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Over an extended period, intimidating phone calls persisted. Originally, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, later from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan claims he was called to the police station and warned explicitly: keep quiet or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is among those fighting a expensive project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be demolished and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of this area is unparalleled in the globe," states Shaikh. "However the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the neighborhood. Residences are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or water management and there's nowhere for children to play," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

But others, including Shaikh, are resisting the project.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. Yet they worry that this project – lacking public consultation – is one that will transform premium city property into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, relocated individuals who built up the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about a million people living in the dense sprawling zone, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take a significant period to accomplish. Others will be moved to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially fragment a long-established neighborhood. Some will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in Dharavi will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are likely to shrink in number and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like the leather artisan, a craftsman and long-time of his family to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level operation creates leather coats – sharp blazers, suede trenches, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

Household members dwells in the rooms underneath and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – also sleep in the same building, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often significantly as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates a very different vision for the future. Well-groomed residents move around on cycles and e-vehicles, purchasing continental baguettes and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This represents no progress for us," says Shaikh. "It represents a huge land development that will price people out for our community to continue."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the government head – the business group has encountered allegations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While local authorities labels it a joint project, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A case stating that the project was questionably assigned to the corporation is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to actively protest the project, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of pressure and threats – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they assert are associated with the developer.

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