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For months, intimidating communications recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many resisting a expensive project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces demolished and transformed by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of this area is exceptional in the globe," states Shaikh. "But the plan aims to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the area. Homes are assembled randomly and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the environment is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," states A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in the early eighties. "The single option is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, like the leather artisan, are resisting the redevelopment.

None deny that the slum, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they worry that this plan – absent of public consultation – might transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly a million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling zone, less than 50% will be able for alternative accommodation in the project, which is estimated to take a significant period to accomplish. Others will be transferred to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially divide a generations-old social network. Certain individuals will be denied residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the organic, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has sustained Dharavi for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are likely to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "business area" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time resident to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level operation makes apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members dwells in the rooms underneath and employees and tailors – migrants from north India – live on-site, enabling him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are often tenfold more expensive for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows an alternative outlook. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international baked goods and croissants and having coffee on a patio adjacent to a restaurant and treat station. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for us," explains Shaikh. "It represents a huge property transaction that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Managed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the conglomerate has faced accusations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although administrative bodies describes it as a joint project, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to actively protest the development, local opponents assert they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including messages, explicit warnings and insinuations that speaking against the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they allege are associated with the developer.

Included in these suspected of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c