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For months, threatening phone calls persisted. Initially, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, one resident asserts he was called to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a expensive project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is exceptional in the planet," says Shaikh. "But the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and elite residences that dominate the neighborhood. Residences are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and apartments with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from his home state in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are resisting the project.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. Yet they are concerned that this plan – absent of resident participation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, forcing out the marginalized, working-class residents who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and commercial output, whose economic value is worth between $1m and a substantial sum per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately 1 million people living in the packed 220-hectare neighborhood, less than 50% will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to complete. Others will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, threatening to divide a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get homes at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be given flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained this area for generations.

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

Existential Threat

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time resident to call home this community, the project presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-storey operation creates garments – formal jackets, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Relatives dwells in the rooms below and employees and garment workers – migrants from different regions – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Away from the slum, Mumbai rents are frequently tenfold more expensive for a single room.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a contrasting vision for the future. Fashionable inhabitants move around on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, acquiring international baguettes and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace near a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This depicts a world away from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no improvement for our community," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also skepticism of the development company. Managed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Even as local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the developer invested $950m for its controlling interest. A case stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that speaking against the initiative was equivalent to speaking against the country – by individuals they claim represent the developer.

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