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For months, coercive phone calls recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the police station and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those resisting a high-value redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," explains the protester. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of the slum present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is filled with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are resisting the project.

All recognize that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this project – absent of resident participation – is one that will turn premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these marginalized, relocated individuals who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is estimated at between $1m and $2m annually, making it a major informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the packed 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the development, which is estimated to take a significant period to finish. Others will be transferred to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, potentially fragment a historic neighborhood. Some will receive no homes at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be allocated flats in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained the community for many years.

Businesses from garment work to pottery and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "business area" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to call home the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey facility makes apparel – sharp blazers, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

His family resides in the rooms downstairs and his workers and garment workers – laborers from north India – live on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, housing costs are frequently tenfold costlier for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices close by, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative illustrates a contrasting vision for the future. Slickly dressed people move around on cycles and electric vehicles, buying continental bread and croissants and having coffee on an outdoor area outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't improvement for our community," explains the artisan. "It's an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Although the state government calls it a joint project, the developer paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the business group is pending in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to actively protest the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including communications, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the development was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they assert work for the business conglomerate.

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