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For months, threatening communications persisted. At first, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, and then from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan states he was called to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group fighting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The culture of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," says the resident. "But they want to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and often without proper sanitation, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the environment is filled with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, 56, who relocated from his home state in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

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

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they are concerned that this initiative – lacking resident participation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into an elite enclave, forcing out the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

These were these marginalized, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is estimated at between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million people living in the dense 220-hectare area, less than 50% will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take a significant period to finish. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of Mumbai, risking break up a generations-old community. A portion will receive no homes at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has maintained Dharavi for so long.

Industries from tailoring to pottery and recycling are projected to shrink in number and be moved to a designated "commercial zone" distant from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational of his family to call home this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level facility produces apparel – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

Household members lives in the accommodations underneath and employees and sewers – workers from north India – live on-site, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside the slum, housing costs are frequently tenfold more expensive for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

At the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan illustrates an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying western-style baked goods and breakfast items and having coffee on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. It is a world away from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for us," states Shaikh. "It represents an enormous property transaction that will price people out for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists concern of the development company. Run by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a partnership, the developer paid a significant amount for its majority share. A case stating 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 redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents state they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising phone calls, direct threats and implications that criticizing the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they assert work for the developer.

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