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Across several weeks, intimidating phone calls recurred. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Finally, one resident asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group fighting a expensive initiative where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be razed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the globe," explains the protester. "Yet they want to dismantle our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the neighborhood. Residences are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or drainage and there's nowhere for children to play," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from his home state in 1982. "The single option is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, such as the leather artisan, are resisting the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they fear that this plan – without public consultation – is one that will turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, working-class residents who have resided there since the late 1800s.

This involved these shunned, displaced people who established the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and economic productivity, whose production is valued at between $1m and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately one million people living in the crowded sprawling neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially fragment a long-established neighborhood. A portion will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be given apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are projected to shrink in number and be relocated to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For residents like the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to reside in the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey operation makes leather coats – formal jackets, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members lives in the spaces downstairs and employees and garment workers – migrants from different regions – live on-site, permitting him to manage costs. Outside the slum, Mumbai rents are often 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative shows a very different outlook. Well-groomed inhabitants mill about on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring continental baked goods and breakfast items and having coffee on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that sustains local residents.

"This isn't improvement for us," explains the protester. "This constitutes a huge land development that will price people out for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's concern of the business conglomerate. Headed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the developer contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the business group is being considered in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to actively protest the development, local opponents assert they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – comprising phone calls, direct threats and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures they assert represent the business conglomerate.

Among those alleged to have delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c