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Across several weeks, intimidating communications recurred. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was called to the police station and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "However they want to dismantle our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is permeated by the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and residences with proper sanitation is an optimistic future achieved.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or water management and there's nowhere for children to play," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that the slum, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they worry that this project – lacking public consultation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, displacing the marginalized, working-class residents who have been there since generations ago.

This involved these marginalized, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose output is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars per year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly a million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare area, a minority will be able for new homes in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be relocated to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the distant periphery of the metropolis, potentially divide a historic neighborhood. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in Dharavi will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of living and working that has sustained this area for generations.

Industries from garment work to pottery and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" distant from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time resident to live in Dharavi, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, multi-level workshop creates garments – formal jackets, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family dwells in the rooms underneath and laborers and sewers – migrants from north India – live on-site, enabling him to manage costs. Outside this community, accommodation prices are frequently significantly more expensive for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the official facilities close by, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project shows an alternative perspective. Fashionable inhabitants gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing continental baguettes and breakfast items and socializing on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This depicts a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that sustains local residents.

"This is not progress for our community," states Shaikh. "It's a massive property transaction that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

While the state government describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer invested $950m for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to vocally oppose the development, local opponents state they have been faced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – involving communications, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

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