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Over an extended period, threatening phone calls continued. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, later from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan asserts he was called to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is part of a group fighting a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be razed and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of Dharavi is unparalleled in the globe," says the resident. "Yet their intention is to destroy our way of life and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and homes with proper sanitation is an optimistic future come true.

"We lack sufficient health services, roads or water management and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

But others, including Shaikh, are opposing the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. But they worry that this initiative – lacking public consultation – might convert valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is worth between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about a million people living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer area, fewer than half will be qualified for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. Others will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, potentially break up a historic community. A portion will not get residences at all.

Residents permitted to stay in Dharavi will be given apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of living and working that has sustained the community for generations.

Businesses from clothing production to pottery and material recovery are likely to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "commercial zone" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For those such as this protester, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to live in the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level facility produces garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family dwells in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – live on-site, enabling him to manage costs. Away from this community, housing costs are often significantly as high for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

In the administrative buildings close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates a very different perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing continental bread and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace adjacent to a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for residents," states the artisan. "It's a massive real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists concern of the corporate group. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a close ally of the government head – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a partnership, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the developer is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including phone calls, clear intimidation and implications that criticizing the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they allege are associated with the developer.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c