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For months, intimidating phone calls recurred. Originally, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is part of a group opposing a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "But the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically without proper sanitation, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and apartments with two toilets is an optimistic future realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains a chai seller, 56, who migrated from his home state in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

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

None deny that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this plan – absent of public consultation – might turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since the late 1800s.

This involved these marginalized, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is worth between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer zone, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the far outskirts of Mumbai, threatening to fragment a long-established social network. Certain individuals will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be given flats in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the natural, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has maintained this area for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and recycling are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "commercial zone" far from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and long-time inhabitant to call home the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation makes garments – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Household members dwells in the rooms below and laborers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – reside there, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative shows an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable residents mill about on cycles and e-vehicles, acquiring continental bread and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for us," states Shaikh. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will price people out for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Run by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the government head – the corporation has faced accusations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as local authorities labels it a partnership, the developer contributed $950m for its majority share. A lawsuit claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the corporation is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to vocally oppose the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim represent the developer.

Among those accused of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c