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For months, coercive messages continued. Initially, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. 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 high-value redevelopment plan where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The culture of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," explains Shaikh. "Yet they want to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the neighborhood. Residences are constructed informally and frequently lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," explains a chai seller, 56, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The only way is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

But others, such as this protester, are resisting the plan.

None deny that the slum, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. But they are concerned that this initiative – absent of resident participation – is one that will turn a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these marginalized, relocated individuals who developed the uninhabited area into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is valued at between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about one million people living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer zone, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of the city, potentially break up a historic neighborhood. Some will not get housing at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in the area will be allocated units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported Dharavi for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and material recovery are likely to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" distant from homes.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of Shaikh, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to live in the slum, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His informal, multi-level workshop creates garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

His family resides in the spaces below and his workers and tailors – migrants from north India – also sleep on-site, enabling him to sustain operations. Beyond Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are typically 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

At the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan shows an alternative vision for the future. Fashionable residents gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying continental baked goods and pastries and enlisting beverages on a terrace adjacent to a restaurant and treat station. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for residents," says the protester. "It represents a massive property transaction that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

Even as the state government calls it a partnership, the developer contributed a significant amount for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been experienced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving communications, direct threats and suggestions that opposing the initiative was tantamount to speaking against the country – by figures they claim work for the corporate group.

Part of the group accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c