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Across several weeks, threatening messages continued. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, and then from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is among those resisting a high-value initiative where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is exceptional in the planet," explains the resident. "However the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of the slum present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Residences are assembled randomly and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

To some, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and residences with proper sanitation is an optimistic future come true.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or drainage and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who moved from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

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

None deny that Dharavi, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. Yet they fear that this plan – lacking community input – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, relocated individuals who established the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately one million people living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, a minority will be qualified for new homes in the development, which is estimated to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of the city, threatening to fragment a historic neighborhood. A portion will not get residences at all.

People eligible to remain in Dharavi will be allocated units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has sustained Dharavi for many years.

Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and material recovery are likely to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" far from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and third generation of his family to live in the slum, the project presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-storey workshop creates apparel – sharp blazers, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the spaces underneath and his workers and sewers – laborers from different regions – reside there, permitting him to manage costs. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often tenfold as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative outlook. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baguettes and pastries and having coffee on a terrace outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This isn't progress for us," says the artisan. "It represents a massive property transaction that will price people out for us to survive."

There is also concern of the development company. Headed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although local authorities labels it a joint project, the developer paid $950m for its 80% stake. A case claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – involving communications, direct threats and implications that speaking against the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by people they allege are associated with the business conglomerate.

Part of the group accused of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c