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For months, coercive phone calls continued. Originally, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, subsequently from the authorities. Ultimately, a local artisan claims he was called to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a high-value project where Dharavi – a massive informal community with rich history – faces demolished and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," says the resident. "Yet their intention is to destroy our social fabric and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the area. Homes are constructed informally and frequently missing basic amenities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the environment is saturated with the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, neat parks, contemporary malls and apartments with two toilets is an aspirational dream realized.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or drainage and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," states A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they fear that this project – without public consultation – could potentially transform premium city property into a luxury development, displacing the marginalized, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, relocated individuals who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is worth between $1m and a substantial sum annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million people living in the packed sprawling neighborhood, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be moved to barren areas and salt plains on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to break up a historic social network. A portion will be denied residences at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, communal way of residing and operating that has maintained Dharavi for generations.

Commercial activities from tailoring to ceramic crafts and waste processing are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "industrial sector" far from homes.

Existential Threat

For those such as the leather artisan, a leather artisan and long-time of his family to reside in this community, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor operation makes apparel – tailored coats, suede trenches, decorated jackets – sold in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

His family dwells in the spaces downstairs and his workers and sewers – workers from different regions – live there, enabling him to sustain operations. Away from Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are often tenfold as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts a very different outlook. Fashionable people mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, purchasing international bread and croissants and having coffee on an outdoor area outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This represents a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains the neighborhood.

"This represents no development for us," states the artisan. "It represents a massive property transaction that will price people out for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the development company. Run by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it disputes.

While local authorities labels it a joint project, the developer contributed $950m for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to actively protest the development, protesters and community members assert they have been faced an extended period of pressure and threats – including phone calls, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim are associated with the developer.

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