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Over an extended period, threatening phone calls recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, later from the authorities. Ultimately, one resident asserts he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is among those resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be razed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is unparalleled in the planet," explains Shaikh. "However the plan aims to dismantle our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that overshadow the neighborhood. Residences are built haphazardly and typically without proper sanitation, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, neat parks, contemporary malls and residences with two toilets is an aspirational dream achieved.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who moved from southern India in the early eighties. "The single option is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is in stark need financial support and improvement. But they are concerned that this plan – without community input – could potentially convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is worth between a significant amount and a substantial sum per year, making it a major informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly a million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer area, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. Additional residents will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of Mumbai, threatening to break up a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will be denied housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in Dharavi will be allocated apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has maintained Dharavi for many years.

Industries from garment work to pottery and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a designated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to live in Dharavi, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, multi-level workshop creates leather coats – formal jackets, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and abroad.

Household members lives in the accommodations underneath and employees and tailors – migrants from different regions – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, housing costs are typically significantly costlier for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the administrative buildings nearby, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan depicts an alternative perspective. Fashionable inhabitants gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international bread and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not improvement for our community," states the artisan. "It represents an enormous property transaction that will price people out for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has encountered allegations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Although the state government calls it a joint project, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings alleging that the project was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members assert they have been experienced an extended period of pressure and threats – including messages, clear intimidation and insinuations that speaking against the development was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they allege represent the corporate group.

Among those alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c