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Across several weeks, intimidating messages continued. At first, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, a local artisan asserts he was called to the local precinct and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "Yet their intention is to eradicate our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and elite residences that dominate the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently without proper sanitation, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is permeated by the suffocating smell of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with proper sanitation is an optimistic future come true.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or sewage systems and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, 56, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are opposing the project.

None deny that this community, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. However they fear that this project – lacking public consultation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into an elite enclave, forcing out the lower-caste, migrant communities who have been there since generations ago.

It was these excluded, displaced people who established the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and commercial output, whose output is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars per year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer zone, less than 50% will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be relocated to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a generations-old social network. Some will not get housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in Dharavi will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a major break from the evolved, communal way of living and working that has supported the community for many years.

Commercial activities from garment work to clay work and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "business area" distant from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For those such as this protester, a workshop owner and multi-generational resident to live in Dharavi, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation produces garments – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

His family resides in the rooms downstairs and his workers and garment workers – laborers from different regions – reside on-site, allowing him to sustain operations. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

In the administrative buildings close by, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project depicts an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable residents mill about on bicycles and electric vehicles, purchasing continental baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.

"This represents no development for us," states Shaikh. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the business conglomerate. Managed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Although local authorities calls it a partnership, the business group contributed $950m for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the business group is being considered in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members claim they have been experienced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – involving communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the initiative was comparable with opposing national interests – by people they claim work for the developer.

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