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For months, intimidating phone calls continued. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from the authorities. In the end, one resident asserts he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is one of many opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be demolished and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," states the resident. "Yet they want to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Residences are constructed informally and typically lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and homes with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream achieved.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," says a tea vendor, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, like this protester, are fighting against the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is in stark need financial support and improvement. But they are concerned that this project – absent of community input – is one that will convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since generations ago.

It was these excluded, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is estimated at between one million dollars and two million dollars annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about a million residents living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer area, a minority will be qualified for new homes in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to finish. Additional residents will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to fragment a generations-old community. Some will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be given flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of living and working that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Industries from garment work to clay work and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational resident to live in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-floor operation creates leather coats – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and abroad.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and employees and tailors – laborers from different regions – live there, permitting him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, accommodation prices are frequently 10 times more expensive for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

At the administrative buildings close by, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project shows a contrasting perspective. Well-groomed people gather on cycles and electric vehicles, acquiring continental baguettes and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for us," states Shaikh. "It's a massive property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Run by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the business group has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

While the state government describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer paid a significant amount for its majority share. Legal proceedings alleging that the project was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, local opponents claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – comprising messages, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the development was tantamount to opposing national interests – by people they assert represent the developer.

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