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Over an extended period, threatening communications continued. Initially, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is among those opposing a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – faces razed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of this area is like nowhere else in the globe," explains Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the neighborhood. Residences are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the environment is permeated by the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of high-end towers, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, like the leather artisan, are resisting the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need economic input and modernization. However they worry that this project – without resident participation – is one that will transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the marginalized, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these marginalized, migrant workers who established the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose output is worth between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, less than 50% will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the project, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the city, potentially fragment a long-established neighborhood. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the area will be provided flats in high-rise buildings, a major break from the organic, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has sustained the community for many years.

Commercial activities from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a specific "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of this protester, a leather artisan and third generation resident to call home the slum, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level workshop creates apparel – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Relatives resides in the rooms downstairs and laborers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – live on-site, allowing him to manage costs. Away from the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different outlook. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and electric vehicles, acquiring continental bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This represents a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't improvement for us," states the artisan. "It represents a massive real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Although the state government calls it a partnership, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case claiming that the project was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, protesters and community members assert they have been experienced an extended period of pressure and threats – including phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that speaking against the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by figures they allege represent the corporate group.

Among those suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c