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Across several weeks, intimidating phone calls persisted. At first, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the police station and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group opposing a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is unparalleled in the planet," states Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of the slum sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Homes are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, neat parks, contemporary malls and apartments with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream come true.

"There's no proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The single option is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, like this protester, are opposing the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need financial support and improvement. However they worry that this initiative – without community input – could potentially transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Out of about a million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take seven years to accomplish. Others will be moved to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially break up a generations-old social network. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

Those allowed to continue living in the area will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported this area for generations.

Commercial activities from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" distant from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in this community, the project presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-floor facility creates garments – formal jackets, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family lives in the spaces underneath and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – also sleep there, permitting him to sustain operations. Away from this community, accommodation prices are typically significantly more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows an alternative outlook. Well-groomed residents mill about on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying international baguettes and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. It is a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't improvement for us," states the artisan. "It's a huge real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the corporate group. Run by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the developer invested $950m for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the project was improperly granted to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, protesters and community members state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including messages, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by figures they allege are associated with the corporate group.

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