Emancipation of Dharavi from Adani

Industries and businesses is considered to be the growth engine of a state as well as the country but If there is a company like Adani is there then less you can expect. The Wire reported on 27th June of 2025 that almost 5000 trees have been felled due to the operations of Adani mining, such a huge deforestation in Chattisgarh will cause major blow to the wildlife, environment, and livelihood of locals. Who doesn’t know about the airport privatisations and most of these airports contract goes to where ? again Adani.

Dharavi redevelopment project was one of many instances that this governement has proved that they have nothing to do with the lives of impoverished people, they have handed this project to same Adani which is involved in the constatnt deforestation of many parts of the country without taking care of the local inhabitants. So this tesitifies their intentions that what they are wiling to do with the people of Dharavi. I will urge people to read some reports of deforestation Tamnar tehsil in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district where Adani mining operations are taking place.

Yesterday youth Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray came to Dharvai to have a dialogue with the residents of Dharavi at Prajapati Hall, Kumbharwada. Prior tot his event Aditya Thackeray visited the lanes of Kumbharwada, interacted with the local Kumbhar (potter) community, and gathered firsthand insights about the pottery industry. He spoke directly with people about the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), and later addressed the public at Prajapati Hall. While addressing the gathering, Aditya Thackeray said,

” I roamed the streets of Kumbharwada and spoke to the people, observed the beautiful craft of making earthen pots, how they shape them at home and fire them in kilns. I asked them about their roots some said they’re Gujarati potters, others Marathi. I learned about their livelihoods. You are all artists, and I live in Kalanagar art connects us. We are neighbours.

We, from the Dharavi Bachao Andolan, Shiv Sena, and Maha Vikas Aghadi, are not against development but at what cost that have to be calrified. I asked people whether they want development they said yes. But development should be for the people of Dharavi, not for some rich businessman. They must be resettled within Dharavi itself, not sent to places like Deonar dumping ground.

I asked the people, ‘Will you go to Deonar or any other place?’ everyone responded with a firm ‘No! Here, people live and work in the same place. Ground floors are being used as the residential ambit, in most of the cases first and second floors they have established small factories. If there’s a factory below, families live above, and vice versa. Dharavi residents cannot be separated from their livelihood.

People are opposing the ongoing surveys and rightly so. In Meghwadi, 80% of the residents have been marked ineligible, even though many have lived there for over 100 years. Most of them are Gujarati just like in Kumbharwada. We don’t talk in terms of region, language, caste, or religion. We all are should be first Dharavikars, Mumbaikars. We must unite to protect Mumbai and Dharavi from being looted by a rich man this should be our collective resolve.”

Dharavi is a place where many people lives for years and governments stride to eradicate them without a proper plan will decimate the Dharavi ecosystem and risk a large chunk of people and push them to into a unending darkness. Big business houses will chase the math of profit but who will look after the poor and impoverished ?