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Across several weeks, threatening messages recurred. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group opposing a high-value project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and transformed by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of this area is exceptional in the world," says the protester. "However their intention is to dismantle our way of life and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that dominate the neighborhood. Homes are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is permeated by the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and apartments with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, proper streets or sewage systems and there's nowhere for children to play," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as Shaikh, are opposing the project.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is in stark need economic input and modernization. Yet they are concerned that this plan – without public consultation – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these excluded, relocated individuals who established the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and business activity, whose output is estimated at between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it a major unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately one million residents living in the dense sprawling area, less than 50% will be qualified for new homes in the development, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially fragment a generations-old community. A portion will receive no residences at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Industries from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "business area" separated from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like this protester, a leather artisan and third generation resident to live in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation produces leather coats – tailored coats, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

His family lives in the spaces downstairs and his workers and garment workers – migrants from other states – also sleep there, permitting him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are frequently tenfold as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable inhabitants mill about on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing western-style baguettes and croissants and socializing on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and dessert parlor. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for us," explains the artisan. "This constitutes a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the corporate group. Headed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies describes it as a partnership, the developer paid $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to actively protest the project, protesters and community members claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by figures they allege work for the corporate group.

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