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For months, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Finally, one resident claims he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a high-value initiative where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – faces razed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is unparalleled in the globe," says the resident. "But the plan aims to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of the slum sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is filled with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or sewage systems and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, including Shaikh, are opposing the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. However they are concerned that this initiative – absent of community input – is one that will convert premium city property into an elite enclave, displacing the lower-caste, working-class residents who have lived there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the development, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, threatening to divide a historic community. Some will be denied homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in Dharavi will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained this area for generations.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and recycling are likely to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "business area" far from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-floor operation produces leather coats – sharp blazers, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – distributed in premium stores in south Mumbai and internationally.

Relatives lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and sewers – migrants from different regions – also sleep there, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond this community, accommodation prices are frequently 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative perspective. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing international baguettes and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area near a restaurant and dessert parlor. This depicts a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains local residents.

"This isn't improvement for residents," states the protester. "This constitutes a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Managed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

While local authorities calls it a partnership, the developer invested $950m for its majority share. A lawsuit alleging that the project was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving phone calls, direct threats and suggestions that opposing the initiative was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they allege represent the corporate group.

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