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Across several weeks, intimidating communications recurred. At first, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the authorities. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is like nowhere else in the globe," says the resident. "But the plan aims to dismantle our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that loom over the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically without proper sanitation, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, such as the leather artisan, are opposing the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. But they fear that this plan – lacking public consultation – might convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these excluded, displaced people who developed the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it a major informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about a million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the project, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to divide a historic social network. A portion will not get residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the area will be provided flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are expected to reduce in scale and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" far from homes.

Survival Challenge

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time resident to live in the slum, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, multi-level workshop creates garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Household members resides in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and tailors – laborers from different regions – also sleep there, permitting him to manage costs. Outside the slum, housing costs are often tenfold more expensive for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, acquiring continental bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area near a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.

"This represents no progress for residents," says the protester. "This constitutes a huge land development that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

While administrative bodies calls it a collaborative effort, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to actively protest the redevelopment, local opponents state they have been faced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including messages, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they assert work for the business conglomerate.

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