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For months, intimidating messages persisted. Originally, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is like nowhere else in the globe," explains the protester. "However the plan aims to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the unpleasant stench of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, 56, who relocated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Local Protest

But others, including this protester, are fighting against the project.

None deny that this community, historically ignored as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. But they worry that this initiative – without community input – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, relocated individuals who built up the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose production is estimated at between $1m and a substantial sum annually, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million residents living in the packed sprawling area, fewer than half will be eligible for new homes in the redevelopment, which is expected to take seven years to finish. Additional residents will be relocated to barren areas and saline fields on the far outskirts of Mumbai, risking fragment a generations-old social network. Certain individuals will be denied homes at all.

People eligible to continue living in the neighborhood will be given flats in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported the community for many years.

Industries from clothing production to pottery and material recovery are likely to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

For residents like Shaikh, a craftsman and third generation resident to live in the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation creates apparel – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – sold in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Relatives lives in the rooms below and employees and sewers – workers from other states – live there, allowing him to afford their labour. Outside the slum, Mumbai rents are often 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the administrative buildings close by, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative outlook. Fashionable inhabitants move around on bicycles and electric vehicles, acquiring international baguettes and croissants and socializing on an outdoor area near a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a world away from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for residents," explains Shaikh. "It represents an enormous land development that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also skepticism of the corporate group. Headed by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the government head – the business group has encountered allegations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the corporation invested $950m for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings alleging that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, protesters and community members claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – comprising phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by people they assert are associated with the business conglomerate.

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