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For months, intimidating phone calls recurred. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, a local artisan states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," says Shaikh. "But their intention is to destroy our community and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Homes are built haphazardly and frequently lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is an aspirational dream come true.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or water management and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, 56, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, such as Shaikh, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as informal housing, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. However they fear that this initiative – lacking community input – could potentially turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since generations ago.

It was these excluded, migrant workers who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately 1 million people living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer zone, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to finish. Others will be transferred to barren areas and saline fields on the distant periphery of the metropolis, threatening to break up a long-established neighborhood. A portion will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be allocated apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the evolved, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has supported this area for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a specific "commercial zone" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to call home Dharavi, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, multi-level facility makes garments – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members lives in the accommodations underneath and employees and sewers – laborers from other states – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Outside this community, housing costs are typically 10 times as high for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan depicts a very different vision for the future. Fashionable inhabitants move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying western-style baked goods and pastries and having coffee on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no improvement for us," explains the artisan. "It represents a huge property transaction that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Headed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities labels it a joint project, the corporation invested $950m for its controlling interest. A case claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the development was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim represent the corporate group.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c