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Across several weeks, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from law enforcement directly. In the end, a local artisan claims he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," says the resident. "But they want to dismantle our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are assembled randomly and frequently missing basic amenities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is filled with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or drainage and there are no spaces for children to play," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, including this protester, are fighting against the plan.

None deny that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they worry that this initiative – lacking resident participation – is one that will turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, forcing out the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have been there since generations ago.

This involved these marginalized, displaced people who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose output is worth between a significant amount and two million dollars per year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million people living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be able for new homes in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to barren areas and saline fields on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to fragment a long-established social network. A portion will be denied residences at all.

Residents permitted to remain in Dharavi will be allocated units in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has sustained the community for generations.

Commercial activities from clothing production to pottery and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation of his family to call home the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey operation creates leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and overseas.

Relatives dwells in the rooms below and his workers and sewers – laborers from north India – also sleep on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, housing costs are often 10 times costlier for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the government offices in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative shows an alternative outlook. Well-groomed inhabitants move around on bicycles and electric vehicles, acquiring continental baked goods and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This represents no improvement for residents," states the protester. "This constitutes a massive real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also concern of the business conglomerate. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the conglomerate has faced accusations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

While local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the corporation paid $950m for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents state they have been subjected to an extended period of pressure and threats – comprising messages, direct threats and suggestions that speaking against the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim represent the business conglomerate.

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