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Across several weeks, threatening phone calls continued. At first, allegedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, later from the authorities. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is among those fighting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be demolished and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is unparalleled in the planet," states the resident. "Yet the plan aims to eradicate our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision realized.

"There's no proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are fighting against the redevelopment.

All recognize that Dharavi, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing investment and development. Yet they worry that this plan – without community input – could potentially transform premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, displaced people who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it a major informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, less than 50% will be able for new homes in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, risking fragment a generations-old neighborhood. Some will not get housing at all.

People eligible to stay in the area will be provided units in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the evolved, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has maintained Dharavi for generations.

Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and waste processing are likely to reduce in scale and be relocated to an allocated "business area" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like this protester, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey operation produces leather coats – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – distributed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

His family lives in the spaces below and employees and tailors – workers from north India – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are frequently tenfold as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings close by, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on cycles and e-vehicles, buying international bread and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for residents," explains the artisan. "It's a massive land development that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the corporate group. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the government head – the conglomerate has faced accusations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although the state government describes it as a partnership, the corporation paid a significant amount for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the project was improperly granted to the corporation is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including phone calls, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege work for the corporate group.

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