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Across several weeks, intimidating communications continued. Originally, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is among those opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," explains Shaikh. "But their intention is to eradicate our community and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Homes are assembled randomly and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with proper sanitation is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," says a chai seller, 56, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

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

None deny that this community, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need investment and development. However they fear that this initiative – without public consultation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is estimated at between a significant amount and a substantial sum per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be transferred to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially fragment a generations-old social network. A portion will receive no housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in the neighborhood will be provided units in tower blocks, a major break from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has supported the community for many years.

Commercial activities from garment work to clay work and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

For residents like Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time of his family to call home Dharavi, the plan presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation makes leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, decorated jackets – marketed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives lives in the accommodations below and employees and garment workers – migrants from other states – reside there, enabling him to manage costs. Away from this community, accommodation prices are often 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting outlook. Fashionable people mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, purchasing continental bread and pastries and having coffee on an outdoor area outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that supports local residents.

"This represents no improvement for our community," states Shaikh. "It's a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also distrust of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a close ally of the national leader – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although local authorities describes it as a partnership, the business group contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the redevelopment, protesters and community members assert they have been experienced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – including messages, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the project was equivalent to opposing national interests – by people they allege are associated with the business conglomerate.

Among those alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c