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For months, coercive messages persisted. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, and then from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is part of a group resisting a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the world," states Shaikh. "But their intention is to destroy our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the neighborhood. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with two toilets is an aspirational dream realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and there's nowhere for children to play," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in 1982. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

However, some, including the leather artisan, are resisting the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing investment and development. Yet they worry that this initiative – lacking resident participation – is one that will turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and commercial output, whose production is worth between $1m and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly one million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer zone, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the remote edges of the city, potentially divide a generations-old community. A portion will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be given flats in tower blocks, a substantial change from the evolved, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and material recovery are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "industrial sector" far from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time of his family to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-floor operation produces leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, decorated jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Household members resides in the rooms below and his workers and sewers – workers from other states – reside in the same building, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond this community, Mumbai rents are often significantly costlier for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices close by, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different vision for the future. Fashionable residents mill about on bicycles and e-vehicles, acquiring western-style bread and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains local residents.

"This is not improvement for our community," explains the protester. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Run by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as the state government describes it as a collaborative effort, the developer paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A lawsuit stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to actively protest the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – including communications, direct threats and insinuations that opposing the development was equivalent to opposing national interests – by individuals they assert represent the business conglomerate.

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