Across several weeks, threatening messages continued. Originally, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Finally, one resident claims he was called to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.
This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a multimillion-dollar project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.
"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the planet," says Shaikh. "But their intention is to dismantle our way of life and silence our voices."
The cramped lanes of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Homes are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.
For certain residents, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with proper sanitation is an optimistic future realized.
"There's no sufficient health services, roads or drainage and we have no places for children to play," states A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and construct proper housing."
Yet certain residents, like this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.
None deny that the slum, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. Yet they worry that this plan – absent of resident participation – is one that will transform premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.
These were these marginalized, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and a substantial sum per year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.
Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling zone, less than 50% will be able for new homes in the redevelopment, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the far outskirts of Mumbai, threatening to divide a historic social network. A portion will not get housing at all.
Residents permitted to remain in the neighborhood will be given units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the evolved, communal way of residing and operating that has supported Dharavi for generations.
Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and recycling are expected to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" far from homes.
In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time of his family to reside in the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level workshop creates apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – distributed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and overseas.
His family lives in the rooms below and his workers and tailors – laborers from other states – also sleep in the same building, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside this community, Mumbai rents are often tenfold more expensive for a single room.
Within the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a contrasting perspective. Well-groomed people move around on bicycles and electric vehicles, purchasing international baguettes and breakfast items and socializing on an outdoor area outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.
"This represents no development for our community," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."
Furthermore, there's distrust of the development company. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the national leader – the business group has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it rejects.
Even as local authorities describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer contributed a significant amount for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.
After they started to actively protest the redevelopment, protesters and community members claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – involving messages, clear intimidation and implications that opposing the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim represent the business conglomerate.
Part of the group accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c
A passionate textile artist and community organizer who loves inspiring others through creative sewing projects.
