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For months, intimidating phone calls continued. Originally, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, one resident states he was summoned to the local precinct and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a multimillion-dollar initiative where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be razed and transformed by a large business group.

"The culture of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," says the protester. "However they want to dismantle our community and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and elite residences that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and frequently lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, contemporary malls and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or drainage and there's nowhere for children to play," explains a tea vendor, in his fifties, who migrated from his home state in 1982. "The single option is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, such as this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is in stark need investment and development. However they are concerned that this initiative – lacking resident participation – is one that will turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

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

Resettlement Issues

Out of about one million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially fragment a generations-old neighborhood. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to stay in the area will be given units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Industries from clothing production to ceramic crafts and recycling are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational of his family to call home this community, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-storey workshop creates garments – tailored coats, suede trenches, decorated jackets – sold in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives lives in the spaces underneath and employees and sewers – workers from different regions – live in the same building, allowing him to sustain operations. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are often tenfold costlier for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the official facilities close by, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative illustrates a contrasting vision for the future. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style bread and breakfast items and having coffee on a terrace near a coffee shop and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not progress for our community," says the artisan. "This constitutes a massive land development that will render it impossible for our community to continue."

There is also concern of the corporate group. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

While local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the developer paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A lawsuit stating that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to vocally oppose the redevelopment, local opponents state they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising messages, explicit warnings and implications that opposing the development was tantamount to opposing national interests – by individuals they claim work for the business conglomerate.

Part of the group accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c