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For months, intimidating communications continued. Initially, reportedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was called to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is among those resisting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the planet," explains the resident. "Yet their intention is to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and frequently missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and homes with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," states A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in that period. "The only way is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, such as this protester, are resisting the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. But they are concerned that this project – absent of resident participation – is one that will turn premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the marginalized, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who established the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose production is worth between $1m and two million dollars per year, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million residents living in the dense 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be able for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take a significant period to finish. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially break up a historic neighborhood. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in Dharavi will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has supported Dharavi for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and waste processing are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-storey operation creates apparel – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members resides in the spaces below and his workers and sewers – laborers from north India – reside in the same building, allowing him to sustain operations. Away from this community, accommodation prices are often 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities close by, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows an alternative outlook. Fashionable people move around on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, acquiring continental bread and pastries and socializing on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains local residents.

"This represents no progress for residents," states the artisan. "This constitutes a huge land development that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it disputes.

While local authorities describes it as a joint project, the business group invested a significant amount for its 80% stake. A lawsuit alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to actively protest the development, protesters and community members state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving communications, explicit warnings and implications that opposing the development was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they assert are associated with the corporate group.

Part of the group suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c