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For months, threatening phone calls recurred. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, a local artisan claims he was ordered to the police station and warned explicitly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is among those fighting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be razed and transformed by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the planet," states Shaikh. "But they want to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently without proper sanitation, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the air is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

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

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they are concerned that this project – absent of public consultation – is one that will convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have been there since the late 1800s.

This involved these excluded, migrant workers who established the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and economic productivity, whose output is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum per year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately a million residents living in the packed 220-hectare neighborhood, a minority will be able for alternative accommodation in the project, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and saline fields on the remote edges of Mumbai, threatening to fragment a historic community. Certain individuals will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in the neighborhood will be provided flats in tower blocks, a major break from the organic, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for generations.

Commercial activities from garment work to clay work and waste processing are likely to shrink in number and be transferred to a designated "commercial zone" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a workshop owner and long-time inhabitant to live in the slum, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His makeshift, multi-level workshop produces apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – sold in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Relatives lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – reside on-site, allowing him to manage costs. Away from this community, housing costs are typically tenfold costlier for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates a very different outlook. Well-groomed residents mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying western-style baked goods and pastries and having coffee on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for us," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the corporate group. Managed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Although the state government labels it a joint project, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including messages, clear intimidation and suggestions that opposing the development was tantamount to opposing national interests – by people they claim are associated with the developer.

Among those suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c