giant.
"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "However they want to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."
The dank gullies of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.
For certain residents, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with two toilets is an optimistic future come true.
"We lack adequate medical facilities, roads or drainage and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," explains a chai seller, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."
But others, like this protester, are opposing the plan.
None deny that this community, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. But they worry that this project – without public consultation – is one that will convert premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.
It was these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.
Of the roughly a million people living in the crowded sprawling zone, less than 50% will be able for new homes in the development, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a historic community. Some will not get residences at all.
Residents permitted to remain in the area will be given flats in tower blocks, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for generations.
Industries from garment work to pottery and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be relocated to an allocated "business area" separated from people's residences.
In the case of the leather artisan, a workshop owner and long-time inhabitant to call home Dharavi, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-floor facility makes leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and internationally.
His family resides in the spaces downstairs and his workers and tailors – migrants from other states – live on-site, allowing him to sustain operations. Away from the slum, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly as high for a single room.
Within the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different vision for the future. Fashionable residents move around on cycles and electric vehicles, buying western-style baguettes and croissants and having coffee on an outdoor area adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.
"This is not progress for us," states the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."
Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.
Even as local authorities describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. A lawsuit stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.
Since they began to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – comprising communications, explicit warnings and implications that speaking against the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they assert work for the business conglomerate.
Among those accused of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
Mira is a seasoned gaming analyst with over a decade of experience in the online casino industry, specializing in slot mechanics and player strategies.
