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Across several weeks, coercive phone calls persisted. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. Finally, a local artisan claims he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," explains the resident. "However their intention is to dismantle our community and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and residences with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We don't have sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The single option is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

However, some, including Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. Yet they are concerned that this plan – without resident participation – is one that will turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who developed the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is estimated at between $1m and $2m annually, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly one million people living in the dense sprawling zone, less than 50% will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to barren areas and saline fields on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to divide a generations-old social network. Certain individuals will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to remain in the area will be provided units in tower blocks, a substantial change from the organic, collective approach of living and working that has maintained this area for so long.

Businesses from garment work to pottery and recycling are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of the leather artisan, a craftsman and third generation inhabitant to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor operation creates apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family resides in the accommodations below and employees and garment workers – migrants from north India – live in the same building, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly costlier for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative perspective. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and e-vehicles, acquiring international baguettes and croissants and having coffee on a patio outside Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for our community," states the artisan. "It represents an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Headed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has faced accusations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A lawsuit stating that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is under review in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to actively protest the redevelopment, protesters and community members assert they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving messages, clear intimidation and suggestions that opposing the development was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they allege work for the corporate group.

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