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Over an extended period, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be demolished and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," explains Shaikh. "But they want to destroy our way of life and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the air is saturated with the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, neat parks, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or drainage and we have no places for kids to enjoy," says a tea vendor, in his fifties, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

However, some, like the leather artisan, are opposing the project.

All recognize that this community, historically ignored as informal housing, is in stark need investment and development. Yet they are concerned that this initiative – absent of community input – could potentially turn premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

These were these excluded, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is worth between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it a major informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Out of about a million people living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer zone, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, threatening to fragment a long-established neighborhood. Some will not get homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in Dharavi will be provided apartments in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the natural, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to an allocated "business area" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to reside in the slum, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, multi-level operation produces apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – sold in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family resides in the accommodations underneath and employees and garment workers – workers from different regions – also sleep in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are frequently tenfold more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

In the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative shows a very different outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring western-style baked goods and pastries and having coffee on a terrace near a restaurant and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that sustains local residents.

"This isn't progress for residents," explains Shaikh. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

While local authorities labels it a joint project, the corporation invested $950m for its majority share. A case alleging that the initiative was improperly granted to the developer is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, protesters and community members claim they have been subjected to a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – comprising messages, explicit warnings and implications that criticizing the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they allege work for the developer.

Included in these suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c