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For months, coercive phone calls recurred. At first, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan claims he was called to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those resisting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," says the resident. "Yet the plan aims to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and frequently without proper sanitation, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in 1982. "The single option is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, like this protester, are resisting the project.

All recognize that this community, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring investment and development. Yet they fear that this initiative – absent of community input – might transform premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, migrant workers who established the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of community resilience and commercial output, whose economic value is estimated at between $1m and a substantial sum per year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about a million residents living in the crowded sprawling zone, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the far outskirts of Mumbai, risking break up a generations-old social network. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in Dharavi will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained this area for generations.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "business area" separated from homes.

Existential Threat

For those such as the leather artisan, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to reside in the slum, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, multi-level operation makes apparel – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members lives in the accommodations underneath and employees and tailors – laborers from north India – live in the same building, permitting him to manage costs. Beyond the slum, housing costs are often 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the official facilities in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different perspective. Slickly dressed people mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, purchasing continental baked goods and pastries and socializing on a terrace outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a world away from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that supports the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for residents," states the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Run by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the business group has faced accusations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

While the state government labels it a partnership, the developer invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the business group is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving communications, clear intimidation and insinuations that speaking against the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim represent the business conglomerate.

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