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Across several weeks, coercive messages persisted. Originally, allegedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from the authorities. Finally, one resident states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a high-value redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the globe," explains Shaikh. "However they want to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the settlement. Homes are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, neat parks, contemporary malls and apartments with two toilets is an optimistic future achieved.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, 56, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

But others, including the leather artisan, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. But they are concerned that this initiative – absent of community input – is one that will transform a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is worth between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about 1 million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, potentially fragment a generations-old social network. A portion will receive no homes at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be allocated flats in high-rise buildings, a major break from the natural, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has supported the community for generations.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and recycling are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to an allocated "commercial zone" separated from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to call home the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level workshop creates garments – tailored coats, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and abroad.

Relatives dwells in the rooms downstairs and his workers and garment workers – workers from different regions – reside in the same building, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically significantly as high for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the government offices nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting vision for the future. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on bicycles and e-vehicles, purchasing western-style bread and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that maintains local residents.

"This isn't development for residents," states the artisan. "It's an enormous property transaction that will render it impossible for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists concern of the corporate group. Headed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a joint project, the business group contributed $950m for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the project was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, protesters and community members state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was comparable with speaking against the country – by figures they allege represent the corporate group.

Among those suspected of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c