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Across several weeks, threatening phone calls persisted. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, and then from the police themselves. In the end, one resident states he was summoned to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a multimillion-dollar initiative where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be razed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the world," explains the resident. "Yet the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that overshadow the settlement. Homes are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is saturated with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or water management and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains a chai seller, 56, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The only way is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

However, some, including this protester, are opposing the plan.

All recognize that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need financial support and improvement. However they worry that this plan – absent of public consultation – might convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have been there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be moved to wastelands and saline fields on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to break up a long-established community. A portion will receive no homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has supported Dharavi for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time of his family to reside in this community, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-floor operation creates leather coats – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members resides in the rooms underneath and employees and sewers – laborers from different regions – live there, enabling him to manage costs. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often tenfold costlier for a single room.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting perspective. Slickly dressed residents move around on cycles and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style baguettes and croissants and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for us," explains the protester. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and an associate of the government head – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities labels it a joint project, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A case alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to actively protest the project, local opponents state they have been experienced an extended period of coercion and warning – including phone calls, explicit warnings and suggestions that opposing the initiative was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they assert work for the business conglomerate.

Part of the group accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c