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Over an extended period, threatening communications persisted. Initially, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a expensive project where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," states the resident. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of this community sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and frequently lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We lack sufficient health services, paved pathways or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

But others, like this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this initiative – absent of community input – might turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, forcing out the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

These were these excluded, displaced people who developed the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and two million dollars per year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly a million residents living in the packed sprawling zone, less than 50% will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a long-established community. A portion will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the neighborhood will be given apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported the community for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and recycling are projected to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "business area" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to live in the slum, the project presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-floor facility makes apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, fashionable garments – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the accommodations below and laborers and tailors – workers from other states – reside on-site, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically tenfold as high for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

In the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative depicts a very different perspective. Slickly dressed people mill about on bicycles and electric vehicles, buying western-style baked goods and croissants and having coffee on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't improvement for residents," explains the protester. "It represents a huge land development that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Managed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Even as administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the business group contributed $950m for its controlling interest. A case alleging that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the project, local opponents assert they have been experienced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and implications that criticizing the project was comparable with opposing national interests – by figures they assert are associated with the corporate group.

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