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Over an extended period, intimidating messages recurred. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, subsequently from the police themselves. In the end, a local artisan states he was summoned to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is part of a group fighting a high-value initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," explains the resident. "But they want to destroy our community and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and often without proper sanitation, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or drainage and there are no spaces for children to play," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The single option is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

But others, including the leather artisan, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that the slum, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. Yet they are concerned that this initiative – lacking public consultation – might transform premium city property into an elite enclave, evicting the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have been there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million people living in the crowded 220-hectare area, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and saline fields on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially fragment a long-established social network. A portion will be denied residences at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in the area will be given units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained the community for so long.

Commercial activities from garment work to pottery and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "business area" distant from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like this protester, a workshop owner and long-time resident to reside in the slum, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, three-storey workshop makes leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, decorated jackets – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives lives in the spaces below and employees and garment workers – migrants from north India – reside there, permitting him to afford their labour. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are often tenfold as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan shows an alternative perspective. Slickly dressed inhabitants gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying continental bread and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. This depicts a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that maintains local residents.

"This represents no improvement for residents," says the protester. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Run by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a partnership, the developer invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the business group is under review in the top court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to an extended period of pressure and threats – involving communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they allege represent the business conglomerate.

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