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For months, threatening communications continued. Originally, supposedly from a retired cop and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was called to the local precinct and told clearly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is exceptional in the planet," states the protester. "But their intention is to destroy our community and prevent our protests."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the air is saturated with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

To some, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and apartments with two toilets is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

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

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they worry that this project – without resident participation – might convert premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the lower-caste, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who established the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum annually, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately 1 million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, threatening to fragment a generations-old social network. A portion will not get homes at all.

People eligible to continue living in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has supported the community for many years.

Industries from tailoring to ceramic crafts and recycling are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" separated from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

In the case of this protester, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey workshop creates garments – formal jackets, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – distributed in high-end shops in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family dwells in the rooms below and his workers and tailors – migrants from other states – live on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, Mumbai rents are often 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed residents move around on bicycles and electric vehicles, purchasing international baguettes and pastries and having coffee on an outdoor area near a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't improvement for us," explains the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous real estate deal that will price people out for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a joint project, the corporation paid $950m for its controlling interest. A case claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising messages, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was equivalent to speaking against the country – by people they allege work for the developer.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c