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For months, threatening phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, subsequently from law enforcement directly. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to the local precinct and warned explicitly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a high-value redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is unparalleled in the planet," states the resident. "Yet their intention is to destroy our community and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of this community stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the settlement. Residences are built haphazardly and often lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the environment is permeated by the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

To some, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and residences with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream realized.

"We lack proper healthcare, roads or water management and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

But others, such as the leather artisan, are opposing the project.

None deny that the slum, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need investment and development. However they worry that this project – lacking community input – is one that will transform premium city property into a luxury development, forcing out the lower-caste, migrant communities who have resided there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, migrant workers who built up the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and commercial output, whose economic value is valued at between one million dollars and two million dollars per year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer zone, less than 50% will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the project, which is estimated to take seven years to finish. Additional residents will be transferred to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the city, risking fragment a long-established neighborhood. A portion will not get homes at all.

People eligible to remain in the area will be given flats in tower blocks, a major break from the natural, communal way of residing and operating that has supported the community for many years.

Industries from clothing production to ceramic crafts and recycling are projected to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" separated from residential areas.

Existential Threat

In the case of this protester, a leather artisan and third generation resident to live in the slum, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, three-storey workshop produces leather coats – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives dwells in the spaces downstairs and employees and sewers – migrants from north India – reside on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Threats and Warning

Within the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project depicts a very different perspective. Fashionable residents move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baguettes and croissants and having coffee on a patio adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This depicts a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that supports local residents.

"This isn't development for our community," says Shaikh. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the corporate group. Run by a prominent businessman – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Even as administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to vocally oppose the development, local opponents assert they have been experienced a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation – including phone calls, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was equivalent to opposing national interests – by people they claim represent the developer.

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