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Over an extended period, threatening communications continued. Originally, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, a local artisan states he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is part of a group fighting a high-value initiative where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," says Shaikh. "Yet their intention is to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Homes are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the environment is permeated by the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We don't have proper healthcare, proper streets or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

But others, like this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. However they are concerned that this project – absent of resident participation – might transform premium city property into an elite enclave, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, displaced people who established the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is valued at between $1m and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about 1 million inhabitants living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be able for new homes in the development, which is expected to take seven years to complete. Additional residents will be moved to barren areas and saline fields on the remote edges of the metropolis, risking fragment a long-established community. Certain individuals will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be given flats in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for many years.

Industries from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are likely to shrink in number and be transferred to an allocated "industrial sector" far from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and long-time resident to reside in the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation produces apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives resides in the accommodations underneath and his workers and tailors – laborers from north India – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Outside the slum, housing costs are typically tenfold costlier for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the official facilities close by, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan shows a very different outlook. Fashionable people gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying continental bread and pastries and having coffee on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a world away from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that supports Dharavi's community.

"This represents no development for residents," states the protester. "It's a massive real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's concern of the corporate group. Headed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Even as the state government describes it as a partnership, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings stating that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to actively protest the project, protesters and community members assert they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and implications that opposing the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by figures they claim work for the developer.

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