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Across several weeks, threatening messages recurred. At first, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the police station and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is like nowhere else in the planet," states Shaikh. "But they want to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the area. Residences are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with proper sanitation is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, roads or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need financial support and improvement. Yet they are concerned that this project – without resident participation – could potentially transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, forcing out the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since generations ago.

This involved these marginalized, relocated individuals who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and economic productivity, whose production is worth between $1m and $2m annually, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about a million people living in the packed 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take seven years to finish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the metropolis, threatening to break up a long-established social network. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be allocated units in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has supported the community for so long.

Industries from garment work to pottery and waste processing are likely to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "business area" distant from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of this protester, a workshop owner and third generation of his family to reside in Dharavi, the plan presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-storey facility creates garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

His family dwells in the spaces downstairs and laborers and tailors – workers from other states – reside on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically tenfold more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the official facilities close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts a contrasting perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants move around on cycles and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style bread and pastries and socializing on a terrace outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This represents no improvement for our community," says Shaikh. "This constitutes a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also concern of the corporate group. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Although administrative bodies calls it a joint project, the developer contributed a significant amount for its 80% stake. A case alleging that the project was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including messages, clear intimidation and suggestions that criticizing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by people they claim 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