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Over an extended period, coercive phone calls continued. At first, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the authorities. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – faces bulldozed and transformed by a large business group.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the planet," explains Shaikh. "But the plan aims to eradicate our social fabric and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the air is saturated with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream achieved.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, fifty-six, who moved from his home state in the early eighties. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are resisting the redevelopment.

All recognize that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. However they worry that this plan – lacking public consultation – could potentially transform valuable urban land into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have resided there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and commercial output, whose production is valued at between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Out of about one million residents living in the dense 220-hectare area, a minority will be eligible for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to fragment a historic neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the neighborhood will be allocated units in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has maintained the community for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and material recovery are likely to decrease in quantity and be relocated to a specific "commercial zone" separated from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of this protester, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation produces leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, fashionable garments – distributed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Household members dwells in the spaces underneath and laborers and garment workers – migrants from north India – live in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically 10 times costlier for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the government offices in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan shows an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed people gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring continental baguettes and croissants and having coffee on an outdoor area near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a stark contrast from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains the neighborhood.

"This is not progress for residents," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will price people out for residents to remain."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the development company. Managed by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as the state government describes it as a joint project, the business group paid a significant amount for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the business group is under review in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to actively protest the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – comprising messages, direct threats and suggestions that criticizing the project was tantamount to opposing national interests – by individuals they claim are associated with the corporate group.

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