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For months, threatening phone calls continued. Originally, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, later from law enforcement directly. In the end, one resident asserts he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a expensive project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the globe," says the protester. "Yet their intention is to destroy our community and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that loom over the area. Homes are assembled randomly and typically lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and residences with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The single option is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

But others, such as Shaikh, are resisting the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. But they worry that this plan – absent of community input – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these excluded, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and commercial output, whose economic value is worth between a significant amount and two million dollars per year, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million inhabitants living in the dense sprawling neighborhood, a minority will be able for alternative accommodation in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, potentially divide a generations-old community. Some will not get residences at all.

People eligible to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained the community for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and recycling are likely to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" far from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as this protester, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home this community, the project presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-floor facility makes leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

His family resides in the accommodations underneath and employees and sewers – migrants from north India – also sleep in the same building, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside the slum, housing costs are often significantly costlier for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative perspective. Fashionable inhabitants move around on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, purchasing continental baguettes and croissants and enlisting beverages on a patio near Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This represents a world away from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.

"This isn't progress for us," says Shaikh. "It's a huge property transaction that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the business group has faced accusations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

While the state government calls it a partnership, the corporation invested $950m for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, protesters and community members state they have been experienced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – including messages, explicit warnings and insinuations that speaking against the project was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by people they assert are associated with the developer.

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