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For months, intimidating messages continued. Initially, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from law enforcement directly. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was called to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group fighting a multimillion-dollar project where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces demolished and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," explains Shaikh. "Yet their intention is to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often without proper sanitation, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and residences with proper sanitation is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are opposing the plan.

None deny that the slum, historically ignored as informal housing, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they are concerned that this project – lacking resident participation – could potentially turn premium city property into an elite enclave, displacing the marginalized, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who established the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling area, fewer than half will be qualified for new homes in the development, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a generations-old community. Some will receive no housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a designated "business area" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For residents like the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation of his family to live in the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey facility creates garments – formal jackets, suede trenches, fashionable garments – marketed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Relatives resides in the rooms below and his workers and tailors – migrants from other states – also sleep on-site, allowing him to manage costs. Outside this community, Mumbai rents are often significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the administrative buildings close by, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different vision for the future. Slickly dressed residents mill about on cycles and electric vehicles, buying continental baguettes and pastries and enlisting beverages on a patio adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not development for residents," explains the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists concern of the business conglomerate. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although administrative bodies describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the project was unfairly awarded to the corporation is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the development, local opponents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – comprising phone calls, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the project was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege are associated with the corporate group.

Among those accused of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c