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Across several weeks, intimidating phone calls continued. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, and then from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan asserts he was ordered to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group resisting a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is exceptional in the globe," explains Shaikh. "But the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that loom over the area. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

Among some individuals, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and we have no places for kids to enjoy," states a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

However, some, like this protester, are opposing the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they worry that this plan – lacking resident participation – is one that will transform valuable urban land into a luxury development, forcing out the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

These were these excluded, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is valued at between $1m and a substantial sum annually, making it one of the world's largest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately one million residents living in the packed 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be able for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be moved to wastelands and saline fields on the far outskirts of the city, risking divide a long-established neighborhood. Certain individuals will receive no homes at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be given apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has maintained the community for generations.

Industries from garment work to ceramic crafts and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

For those such as the leather artisan, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to live in this community, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey facility makes garments – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and laborers and garment workers – migrants from other states – also sleep on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, Mumbai rents are typically significantly as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

At the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative depicts a contrasting perspective. Well-groomed inhabitants mill about on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baguettes and pastries and having coffee on a patio near a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that supports local residents.

"This isn't progress for us," says the artisan. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and an associate of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A case alleging that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to actively protest the project, local opponents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of coercion and warning – involving messages, explicit warnings and suggestions that opposing the initiative was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim are associated with the developer.

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