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Over an extended period, threatening phone calls continued. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, later from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the planet," explains the resident. "However they want to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and elite residences that loom over the neighborhood. Residences are assembled randomly and typically without proper sanitation, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and homes with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The single option is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, including this protester, are resisting the project.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need financial support and improvement. But they worry that this project – without community input – might transform premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have been there since generations ago.

It was these excluded, migrant workers who built up the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and commercial output, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately a million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take seven years to finish. Additional residents will be transferred to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the far outskirts of Mumbai, risking break up a historic social network. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

People eligible to remain in the area will be given apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Industries from garment work to clay work and waste processing are projected to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "business area" far from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation creates garments – tailored coats, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in south Mumbai and abroad.

Household members resides in the spaces downstairs and his workers and garment workers – laborers from north India – also sleep in the same building, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, housing costs are often significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

In the government offices nearby, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring continental baguettes and breakfast items and having coffee on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for our community," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will price people out for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Managed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Although the state government describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group contributed a significant amount for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, local opponents claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including communications, explicit warnings and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim work for the business conglomerate.

Included in these alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c