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For months, threatening communications recurred. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. In the end, a local artisan states he was called to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is among those fighting a multimillion-dollar project where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the world," states the protester. "But the plan aims to destroy our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of the slum present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream come true.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The only way is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, like this protester, are fighting against the redevelopment.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. However they fear that this initiative – lacking community input – could potentially turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is worth between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately 1 million inhabitants living in the packed 220-hectare zone, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take seven years to complete. Others will be relocated to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to break up a long-established social network. Some will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be provided flats in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has maintained Dharavi for many years.

Industries from garment work to pottery and material recovery are expected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "commercial zone" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational of his family to reside in this community, the project presents an existential threat. His informal, three-floor workshop creates leather coats – tailored coats, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – sold in high-end shops in south Mumbai and internationally.

His family resides in the rooms below and employees and sewers – laborers from north India – reside in the same building, enabling him to sustain operations. Away from the slum, housing costs are frequently tenfold as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a visual representation of the transformation initiative shows a very different vision for the future. Slickly dressed people move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baked goods and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This represents no improvement for residents," explains the protester. "It's a massive property transaction that will price people out for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists concern of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the business group has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it denies.

Although administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is being considered in the top court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been faced a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – involving messages, explicit warnings and implications that speaking against the initiative was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they claim are associated with the developer.

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