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Across several weeks, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from the authorities. Finally, a local artisan claims he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group fighting a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is unparalleled in the planet," says the resident. "But their intention is to dismantle our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream come true.

"There's no proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for children to play," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who migrated from his home state in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

But others, including this protester, are opposing the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this project – absent of resident participation – is one that will turn premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who developed the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and a substantial sum annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the dense sprawling area, a minority will be qualified for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, threatening to break up a generations-old community. Some will be denied residences at all.

Residents permitted to stay in Dharavi will be given apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, communal way of living and working that has sustained the community for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and waste processing are projected to decrease in quantity and be relocated to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level facility makes apparel – tailored coats, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – sold in premium stores in south Mumbai and abroad.

Relatives resides in the spaces below and his workers and sewers – workers from north India – reside there, allowing him to manage costs. Outside the slum, housing costs are typically tenfold more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different perspective. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing continental baked goods and pastries and socializing on a terrace outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not improvement for us," states Shaikh. "It's a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also skepticism of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Although local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the corporation invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case stating that the project was unfairly awarded to the developer is being considered in the top court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the redevelopment, local opponents claim they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – including phone calls, direct threats and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures 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