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Across several weeks, intimidating phone calls persisted. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. Finally, a local artisan states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a expensive initiative where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be razed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the planet," states the protester. "Yet their intention is to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that overshadow the neighborhood. Homes are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

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

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or drainage and we have no places for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The only way is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, including the leather artisan, are resisting the redevelopment.

None deny that this community, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. However they are concerned that this plan – lacking public consultation – could potentially convert premium city property into a luxury development, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is valued at between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million people living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be transferred to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially fragment a historic neighborhood. A portion will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be allocated apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for generations.

Businesses from garment work to clay work and recycling are likely to reduce in scale and be transferred to an allocated "business area" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and third generation resident to live in the slum, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor workshop produces apparel – tailored coats, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Relatives resides in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and garment workers – workers from different regions – reside there, allowing him to sustain operations. Away from Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are often tenfold costlier for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

In the official facilities nearby, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan depicts a very different perspective. Fashionable people mill about on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, acquiring western-style baked goods and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside a restaurant and dessert parlor. This represents a stark contrast from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that supports the neighborhood.

"This is not progress for our community," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the government head – the corporation has faced accusations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – involving communications, explicit warnings and implications that criticizing the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they assert represent the corporate group.

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