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Over an extended period, threatening messages recurred. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, and then from the authorities. In the end, one resident states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many resisting a expensive project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of this area is unparalleled in the world," explains the protester. "However their intention is to destroy our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of the slum present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and elite residences that overshadow the neighborhood. Residences are built haphazardly and frequently without proper sanitation, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for children to play," explains A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, like the leather artisan, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they worry that this plan – without resident participation – might transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have been there since the late 1800s.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who established the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and commercial output, whose production is worth between a significant amount and $2m a year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly a million people living in the packed 220-hectare zone, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take a significant period to finish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to divide a historic neighborhood. Some will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to continue living in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in multi-story structures, a major break from the organic, collective approach of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Businesses from garment work to ceramic crafts and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be relocated to an allocated "commercial zone" far from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and third generation of his family to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-floor workshop creates leather coats – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and abroad.

His family dwells in the spaces downstairs and laborers and garment workers – workers from different regions – live in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are frequently tenfold more expensive for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

Within the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed people gather on cycles and e-vehicles, acquiring western-style bread and breakfast items and socializing on an outdoor area outside a coffee shop and treat station. It is a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for our community," states the artisan. "It's an enormous land development that will price people out for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Run by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While local authorities describes it as a partnership, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A lawsuit alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the developer is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to publicly resist the project, Shaikh and other residents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving communications, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim work for the corporate group.

Part of the group suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c