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Across several weeks, intimidating communications continued. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a expensive initiative where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces demolished and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The culture of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," explains Shaikh. "However the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that overshadow the neighborhood. Residences are assembled randomly and frequently without proper sanitation, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the air is saturated with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of high-end towers, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like this protester, are fighting against the plan.

All recognize that the slum, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. Yet they fear that this initiative – absent of public consultation – might turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these excluded, relocated individuals who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum annually, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare area, a minority will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to divide a long-established neighborhood. A portion will not get homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in Dharavi will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained Dharavi for so long.

Industries from garment work to pottery and material recovery are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "business area" far from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of this protester, a leather artisan and long-time resident to live in the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor workshop produces garments – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives lives in the spaces below and employees and sewers – workers from other states – also sleep there, allowing him to sustain operations. Outside the slum, Mumbai rents are typically significantly as high for a single room.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows a very different outlook. Slickly dressed people move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring western-style baked goods and croissants and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This represents no progress for residents," states the protester. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the development company. Managed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it denies.

While the state government labels it a collaborative effort, the business group contributed a significant amount for its majority share. A case claiming that the project was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – including phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they assert represent the corporate group.

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