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For months, threatening phone calls recurred. At first, allegedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. In the end, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is among those resisting a expensive project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," says Shaikh. "However the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Homes are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the air is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or drainage and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The single option is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. But they fear that this plan – absent of public consultation – might turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the marginalized, working-class residents who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these marginalized, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose output is estimated at between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about a million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is estimated to take a significant period to complete. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, risking divide a generations-old social network. Some will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has maintained this area for many years.

Commercial activities from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" distant from homes.

Survival Challenge

For those such as the leather artisan, a craftsman and long-time inhabitant to call home the slum, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, three-storey workshop produces leather coats – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, fashionable garments – distributed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives dwells in the accommodations underneath and employees and garment workers – migrants from north India – reside there, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, housing costs are frequently 10 times costlier for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings nearby, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows a contrasting vision for the future. Fashionable residents move around on bicycles and e-vehicles, acquiring continental baguettes and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This represents a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that supports local residents.

"This is not improvement for us," states Shaikh. "It's a huge land development that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the government head – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Even as administrative bodies describes it as a partnership, the business group paid $950m for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is being considered in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to actively protest the project, protesters and community members state they have been faced ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – including phone calls, clear intimidation and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was equivalent to speaking against the country – by individuals they allege work for the developer.

Included in these suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c