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For months, intimidating messages continued. At first, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. In the end, one resident asserts he was called to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is part of a group fighting a expensive project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces razed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," states the resident. "However the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of this community sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and elite residences that dominate the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, like this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. However they worry that this plan – without resident participation – could potentially convert premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the late 1800s.

It was these marginalized, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is worth between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about a million people living in the packed 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, threatening to break up a historic social network. A portion will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be given units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the natural, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for many years.

Commercial activities from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to reside in the slum, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-floor operation makes apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the spaces downstairs and laborers and sewers – laborers from north India – also sleep in the same building, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, Mumbai rents are typically 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

At the administrative buildings close by, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan shows a very different perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on bicycles and electric vehicles, buying continental baguettes and pastries and having coffee on a terrace near a restaurant and treat station. It is a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't progress for our community," states the artisan. "It's an enormous property transaction that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

There is also skepticism of the development company. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

While administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the corporation contributed a significant amount for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to publicly resist the development, local opponents claim they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – including communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the initiative was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they claim are associated with the business conglomerate.

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