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Over an extended period, threatening phone calls continued. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was called to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many resisting a multimillion-dollar initiative where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," explains Shaikh. "Yet their intention is to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the settlement. Homes are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," explains A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

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

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this initiative – absent of public consultation – is one that will convert premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these excluded, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of community resilience and business activity, whose production is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum per year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the dense sprawling area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. Additional residents will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, risking fragment a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will receive no housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be allocated apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has sustained the community for many years.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a designated "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For those such as this protester, a leather artisan and third generation resident to live in the slum, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His makeshift, multi-level operation creates apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the spaces underneath and employees and garment workers – migrants from other states – live on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically 10 times as high for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project shows an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable inhabitants gather on cycles and e-vehicles, acquiring continental baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not improvement for residents," says the protester. "This constitutes a massive land development that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the corporate group. Run by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Although the state government labels it a partnership, the corporation contributed $950m for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings alleging that the project was improperly granted to the business group is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to actively protest the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving messages, clear intimidation and insinuations that opposing the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by individuals they allege work for the business conglomerate.

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