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Across several weeks, threatening communications persisted. Initially, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was called to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be bulldozed and transformed by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," says the protester. "However they want to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically without proper sanitation, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, neat parks, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, like the leather artisan, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. Yet they fear that this initiative – without community input – is one that will transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, migrant workers who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose output is estimated at between $1m and $2m a year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Out of about one million residents living in the packed 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the development, which is expected to take seven years to finish. Others will be relocated to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially fragment a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get homes at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be given flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "business area" separated from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time of his family to reside in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation makes garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – sold in premium stores in south Mumbai and internationally.

Household members lives in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and garment workers – laborers from north India – live in the same building, enabling him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are typically 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative perspective. Fashionable residents gather on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing international bread and pastries and enlisting beverages on a patio adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that supports local residents.

"This isn't development for us," states the artisan. "This constitutes a huge land development that will price people out for residents to remain."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Run by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

While the state government calls it a partnership, the corporation contributed a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is pending in India's supreme court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to actively protest the project, protesters and community members assert they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – including communications, direct threats and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was comparable with opposing national interests – by individuals they assert work for the corporate group.

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